I am BACK!!!!

Life got a little busy there for a while! So I had better catch up!

Lets see.....Todd now works out of the Dallas area and travels all over! Erin and Nika will be joining him soon. So life is getting better for them. He is enjoying what he is doing and he is working his behind off, literally!

Xavier is now officially 2, had a great party and is growing up so fast! He is enjoying all his new toys and learning how to drive a truck! LOL

The gardens are growing and we are starting to eat tomatoes fresh from the garden, I have green peppers that are growing, and waiting to see some squash appear on the vines, so far the tons of blossom must all be male!

We have seen Randys family more than usual this summer, which is great and Xavier is getting use to seeing them and calls Randys Dad, Great Papa, which never fails to put a smile on his face!

I am still contemplating an additional dog. I have had good info shared with me on bringing in another dog. So, it's really a matter of finding a dog/puppy I can't live without! Could happen, maybe not we will just wait and see!

Plans are in the works for a trip to Dallas the first part of November, I am putting my spare change away and hopefully that will help pay for our part of the gas needed. It will be a driving trip...my favorite!!! OH, that isn't sarcasm I really do enjoy traveling across the US by car!!

I had better run befor the day passes me by. I will try to get back to being more regular on here.

Dilly

I am so Hot!

That is not a statement of how super cool I am. That is a statement of how frigging warm it has been this last week. It's so hot out it has been killing the goldfish in our Aquaponics unit outside. It's time to move the Tilapia out there who are more heat tolerant. We have even been putting a tarp up over things to create some shade but when it's in the 90's day after day it's difficult to keep the temps down.

The rain barrels are in need of a fill up and I am hoping in the next day or two that will be taken care of by some thunder storms they have been predicting. But the weatherman with todays specialty toys doesn't do any better than 40 years ago! It's all a shot in the dark. Until then I will be dragging the hose around watering the garden. Which is exactly what I have to do when I get done with this!

The highlight of many months happened yesterday. Randy and I took Xavier on part of his birthday present! He just adores Choo Choo's and we took him on Amtrak from Battle Creek to Kalamazoo and back again. He has been close and watched trains, but we were concerned when he was 20 feet away would he get scared. As long as he had your hand he was wide eyed and amazed and loved every minute! It was pure joy to spend that couple of hours with him and see the world through his eyes. That's the best part of being a parent and now a Grand Parent. To take the time to slow down and pay attention to all those things that the little ones are amazed by!

Todd should be getting ready to make the last leg of his trip to Oklahoma today. He will be stopping there for a couple of days to over see a job....so Rob the young man he is working for can go home and celebrate his anniversary with his wife! Then on to Dallas...he promised his Mom to drink lot's of liquids and try not to faint away in the Texas Heat. Good Luck with that my boy!!!! I will miss the opportunity to revisit Creede, CO it was such a spectacular place but new vistas are provided and I can see a warm setting calling to us in the middle of dark, dank and cold here in Michigan!! LOL Happy Birthday my Boy....I can't belive you are 25....I now am feeling old. Of course Ringo Starr turning 70 was a kick in the pants too! LOL

So I am off to melt some glass I have some weird inspirations floating around in my head, we will see if I can make them into something presentable. Stay cool, stay safe and huggies all around for everyone!

Love ya all,
Dilly

Looks like I am MIA!!

Boy you think it's not a big thing to get on here regularly....then life gets in the way and you get busy and all of a sudden you realize it's been almost a week and you haven't visited your blog! Shame on me!!!

We have had some beautiful weather this past week. In the 70's with blue skies, light winds and just perfect. Now we are looking at some heat rolling through again for the next few days. If I could find someplace that had these last days regularly I would move!! Of course I would have to drag my entire family to be happy but hey it's worth a shot!

The 3rd aquaponic garden is up and running. We planted seeds and plants in it on Tuesday nght. So we will see how that goes! It is keeping Randy busy feeing and watching 3 gardens. The dirt garden is lush and doing good. We have had strawberries and fresh beans out of it so far. The tomatos are going to town and I can see canning in my future. A new thing to learn in my old age!

