Gift wrap

 

Like I said previously, we love to reuse gift bags.  Since I had used so many of the larger bags, Nathan had to use this combination of bags to wrap his gift to me.  The gift was a candle holder that he made in his Forging & Welding class.  Isn't this a nice candle holder?

Sunset

We have had some beautiful sunsets in the past week due to the clouds.  It is hard to get a good picture though; our horizon is quite cluttered with poles.

It's Beginning To Look Like Christmas

I got most of my shopping done and the gifts are bagged (I wrap exclusively in recycled gift bags, doing my part to be green).  The kids decorated a few weeks ago, but I still need to start those Christmas cards.  But the best thing is that both Janine and Keith are arriving home this evening.  Keith spent the past week in Claymont, Deleware, for work, escaping just before a major snow storm blows in.  Janine comes home from Covenant College for her Christmas break.  We last saw her for about a week in August, since she spent most of the summer in Washington state.

Nathan's Hobby

Nathan likes to work on computers, in fact, he took one computer class this past semester and will be taking four computer classes next semester.  He was right in the middle of a major project, pulling out all these saved parts and cords when he got sick.  First a cold and low-grade-fever hit him, and then it progressed to a stomach virus.  Needless to say, all of his projects came to a halt for two weeks with all this stuff cluttering up the den.  Oh well, I did get an upgraded computer out of it.  He got a computer from his instructor that he could not use, and made Nathan refurbished it into a better computer than what I had.

Rocky Hill Walk

Keith and I took a walk up Rocky Hill this afternoon.  We do this for a change of scenery and to work our uphill and down hill muscles.  There are a fair amount of walkers and bikers who do this stretch of road.  Cars also take it to enjoy the scenery.  What I always wonder though, is why do people dump their trash out in an area that they go to for its beauty?  Wouldn't they want to keep it unspoiled?  That really bugs me!

Fly Trap Update No. 2

Good news!  It is quite effective to use fruit to bait your fly trap jugs.  The watermelon caught lots of flies, as well as the ripe banana chunks I put in last time.  I will spare you the details of getting rid of this mess, and rebaiting the jugs, it is quite a stinky, messy, gross ordeal.  I feel like flylady, but not the flylady of housecleaning fame at http://www.flylady.com/ 

Just wanted you to know how you can save money and catch a bunch of flies.

Fly Trap Update

About three hours after baiting the fly traps with watermelon, they are already attracting flies.

Nathan at COS

Nathan is taking College Algebra (at 6:10 AM Monday-Thursday), Health, Repair and Management of Computers, and Forging. He is enjoying his four days of classes at COS. He has a good schedule except for that early class. He goes Mon - Thurs AM and Thurs afternoons. Between classes he hangs around in the library, outside, and runs some errands.

Janine at Covenant

Here is an update from Janine.

"Classes are going to be a lot tougher this semester, since now they are all upper division courses.  I am taking Principles of Management, Principles of Finance, Business Ethics, Accounting Information Systems, Business Research Paper, and 20th Century World History.  They will keep me busy, but I am enjoying each one so far.  The business professors especially are good at challenging us to excell, and very encouraging at the same time.

I am rooming with a different roommate again, Charity Masters.  Marie, who I lived with last year, graduated.  Charity has been a friend since freshman year, and we have already had a lot of fun together.  I joined her on her hall, so I also moved one floor up in my building.

Something that has stayed the same is my job at the school library.  I am working 14-15 hours a week this semester, but it doesn't really seem like it because my schedule fits in really nice with my classes, and the job is enjoyable.

Otherwise, I am back at it here in Georgia!  I do feel like I missed a summer, because the 4 hot days we had in WA weren't quite enough for three months, and here it is already cool and fall-like.  Oh, well, its not like I ever got very tan anyway!   :)" 

Labor Day

In spite of the holiday, we did a bit of work around the house. Keith and Nathan moved some old telephone poles to the side of the pasture to protect the fence posts. They have been replacing posts and then return to find another one broken. Hopefully this will help.

