Late night date

Our little Joesph-Diego

Last night Nathan and I were startled awake by the sound of chickens squawking frantically. We have been losing several chickens to predators in the last few weeks. Now we were evidently going to catch our predator in action. Nathan ran outside with Bella to investigate the scene.


Inside the chicken coop there was a large wild cat enjoying a meal of fresh chicken. He dashed away at the sight of Nathan and was chased across the pasture by an enthusiastic Bella. He disappeared into the darkness. By moonlight Nathan and I fortified our chicken coop defenses with boards, wire and fencing.

The severe drought in our area has made the wild life desperate. Animals every where look thin and starved. I can't blame the cat for eating our chickens. We know it has kittens to feed. We've seen the kittens in the  forested areas bordering our property. We do like having the wild cats on our property because they eat the field mice and rats.

I haven't seen a rodent in several weeks. They are all gone, leaving no food source for the cats. I didn't want to throw the chicken carcasses in our garbage and waste the precious food source when our local ecosystem is failing. I threw the carcasses out into the pasture where the cats could find it. I think I need to start putting out cat food for them until rodents return. Perhaps that will happen when the rain returns.

It was after midnight by the time we returned inside and washed up. I giggled and mentioned that this was the first time we'd had an evening alone in several months. Strangely, I felt like we had been on a date night, albeit an adventurous one. We decided to end our date with desserts, so we enjoyed ice cream sundaes with home made hot fudge.

Did I mention that the stars are breathtaking out here?

Greek Profanity

Daniel wanted to say an expletive. He knew he isn't allowed to swear in English, so he tried Greek instead: Aphrodite!

Glimpses of our move and transition

Nathan went exploring in our wall space and found lots of repair projects to add to our To-Do list.

Before we moved, we would drive out to the new house each evening and work on making the house livable. The children seemed to enjoy our many indoor picnics at the new house.

Matthew and Nathan worked together to seal one of the dog doors that had been permanently cut into the exterior walls of the house.

Another weekend was spent ripping off rotten roofing and replacing it. It was 104 degrees that day. I think Nathan drank more than two gallons of water that afternoon while he worked!

The children joined Nathan on the roof and had a grand adventure.

Nathan's mother Cindy came to help with the actual move. This picture was taken the night of Moving Day. I think it was around midnight, and she had been working like a whirlwind ALL DAY. I can't believe she still read the boys some bedtime stories after such a long day....she must have been absolutely exhausted!

This is what the house looked like for the first couple weeks. We couldn't unpack and put things away because there were so many projects still needing to be addressed first.  We had wanted to move into the house as soon as it was barely livable so we could spend most of our energy fixing the house instead of driving back and forth between our two houses. (It is a 40 minute drive each way.)

Cindy played games with the children each day before bed. Here's a picture of the ultimate multi-tasking. She played chess with Sarah and Uno with Daniel at the same time.

She didn't miss a night of bedtime stories, no matter how late the work was done. I think her stories were a highlight of the day for our family.

Remember our story of Daniel's spider-taming tendency? We went to a zoologist presentation at the library and the host asked for a brave volunteer to come interact with a very large scorpion. Danny was only too eager to go up. This picutre is VERY blurry but look closely. The zoologist was letting the scorpion crawl all over Danny's hair and face while the audience of children squealed in shock. Dan thought it was fantastic.  I didn't agree with him- do you see the SIZE of that bug?!

Here is the obligatory prego-picture. Let's move on. Quickly.

We adopted a cat this month. The children adore him. I like him because he catches flies in midair.His name is Saffron...which is perfect for our family. We love cooking and we love Indian food more than any other cuisine. Interestingly enough, our cat loves Indian food, too. He keeps trying to eat my vegetable korma.