We have the train tickets to take Xavier on his train ride next week for part of his Birthday Present. We will be getting on an Amtrak train here in Battle Creek and riding it to Kalamazoo, a half hour layover and then pick up another Amtrak and ride it back to Battle Creek. All before noon I hope he likes it, since he is mesmerized by Choo-choo's I think it will be a hit. Lot's of photos for a memory book for him! It's hard to believe he will be 2 on the 10th of this month. It's even harder to believe his Uncle Todd will be 25 on the 7th. Life certainly races by if you don't pay attention!

I hope all of you that read this are taking the time to enjoy each moment of your summer. To my sis have a wonderful and safe trip to Germany! Find all that good information that you are looking for!

Have a wonderful 4th weekend everyone.

Dilly

It's a hot one!

It's 6:30 at night and it's time to turn on the air. It's humid and my forehead is dripping! I know TMI for you!

Even though it has been hot we have accomplished quite a lot. I got my new little herb garden all planted this morning because it was suppose to rain this morning. NOT! I just need to edge it and get some more herbs to add to my first stash. Then I edged around a couple of trees out front and added mulch so hubby wouldn't have trouble mowing. Finally cleaned up around the front from everything that got dumped there this week so the curb appeal is to my satisfaction. No we aren't up for sale I am just anal about those things! LOL

Hubby has been finishing up the building of the barrelponics unit for the back yard. This one will grow (keep your fingers crossed) the big stuff and will be moved to the basement this fall. We are in the middle of water testing it. So far everything works great but we have a couple of leaks to fix. Now we can fill the other two grow beds and give it a rattle and roll. I have plants just busting at the seams to live in this unit! LOL He has promised me only one more unit and that is a single barrel herb garden for my kitchen for this winter!


Other than that it's kind of quiet around here, the girls are both camping and Todd is busy wrapping up his job in Creede. Busy Boy! I think I have Randy convinced that we need to do Papa Murphys Pizza tonight. YUM Good thing it's pretty close to healthy other than the thin crispy crust. But we will do it anyway it's our once a week treat!

More yard work tomorrow and it's suppose to be even hotter! So up early and work before it get really hot! I hope you are all having a great summer.....huggies all around for everyone!

Dilly

A quick Fly By!!

Boy I have to pay more attention. Maybe it's just time is flying by can you believe we have already had the longest daylight day of the year now it's all downhill until December 21st! UCK!

Been on the road two days this week. We found some goodies but not a large pile yet. So the hunt will continue. We visited my favorite flower thrift store today and hit the jackpot as we did a couple years ago. There is a greenhouse that dumps piles of flowers at a Kalamazoo Christian Thrift Store and they sell flats, hanging baskets, made up flower pots for 5 for $10 OMG I spent 20 and came home with a van full! Yes, it's worth the wait! I missed it last year but this year the truck was actually finishing unloading as we pulled in. Talk about a frenzy of women just chucking plants into the back of the vehicles! I'll have to take some pictures this is really beautiful stuff!

I have decided to add putting in a herb garden outside. Then take some of the shoots and move it inside when it gets cool. Another project but so worth it! Now I will have to write a list because my goals for the summer are getting staggering! I think drink ice tea under the umbrella should be at the top of my list.

The girls are camping until Sunday and they are little farther away than we thought, so we are gonna let them have fun and stay home and get some projects done! I will miss seeing PLD, but he will be needing a Papa fix when he gets home!

OK, I gotta go make burgers for the grill and whip up some fresh asparagus for dinner. Have a great evening everyone!

Dilly

Wow Time goes fast!!!

Has it really been that long since I got on here??? Wow I wasn't having fun so what's up with that?

I did manage to have a very enjoyable day yesterday. Randy, Heather, Xavier and I took the 2+++ hour trip up to Randy's parents cottage and spent the day with them. It was what Randy wanted to do for Fathers Day. We made some great memories, including Xaviers first clothes pin fishing under the dock experience.

Shannon and Shawn got home safe and sound after a trip from Hell out East. No air, flat tire, 4 hour back ups, bee stings! So glad it ended up at My sisters house with good food, good family, hot showers, and a good nights sleep.

So no another week lies ahead. Who knows what will keep us on the run this week. I do know both girls are headed camping together for 5 days. Mini vacations for both! Randy and I are going to try to stick to our work schedule this week. I hope Todd's world settles down for him. Prayers and good thoughts to him and decisions he and Erin will have to make!