I had the fun job of emptying the jug fly traps. (Sorry, the kids would not let me post pictures). John told us that this was an effective way of killing flies. You put an attractant and water in a jug and top it with a baffled lid that allows flies in, but not out. Then you set it in a low sunshiny spot. The mixture starts to stink and that attracts the flies. I had attractant for four jugs. The fifth jug I experimented with and threw some cantaloupe pieces in the water to attract the flies. I caught just as many flies with the melon but I don't know if the other stinky jugs helped lure the flies. Today I emptied three of the jugs and refilled them with water and watermelon. We shall see if that works to get the flies into those jugs. If it does we can buy fruit and just use a little as fly attractant and eat the rest. I will have to update you on the results so you too can be as frugal as I am if it works.

In order to empty these putrid, maggot and fly infested jugs, you cannot be one who gets grossed out too easily. It supposedly makes a good fertilizer but I buried the contents further away from the house than my flower beds!

Janine

Janine is finishing up her job in Lynden, WA. She is a bus attendent and teacher's aide for a headstart program for migrant workers. She will return home late Saturday, August 15th and fly back to Covenant early August 20th.

Thankfully, Janine was able to stay with Jeanette and Duane for this job and got to spend time with her cousins Teresa, Steven, and Rebekah.

Nathan

Nathan has 1 more week before he starts COS, a community college, on August 17. He is finishing up some projects. He built some shelves to increase the storage space in his bedroom closet.

School Started!

We officially started the school year August 3. It was a typical Monday: laundry and getting the house back together. It was also an atypical Monday: Renee's 14th birthday, first day of school, me frantically trying to finish the paperwork I needed to do before the start of school, and sweet potato and peach casserole (the requested birthday dinner) instead of potatoes for dinner.

We each have our box of books. This year Lorissa and Renee are doing Bible, Classical Astronomy, Physical Geography, and Spanish together. They have a Speech class with Petey and Jerimiah Tiemersma.

Lorissa, Margaret, and Renee

Lorissa is a junior and Renee, a freshman. I remain the primary teacher, Keith, the principal, was at his paying job at Cigna on opening day of Trinity Christian School (TCS), our homeschool.

TCS has only half the students it had compared to the years of peak enrollment from 01/02 to 06/07. It also has no enrollment in the elementary classes for the first time since 96/97 when Nathan was in kindergarten and Janine in 2nd grade. Janine was in TCS for kindergarten in 94/95, the first year of TCS. She went to Central Valley Christian for her 1st grade year.

Janine Quoted

Janine was quoted in the Covenant College Spring 2009 BUILD Newsletter about the improvements and remodeling of the campus library. See "milestones" on page 2 of the newsletter.

Koetsier Ranch

Nathan and I work very part time at Koetsier Ranch, setting up for the events taking place at the ranch, as well as off-site catering events. Janine has worked there in the past also. Koetsier Ranch was featured in the Valley Voice this past week. More pictures of Koetsier Ranch can be viewed at their website.

Agriculture in Central California

I love to see all the farming that goes on around us in Tulare County, California. We are already past the green season, anything not watered is getting brown and dry. If you walk through any weeds your socks get full of stickers, especially from the fox tails. Fruit is growing on the trees and vines, alfalfa has had 1 to 2 cuttings. Alfalfa is one of my favorite field crops because it is green, smells good, and is not tall and obstructive to the view like corn.
Today my brothers' field behind our house got the winter wheat chopped. Experienced silage choppers can get the wheat straw hauled in with well orchestrated maneuverings of their trucks and tractors. There were 3 mowers, 1 rake, 2 choppers, 10 silage trucks, 2 mechanics/gas pickups, 1 water truck to keep the dust down, and 1 tractor starting to plow. (I'm not even sure if these are the correct names for all of the equipment!)
Ree, of thepioneerwoman.com , always shows pictures of what is happening on her ranch in Oklahoma. I think it is very interesting to learn about different areas and people via blogs, so here are some scenes from California.

