an amazing day

I had the most amazing day yesterday. My friend and I visited the farm-- Wild Flower Farms-- of a spinner I met. She raises fiber animals (and lots of other animals). It would take an full article to describe her exotic animals, but I'll just mention a few. Highland cattle are a scottish breed. They are shaggy haired and live in the forests. They have long horns that can reach a seven foot span. These loving farmers treat all their animals as pet and these enormous beasts came up to snuggle with us. It wasn't scary, but it should've been. If they weren't so loving they could've killed me with a twist of it's head (HORNS!!!!). Sheep, so many sheep! Llama, alpaca. I bought some baby llama fiber from her, I can't wait to spin it up. She was caring for a stray emu. (I thought she was joking, but I saw it with my own eyes and no one has claimed it yet. That's like having an elephant casually stray on to your farm and no one claiming it). AND she gave me her angora bunny. She didn't have the time to care for it and wanted it to go to a good home. The girls named it Frankie-Jeff the girl rabbit.

may tally-ho

May garden total--- 84.5 pounds. That almost doubles the year to date totals, which are now 171.3 lbs.

There were a lot of delicious things coming out of the garden this month. peppers, lettuce, garlic (I just picked a little), rhubarb (just a few stalks), radishes, kohlrabi (yummy, but you sure don't get much), broccoli, peas (sigh), Chinese cabbage, cauliflower, green onions, and STRAWBERRIES :)

And, of course, eggs.

I've got lots of green tomatoes and little peppers and small cucumbers. June ought to be good.

Rebecca and Binod

My daughter and her long time boyfriend are officially engaged. We're very happy for them. The pictures are from Christmas time, so they aren't exactly "engagement" quality, but those two are really cute together.

end of homeschooling

I wish I could express in words how much I've appreciated homeschooling my kids. Was it perfect? No. What part of life is? But I loved spending time with my own kids. I loved learning together. All of my kids have a huge appreciation for good literature. That is directly connected to our daily out loud reading of book after book after book. Sara and I finished up the year by reading "The Scarlet Letter" together. I had forgotten what a great book that is/was. Sara my youngest child and she just had her last week of homeschool. I'm sure I learned more in homeschool then any of them did. I learned more biology and chemistry and history, but most important I got to learn with my kids. My children are closer then most siblings, and I'm sure that is because they spent so much time together growing up. And each of them has chosen to attend public school for high school. I guess it is the time to spread their wings. And don't get me wrong, I think that public school's extra curricular activities have been and are a real plus in all my children's lives. But as far as the daily learning routine of school there has been a huge lack. My kids could've learned easily on their own (in MUCH shorter amount of time) what they were/are teaching in the classrooms. Even as I say that I'm sure there is an exception here and there (Carl's welding class, for example), but overall I think there are far FAR better ways to get an education that what the public schools offer. And I can't finish without putting in a plug for my only heaven on earth-- our homeschool group. If you ask any of my kids their favorite part of homeschool they will all say the field trips. We've been to interesting places all over Missouri and Illinois (Lincoln library, Jefferson City state capital, Cookie factory... sigh). We've had a wonderful bunch of people in our homeschool group. I LOVE YOU GUYS

spring seminary video

Every morning during the entire school year I teach the gospel to the teenagers. It's called seminary. This is a memory video we made about seminary

college graduation

My son Chris graduated from college on Saturday. We're so proud of him.

windy wedding

We attended the beautiful wedding of a friend. The young couple choose to marry at the Nauvoo temple (in Nauvoo Illinois). It was the friendliest wedding party I've ever been involved with because it was so windy and cold, and none of us were prepared for the weather. We all snuggled to try to stay warm and managed to get to know each other as we snuggled.