Up High

Willie is such a climber.  I see him in strange places sometimes.  Like the roof of our little tack shed barn.  Or here, up on the balcony.  Good thing that light is screwed in well!

Luckily, he doesn't seem to get stuck when he's up high in trees and on rooftops.  Even by cat standards, he seems to be pretty athletic.

Readers, if you have cats, do they like to get in strange places?

Linking up today with Feline Friday. 

Hummingbirds and How to Make Your Own Food

We have a ton of hummingbirds this year.  I hung a feeder outside one of our slider doors.  All day long, they are drinking from the feeder.  I made my own nectar.  It's rather expensive in the stores, and the red dye is not good for the hummingbirds.  It is quick to make your own, and cheap as well. 

To make your own, just put four cups of water and one cup of sugar in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil for two minutes, then let cool before filling your feeder.  This recipe makes more than my feeder holds, so I just put the extra in the fridge until it is time to refill.

The hummingbirds are attracted to red on the feeder.  If you don't have any red on your feeder, just tie a red bow on it, and they will come.

Readers, do you have any hummingbirds?

Cat Wallet Sewing Kit Giveaway

Are you looking for a fun project to keep your kids busy this summer?  Shine Kids Crafts has a lot of fun craft kits for children.  I browsed through the site and chose an adorable cat wallet, which will be given away in a week, and the winner gets to choose from 3 different colors.  Here is some information about the kit:
 

* Cutting is not required. Patterns are pre-cut.
* The kit also includes:
needle, thread, instructions, pattern, zipper, etc. (Instructions are translated in English)
* Size: 11.5cm x 7cm

Aren't they adorable?  I'm thinking if you laid out all the pieces on a small baking tray, they would make a fun car activity on a long trip to the beach. 

Shine Kids Crafts has many other fun sewing projects, so be sure to check out her Etsy shop.

Readers, do you see any kits on her site that interest you?

To enter the giveaway for a chance to win the Cat Wallet sewing kit, just click on the Rafflecopter below:
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Bring on the Moonshine

1.  A couple of weeks ago I ran my first race in 2 1/2 years.  It was small.  So I placed first in my age group and won a handy dandy moonshine jug.

2.  The twins finished their dolch word lists.  We have been working on them since October.  Each list is ten words long and there are 22 lists.  So they are reading simple books now, and we hope to expand that over the summer.

3.  Pierce got glasses, which you may have noticed from Monday's post.  He was getting headaches.  Turns out he had a bit of a lazy eye that was so mild we didn't notice it.  Hoping the glasses will help, so that he won't need to have surgery.

4.  The other day we were at Target and this older, rather hairy man was walking to his car, with his shirt off.  The twins started discussing this:
Cort, "Wow, look at all that hair".
Reid, "He sure is hairy".
Cort, "Do you think he is a werewolf?"
Reid, "He could be part wolf."
Pierce, deadpan, no humor, "Maybe he is just having a bad hair day."
I start cracking up.
Pierce, "Mom?  What's so funny?"

5.  Speaking of summer, I hit the book sale at the library and picked up a ton of fun kid's books for this summer, at 25 cents a piece.  In my house, there can never be too many books, and there isn't a kindle to be found!

Linked with Willy Nilly Friday.

Stranded in the Middle of Nowhere

A couple of weeks ago, we headed up a big mountain in search of a remote hike.  My brother and his family were following in their car.  Paul took our old 1993 Jeep (which was originally my grandparents') because the hike involved driving for three miles on fire road.  He said my car wouldn't make it. 

As we drove up the mountain, I said, "Paul, your thermostat is overheating.  Do you think we should pull over?"

"Hmmm.  It is.  Well, we'll pull over when we get to the top."

We got to the fire road and pulled over.  By this time the engine was smoking.  Antifreeze was pouring out on the ground.  There was a sizzling sound.

Between four adults, there wasn't a cell phone signal to be found.  And here was the view (those are the boys having foot races in the distance):

Paul thought he could drive the Jeep back down the mountain, get some water, and just keep giving it water until he got home.  I dug in my heels and said I wasn't riding in it until it was fixed, and neither were the boys.  I'm not very flexible when it comes to smoking vehicles.

So Paul and my brother went down in my brother's car to get help.  My sister-in-law, Meredith, and I went for a walk with the boys.  While Pierce was worried, none of the other boys were concerned at all.  In fact, they had a grand time marching on the dirt road.

We walked all the way to a fire tower, and then turned around and walked back.  Meredith and I were so busy chatting we didn't even realize how far we walked.  The boys were so busy marching and throwing rocks in mud holes that they didn't realize how far we walked either.

Dare I say....when you're five years old getting stranded is kind of fun?  In the end, my mom came and picked up me and the boys and took us home.  Paul had a friend pick up a new water pump and drive it up to meet him.  They installed the pump and the Jeep was just fine.  It could've been a much worse scenario.

I find the whole thing very ironic, really, considering this all happened right after our attendance at the Preppers/Survivalist festival. 

Readers, do you have any good stories about being stranded?

Preppers Festival in New Castle, Virginia

My brother invited us to go to a Preppers festival in New Castle a few weeks ago.  I like learning survival skills, and I enjoy learning about homesteading.  So it seemed like a fun festival to attend. 

It was a very warm day.  The festival was a little smaller than we had expected.  This was only their second year.

There were many booths with survival gear of all kinds.  We liked watching the demo for some firestarters, below:

I enjoyed going in the little seed store and browsing.  They had tons of heirloom seeds, as well as other sorts of homemade goodies.

We also visited the Artisan center while there.  These black yeti are all over in Craig County, and will run you about $50.  Who knew we would see Bigfoot at the Preppers festival?

Paracord bracelets are always a big hit with the boys.  Those were the only things we bought.  The food supply buckets were intriguing, but very expensive.  You can make your own for much, much less. 

Overall, it was a fun day, but I think next year we'll head to the kite festival instead! 

Down by the River

Paul set up a hangout spot for the boys down by the creek.  Better to do this now, before it gets too snaky.

The boys found a baby snapping turtle that fit in their palm.  It was so cute.  Sadly, I didn't have my camera at the time.

There was a great deal of hammock swinging, wading, s'mores, and fighting over who got to spend the most time with the little girl who came over to play.

I found a few old Dr. Pepper bottles, and an old Busch bottle, that had never been opened and contained some very skunky looking beer.

It was a fun weekend!  But next time I think we will need to invite three little girls over.  Apparently, one just isn't enough.