Today I'm finally posting my pictures from my parents' July 4th party. Not many pictures...too busy catching up on family and friends. My Mom's petunias are beautiful!

It was a scorcher day...99 degrees and high humidity. The lifeguards kept cool under the canopy.

Kissing cousins, Laurie and my brother Floyd, are catching up on old times.

The children loved the pool. Ruthie came out long enough to eat crabs, then hopped back in. It was good for her to be out in the 82 degree pool.

I hadn't seen Simba's friend Todd in a few years...as well as Simba's other friend, Bob, who came with his family...from Sweden! I got to hold this angel while her young Momma ate a few crabs. It was wonderful!

My brother Mike did all the grilling...and did an excellent job! No charred food! Thanks, Mike. This time next year Mike will be holding his new baby girl!

Our family contributed watermelon, tea, lemonade, and snowcones. As usual, there was too much food...so our family has been eating like kings ever since! Can you guess what was the most requested flavor for snowcones? Egg custard! And we had never heard of that!

The picnic was wonderful. It was the first July 4th picnic I can remember that wasn't threatened by thunderstorms!

This morning when I looked out the window, I was dismayed to see so many yellow leaves on my trees. We need rain! The weatherman says we have a slight chance of rain tomorrow with a better chance on Saturday. Hurray!

As usual, Sarah and Abigail came over and got us out of bed. Now that Mike is on vacation, we're having a hard time getting to bed at a decent hour...and a harder time getting up! All it takes is the familiar sound of pitterpatter from Abigail's feet running down the hall...and we're up!

Usually the first thing Abigail does when we go down to the kitchen, is choose a fruit for breakfast. This week it's been oranges. She loves oranges!

Last night we all watched this western called No Name on the Bullet. It's a serious movie...but we laughed our way through it. Good movie, family friendly.

Anna has been busy sewing another quilt.

I like the floral with the white background.

Tonight we had leftovers for dinner...our favorite! Salad with chopped ham, chicken salad, chips, red pepper slices and dip, sauteed pattypan squash (from my garden!), and the last hamburgers and kielbasa from the picnic. Delicious...and easy.
We enjoy comparing our pictures of Ranger last year to Ranger this year. We love seeing him in my flower box!

A friend of mine posted a comment on Maggie's fox picture (yesterday's post), "Was this one of the little foxes that spoiled the vine?" His question concerns Song of Solomon 2:15 "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes." I enjoyed spending an hour reading a dozen online sermons based on that chapter.

Enjoy your summer. Keep cool. Many blessings ~ Kathie

Looky what Maggie shot! Last night Maggie shot her first grey fox...and on her first shot! We have two foxes that have become very daring lately. Time to make them go away. So now the fox is at the taxidermy and will be tanned into a nice pliable hide. Maggie goes back to pick it up in one month. She can hardly wait!

Maggie researched how to go about shooting the fox, downloaded 11 fox calls onto her mp3 player, then went out after dark with her Daddy...and 10 minutes later she bagged her fox! She found the 11 fox calls on this free website here. We are so happy for her! Now we have one more troublesome fox.

(Maggie is able to hold the fox with her left hand because that hand/arm is now considered healed...but the fox was very heavy!)

Last weekend we had beautiful weather for two days, so we headed down to Virginia to my parents' weekend home. I always like waking up and going into the kitchen to enjoy the scenery outside their windows.

The house is on a cove, so there's very little traffic.

The weather here has been dry as well. Dad normally plants his garden here, but since they've listed the house for sale, Dad didn't plant anything.

This is the view from the sofa. I enjoy watching cooking shows while doing hand sewing and keeping an eye on the water.

My children had fun kayaking and collecting seashells.

Later on in the day, they went water skiing and jet skiing.
Right before we left Maryland, the girls went out to the berry patch and picked raspberries and blackberries to take with them.

They made delicious pies.

As usual, we ate well while in VA. Amish corn from MD! Tomatoes and corn in VA are very expensive...but the blue crabs are only $50/bushel!!

Dad made a pot of his famous green beans and potatoes.

We nibbled on leftover berries the whole time.

Oops, this pic is sideways. We ate lots of salad.

We loved this dressing Mom served...yummy!

Poor Mike...57 years young and he gets winded after spending the afternoon water skiing! We like to tease him because he has the energy of a 20 year old.

Allen enjoyed sneaking off to the back bedroom to watch the history channel. He learned all about the Masons and their history. I often wish we could get tv for one channel...the history channel. When we were in Texas for 6 weeks, Allen learned all about American History thanks to this channel...and Grandaddy. But he reminded me that even the history channel has the worldly commercials.

Here's a picture. Ruthie cut herself on a shell on the beach. Ouch! It sure hurt! She limped around for a few days but now all is better. I'm putting this picture up to remind me to do an annual immunizations check for our family. We don't do many immunizations, but tetanus is a must. So Regina and Bev, our beloved nurses, we will be down soon!

Just like at home, you never know where everyone will end up sleeping! Allen got scared by all the windows and ended up on the air mattress with Ruthie. In Maryland Allen has been known to end up on Anna's trundle bed. Sometimes I find someone sleeping in the family room on the futon. Whatever it takes!

So we had a great time. I felt badly for Mom and Dad who came home in time to get ready for a huge July 4th picnic. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

I am slowly catching up. We were supposed to go to another part of VA this week to kayak on the Shenandoah River. But the extreme heat and low water levels forced us to put that trip off until September. Mike will be taking our children to the Smithsonian museums while Ruthie remains in hibernation. She's enjoying the summer watching videos and eating snowballs.