Monday, Monday II

Since it is Monday again it is time to do laundry.
See, I am doing quite well, I have some loads lined up to go into the dryer. And being the good wife that I am I also made sure to wash Keith's wallet with all of its contents. Why was he at work and the wallet at home in his jeans pocket? Hopefully he doesn't need to buy gas or anything else today! Hopefully ATM and credit cards still work after a run through the washer!

Keith's Costume

Sean Connery as Professor Henry Jones, Sr.

Keith Haveman as Professor Henry Jones, Sr.

Keith is ready for work in his costume. He got voted as having the best costume.

Keith Is Coming home From Work

Sewing Again

I got some sewing in again today. I can tell school is winding down. Today I made a skirt for Lorissa. It was going to have a zipper, but I changed my mind and made it with an elastic waist band. I really love this fabric so it was fun to work on. The sewing machine gave me some problems so I cleaned out a bunch of fuzz and re-threaded it and it worked better.

Some sewing tips from an infrequent seamstress: use good thread, make sure you thread machine correctly, iron as you go, take your time, take breaks, and pin things carefully.

Sewing Costume Accessories

Keith needs a costume for work on Thursday. He is going as Professor Henry Jones from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. After a search at several thrift stores, family, and friends we scored a tweed coat from Ed. I decided to sew a bowtie and hat. For the bow tie I got a pattern off the Internet and made a batwing style bow tie. I got a 99 cent McCalls pattern for a woman's hat, that worked perfectly. I am glad I got a pattern, it had some good sewing tips that made the sewing much easier.

California Oranges

It is such a pleasure to wake up and smell the orange blossoms. It is amazing that the five small citrus trees in our yard can counteract the usual dairy smell that we have around here. The blossoms are also beautiful.

Sewing Skirts

I have had some fun sewing for Lorissa and Renee. I made each of them a skirt using a homemade pattern. I like the style but it does require some changes as you go. We only bought one yard of fabric per skirt and that was a bit skimpy to easily cut them out, but it worked. I also need the girls handy so I can get it to fit right. Fabric prices are somewhat reasonable if it is on sale or if you have a coupon for JoAnns. It is hard to find good dresses and skirts in the stores. Got any good pattern sugestions for summer dresses that are easy to sew?

First Swim of the Season

Keith loves to swim so much that he had to try the pool out on March 12. The air temerature was around 70 degrees and the water was a refreshing 60 degrees.

Homeschooling

Here is Nathan busy reading literature for school. This loveseat is his spot for doing his school work. Isn't that a comfortable way to get your schoolwork done?Lorissa and Nathan are taking chemistry this year, so that involves doing some experiments. Sometimes we sort of have to make do with our lab equipment. We needed two test tube this week so champagne glasses were the best thing we could think of. The left glass has water and salt, the right glass has vegetable oil and salt. This was to see what happens when you put an ionic compound in a polar covalent and a purely covalent substance.

World Ag Expo 2009

We attended the World Ag Expo, commonly known as the Farm Show, in Tulare for three days. A large amount of that time was volunteering for the Love, INC. concession stand assembling burgers, making and selling popcorn and cotton candy, or taking customer orders. We did some walking around and saw most of the new products and technology. It is interesting to see the amount of science that goes into agriculture.
Keith drove a Toyota Sequoia around their test drive course. He was impressed with the SUV's handling but disappointed with the gas mileage (14mpg /city, 19 mpg/ highway) and price ($55,000 fully loaded).
The view from the top of the hill.

We all got a T-shirt from Massey-Ferguson that says " Nobody loves the earth more than a farmer."

We gathered a herd of squishy cows for Janine to give to the city kids at college who were wondering how many "squeezy things" a cow has.

Here is more of the loot we gathered. We should have enough pens and pencils for another year!

Blogging

Keith and I decided to combine blogs. He does not blog very much and lots of what I write concerns the family so we decided to maintain one blog together. We will see how this works.
Margaret

Car Repair

Keith and Nathan are doing outpatient surgery on the Suburban, replacing the spark plug wires, cap and rotor.
Keith is the surgeon and Nathan is the operating room nurse.
Too bad the operating room table is not very ergonomic.