So I need to get off of here and go melt some glass, pull some weeds, and plant some plants. I think fresh green beans from the garden is on todays menu!

Huggies all around for everyone!
Dilly

Jillian Michales it's all your fault!!

Yes I need to blame this frustration on someone and I figure she started this mess so I am a blaming her!! In December we watched a PBS special on Jillians Metabolism busting. Since I was at a stalemate of loosing weight and hubby was way over what he had ever weighed, we paid attention. It's really good information and it made sense. Even though I had lost 60 lbs I didn't feel any better and actually felt worse. So we bought her book and cleaned out the cupboards and went mostly organic. It is 6 months later and we are 98% organic....sorry I won't give up my coffee and some veggies I can't get local organic ones. But, it's pretty hard to hit 100% unless you can produce all your own food!

So back to why I am blaming Jillian for our frustration. Yes her program works, very well indeed, hubby has dropped over 50 lbs, I took off another 20 lbs. It's all the other stuff. You know the saying one thing leads to another....well once your turn green it's all down hill after that! LOL First it was growing sprouts, we still do mung beans and red clover regularly. The rest was Uck and a lot of work.

Then it was juicing. We had tried juicers and they were more work to clean up than making juice. We finally got an auger style juicer, YES it is great and we juice every day, mostly for breakfast. Well that led to a pile of fruit or vegetable garbage. So next came the composter, which hubby built a wonderful tumbler style. Yah, well it really doesn't work very good, we can't get the temp up and it's a beast to tumble that stuff weighs a ton. Plus you can't put that much fruit goodies in there it has to be a proper mix to make it work. So we either build a different style or go back 40 years and just make the compost piles that worked for decades!

Well since we really wanted tomatoes and the price was horrendous this winter, we decided we would get set up to grow our own next winter. We discovered aquaponics, so we built the unit for the dining room. Frustration with it running through it's cycles, we need to change the siphon over to one we can control. We finally have plants that are growing, but the lettuce keeps bolting, the peppers have blossoms, the basil is SLOWLY growing and the Arugula is a waste. Next!!!

Now it's time to put in our outdoor garden, so hubby is a peach and builds me a wonderful double rainbarrel system. I have 110 gallons of water, but it keeps raining so what the heck do I need that for!!! LOL

In the mean time we have built a second aquaponics unit upstair under natural light. This one is built out of 2 liter pop bottles. We also have 30++ talapia that will grow and provide us food in about 6 months. The talapia provide the plants their food and the plants provide the fish their food. It's a complete eco system and very cool. But that means I get to kill fish!! This system is working better, but the stinking lettuce bolted in that too. Time to hit the greenhouses and find a different lettuce! The rock wool I have started seed in creats a spindly sick looking plant that doesn't look like it would grow into crap!

Now we still have all this fresh goodies that we really don't want to dump in the garbage. So hubby find Vermicomposting. Now we are the proud owners of 2,000 red wigglers, Yah that means worms! They live in a flow through composter in my basement that hubby built. They eat our garbage and provide compost that is suppose to make my garden look like Eden! Of course hubby stressed out over the fact that they were hidden and he couldn't tell if they were eating!

Finally hubby is now building a third aquaponic unit with barrels in the back yard. This unit will grow tomatoes and be moved to the basment this fall for growing more goodies. I can see the work in that coming down the pike. Pretty soon there will be enough light and heat in my house this winter that the drug helicopters will pick us up on radar and they will come busting through my front door just to eat tomatoes! LOL

I have also moved up to the recycling of everthing else, that means cleaning cans, jars, plastic, keeping my box's, newspaper etc. You know these new cans they make you can't cut the bottom off of. So squishing them is a macho foot stomping process. But each week I carry my orange container to the curb I know I am being good. But I wish Jillian was here to clean the crap out of the cans and jars!!

Yes, Jillian Michaels it is all your fault, I am healthier, my skin is glowing, my finger nails are growing for the first time in my life, and I weigh 20 lbs less than I did when I got married. I am enjoying all this silly stuff we are doing and we are having fun. Frustration levels get up there on a regular basis, but that probably just gets my heart pumping better. I am still blaming you and Thanking You for changing my life!! I really should send this to her site!

Have a great day, huggies all around. My juice is ready, the fish need to be fed, the worms need a load of garbage and the garden needs to be weeded, and it is still all Jillians fault!