June always seems so far away and then it somehow manages to sneak up on me. Boo! Then, I blink and June is over which means that the summer is half over. NOOOOO!!! I really wish time would slow down so I could catch up! It doesn’t look like that is going to happen though, so I will keep trying to squeeze everything in and take a million pictures so I can try to remember everything. It’s okay if you’re laughing right now. Everyone knows I have the worst memory and sometimes I don’t remember what happened yesterday much less recognize my own pictures. However, I haven’t forgotten who my family is yet, so I’ll consider that a win for me….
June was beautiful after all the rain we had this year. We had an abundance of lush beautiful, grass. Sadly, we still don’t have more animals to eat that grass….yet. That’s just an injustice but we are working hard to make sure we can get more animals by fall. Whoo-hoo!!!!
It seemed like we had more grass than we knew what to do with. That really is a nice problem to have though!
June is always a month we look forward to. Well, some of us…That’s because our oldest daughter Maleah has a birthday in June. As in every year in June she has a birthday and gets a year older. Every year. Why??? I distinctly remember telling her years ago that she was not allowed to grow up. Yet, every year she insists on having another birthday. This year she had the nerve to turn 18. 18 years old!!! 18 is pretty much an adult. That is just not right. I’m really going to have to put my foot down next year about these birthdays… It’s just gotten out of hand….
This beautiful sweetheart celebrated her 18th birthday this year. How is that possible??
My dad actually came over from Tennessee to spend the day with her and brought her these pink Hello Kitty sunglasses. Of course Maleah loved them! She wore then all the way to lunch and the movies with Jim’s parents.
My dad also brought Maleah 3 different rabbit hutches. Of course Maleah is excited to get more rabbits! So a few weeks after her birthday we found her an dwarf Angora/Lion head cross. We were told sweet little Evie was a female, but I’m not so sure. I am certainly not a rabbit expert, but I checked after we got home and I do believe that we may be changing Evie’s name to Gaston in a few weeks. When will I ever learn? I’m just a sucker for a sweet, cuddly face. Thankfully, so is Saint Jim. He must be! He doesn’t kill me when I bring home these animals and then announce it’s not what we were told it was. He always just laughs. Have I mentioned how much I love my husband? Yep, he’s a keeper.
Meet Evie…or Gaston….Whatever the name turns out to be-Meet Maleah’s new rabbit. It really is a sweetheart!
My mom came over the weekend after Maleah’s birthday and brought her this amazing VW Bug cake. It was yellow and even had a sunroof! That is Maleah’s dream car right now and she is diligently saving her money to buy her own car.
June is also Father’s Day and sadly I don’t have any pictures of Father’s Day. Why not? We were having a lovely day and I never stopped to think about taking pictures! I did take a picture a few days later. That still counts right? I hope so! Jim wanted to pick up pizza and go to the river and relax for Father’s Day so we did. We even stopped and got his favorite ice cream on the way home.
The guy who is tearing down The Old Homestead surprised us one day and brought this to us. He was tearing out a wall in what we think used to be a dining room and he found this cool shell. It’s so small and adorable! He found a few other shells as well but nothing as special as this little gem. I now keep this little treasure on our kitchen table. I absolutely love it and I have no idea why!!! Every morning I see it and it makes me smile though so I keep it there. Since I know virtually nothing about the builders of the old house I can now imagine them taking a lovely trip to the beach and finding this shell. At least I hope that’s similar to the real story…
Jim didn’t have much free time in June, but one morning he had a job cancel and I was able to talk him into doing some dozer work for me. Love ya, honey!! While I am grateful for the shade and shelter the carports provide for Desi and Minnie, I’ve not been completely happy with them. I don’t really like several things about them and I’m not crazy about how they look actually. So…..I talked Jim into letting me build a run in shed for sweet Desi that would be nestled under a tree for extra shade. Jim tried to talk me out of it because he thinks I might already have a few to many irons in the fire, but somehow I convinced him to let me try it.
The future site of Desi’s new run in shed.
It’s going to take a little more grading work but Desi is going to love her new shed tucked back near the tree line.
I can’t wait to get started this fall! Anyone want to help me build a shed?? On a budget?? With mostly scrap materials?? While wrangling the kids?? Oh yeah, this will be fun.
Jim isn’t always doing dozer work for me and my animals. Mostly…but not always. He found a few hours one day to knock down a few trees so we could put up a fence line for future cattle and so he can build a shop for all his work trucks and equipment. Yep, Jim has talked about a shop for years and with a little luck he will be able to build a nice shop in a year or two. He has lots of ideas already. He’s like a kid in a candy store! He actually seems to think that a man cave is a good idea. I sure hope that he has some really good locks on that door because we have 3 kids that will want to join him! Ha! What does he expect when he talks about big screen tvs, video games, indoor basketball goals and a kitchen filled with goodies?!?!? I think the kids might just choose to live in Jim’s man cave!!
Jim had to knock out a few trees so the fence line wouldn’t look like a jigsaw puzzle. I didn’t even give him a hard time about taking out the trees since it was to make room for his shop. He was pleasantly surprised with me.
Jim’s shop will hopefully be built about where I was standing to take this picture. He will be able to pull in off the road and pull right into his shop with his equipment. Jim went ahead and did some of the dozer work now so that we could put the fence up around where he wants the shop.
The end of June brought me a few days of free time so I thought I would try to make the house look a little nicer. Some simple landscaping would do wonders for the curb appeal of our house. Well, that is easier said than done. For one, I am not a landscape designer. Most of the plants I want to put together don’t go together or they won’t work where I want to plant them. So I spent hours walking around in Lowe’s garden center checking labels and realizing I was in over my head. Eventually, a kind lady took pity on me and gave me some simple tips and advice. And I was smart enough to listen and head her advice. Simple is always better!!
We went with really simple landscaping obviously. If these plants can survive me, our kids, and our puppy then I might get more creative with the landscaping later. For now, I’m happy with the simple, keep everything alive look.
While preparing the landscaping around the house I uncovered this lovely spider. Hello there little lady! I’m not an expert on spiders but it looked like a black widow to me. I normally don’t mind spiders, but this little critter had me taking a step back. Actually, I just called it a day and joined the kids in the pool! Now, every time the kids want me to stop working and join them they claim to have seen a black widow. Oh, those kids!!