Fence Repair

We have a history of steers getting out of their corrals because of old fencing, the grass is greener on the other side, and some are houdinis. Since we live right alongside a busy highway it is dangerous to have a black cow out at night or any time of the day for that matter. So Keith and Nathan are busy making repairs: replacing fence posts, adding 4-pronged barbed wire, and straightening gates. Here is some work in progress.

You Know You're Dutch When...

You Know You're Dutch When...


The temperature is so low in your house that 2 sweaters is a bare minimum if you want to be remotely warm.
During the winter it's warmer outside than it is inside.
You open the freezer and are excited to find a container of ice- cream,only to open it and discover it's full of homemade soup or stamppot..
When looking in the fridge, you never trust that the yogurt or margarine containers contain what the label says.
You were green before it was popular. Why recycle when you can just reuse!
You have a pair a wooden shoes in your house.
Your china cabinet is filled with Delft.
You like pickled herring.
You've eaten oliebollen at New Years.
You enjoy chocolate sprinkle (hagelslag) sandwiches.
You have cousins who wear size 14 shoes and are over 6'4"
You wash and reuse plastic cups and plastic cutlery.
You have soup and open-faced sandwiches for Sunday lunch.
The most frequent phrase uttered growing up was "Turn off the lights!"
You get a chocolate letter every year for Christmas.
All the tables in your house are covered in tablecloths.
You like krokets.
You know that Vla is better than regular old pudding.
You drink tea with breakfast, coffee at 10 am, tea at 3 pm, and coffee again at 8 pm (with cookies or biscuits of course!)
You have an afghan knitted by your Oma.
You collect coupons like they're going out of style.
Your Oma had a calendar with everyone's birthdays & anniversaries spelled out in capital letters (bonus points if it hung in the bathroom!)
You've been known to recycle aluminum foil. And ziploc bags.
You own a special utensil that is only used for cutting cheese.
You know that Gouda is the best cheese ever.
You have at least 5 relatives with the same name (and somehow you always know which one is being talked about).
You reuse teabags.
When you hear all the "new ways to save energy" you yawn and say "I've been doing that all my life!"
You eat your sandwiches open-faced. "What?
You want another slice of bread? I'll make you another sandwich."
You rarely have both meat and cheese on the same sandwich.
You have never met half the relatives at your family reunion
You have 100 rolls of toilet paper in your house because they were on sale.
You put a little water into the jar of tomato sauce and shake it to make sure you got it all out.
You have trouble shopping for hats. There should be at least two sizes: 'one size fits all' and 'dutch'.
You wipe the last of the butter out of the container with your bun.
All your cookies taste like almonds.
You make the bed in your hotel room.
You have lace on your windows but not on your underwear.
You like dubbel zout drops, and have occasionally tricked a friend into trying one.
You've put mayonnaise on your french fries.
Your kitchen is filled with milk bags drying, waiting to be reused in the freezer.
You drink Heineken out of pride.
You have a front room but nobody sits in it (or it's only used for special occasions).
You have a spoon collection.
Your favourite mustard comes in jars that can be reused as drinking glasses.
You leave a window open year round to get fresh air.
You eat stroop waffles.
You love the colour orange.
You have a vegetable garden because there's no way you're paying that much for veggies at the grocery store.
Your fridge is always stocked with leftovers. Throw out food? Never!
You go to the "Dutch Store" because the smell brings back so many childhood memories.
You have pictures of windmills around your house.
Everything is Do-It-Yourself - it's cheaper than hiring someone.
You use "washandjes" (facecloths that you can put your hand into).
You have to explain what 'om' and 'tante' means when you're discussing your relatives with non-Dutch people.
You own tea towels and oven mitts patterned with windmills and dancing women in clogs.
You call it "MELK" not "milk".
All your cousins have the same names as your brothers and sisters,because everyone is named after Oma and Opa
or Paka and Beppe.


And finally, you know you're Dutch when..


You're laughing along with this list because you can relate to most it!

Thanks John and whoever made this list for this list.