Our missionary friends who are living in Kenya, Africa, wrote on facebook today that their current temp today is 47 degrees...the coldest they have ever had during their past 5 years there. Wow!

Keep cool. Many blessings ~ Kathie

Happy 4th of July! The fan in our computer burned up, so we can only use it for a short while before it overheats. So I will finish this post that I started last Thursday. When Lizzie and I come home from guitar lessons, we are always treated to the most lovely views. We also enjoy stopping to chat with the wooley neighbors.

But today we watched sadly as this pony fought with this large ram...and the pony won.

The pony brought the ram to his knees. I thought the ram would buck the pony, but he ended up being very submissive. It was so sad.

Look what came in the mail this week! My business cards for my blogs! My only regret is that I didn't pay extra to get a Scripture verse printed on the backsides.

Our family regularly gets stopped and asked if we're Christians/amish/mennonite/mormons/religious, etc. I also tend to get asked a lot about living with dairy and egg allergies. Already this week I gave away 3 sets to women who have asked about our family. What fun! So if you are new here, welcome to my blog!
What have I been doing in my spare time this week? Well, last year I didn't wash down the outside of my home at all. This year I'm paying the price for that. The north side of our home finally turned green with algae. See this before and after picture? That's as far as I could safely (well...I went above safely) with my ladder. I did all 3 sides of the garage, now I need hubby to help with a taller ladder. But it sure looks good where it's white!
I bought a music book for my ukulele today, and look at this cute sticker that came in the package!
My fig bushes are looking so healthy this year. Wish I could say the same about the grass. Usually the deer keep these bushes nibbled low. This year we've had no deer problem. I think my neighbor's "relocation" program is paying off.

Allen's chickens have been doing so well this year. Out of 26 chickens, he only lost the runt, who arrived already weak. Then yesterday, in the 94 degree heat, he lost 3 more. So today we will go visit our mennonite butcher to arrange a date for delivering the whole brood...except for the chicken above. The chicken hatchery gives you one free exotic chicken for every 25 that you buy. This gal is definitely exotic...but she's a layer, not a broiler. So I guess we'll keep her around.

I forgot to take a picture of my hydrangeas while they were at peak. The high temps this year are taking a toll and they look drab now. These are probably my most favorite flowers.

Every evening I enjoy looking out to see if the honeybees are home for the evening. Now you can understand why Allen likes to do his hive inspections during the morning when everyone is out collecting pollen!

Enjoy your holiday. We have lots of extended family coming from a couple hours away. There were fireworks all over the county last night. Happy Birthday, America!

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. ~ 2 Chron 7:14

Many blessings ~ Kathie

I love summertime meals! Last night we had salad. The produce is almost all locally grown...and my own garden is close to producing cucumbers. I've been eating my own yellow and red grape tomatoes but only 2 or 3 a day are ripe. But it's looking good!

Our weatherman said there is no foreseeable rain for at least a week...yikes! We are already pretty dry. So I'll keep moving those garden hoses!

Today was a long day for me and I came home emotionally whipped. Now that I've had a good cry and a time of prayer and reflection, I'm feeling much better.
Several times a year we will be driving on our dirt road and come across a straight black stick lying across the road. This guy wasn't so straight...so I knew in a second he was a black snake!

They always take awhile to move out of the way.

But once they get going, they take off! As long as he stays out of my raspberry patch, I'm fine!

Maggie usually has her appts back to back, one at noon and the second appt at 2 pm...with barely enough time to get to the second one on time. Today we got a call asking us to come in a half hour later. So that means we had time to meet Mike for lunch! We decided on mexican food at Monterey Restaurant.

This is Maggie's chimichanga, her favorite at this restaurant.

And this is Mike's steak fajita. I really wanted guacamole and chips for lunch but they only had guacamole with dairy sourcream already mixed in. Then I realized I really wasn't hungry at all, so I just chatted while they ate.
On the way home, I stopped at the amish store to pick up 40 lbs of fresh blueberries. We had fun eating them by the handfuls. These are the best I've ever tasted!

My Dad gave me this jar of Zatarain's crab boil...similiar to Old Bay seasoning...but much spicier! How spicy? Cayenne pepper is third on the list of ingredients! I was disheartened to see MSG on the list...no wonder it was tasty. (I took the picture of the mustard next to it so you could see how large the container is.) I sprinkled a bunch on my corn on the cob...it was delicious! Thanks, Dad.

For years I have told my children about when I was a child, living down the street from a Snowball stand. It was always a treat to be allowed to take 50 cents and bike on up to get a snowball. My favorite flavor was always chocolate syrup with marshmallow topping. Yummy! I have been amazed at how few people have tried that combo.

Today when I was in Walmart, I found a nondairy chocolate syrup and an eggless marshmallow topping. Ruthie made the snowballs on our commercial snowball machine (a gift from freecycle.org), and we had fun pouring the toppings on. Delicious! I was immediately transported back to the bridge on Meadowbrook Road in Glen Burnie, Maryland. We always sat on the bridge and dangled our feet over the edge while savoring our snowcones. What a good memory.

Just a note about the marshmallow topping: if you want to try this recipe, do not use the fake Smuckers topping as shown above. Find a whipped marshmallow topping that has egg whites...much tastier although gooey-er. (Is that a word?!)

Years ago on PBS, I watched a show that featured a snowcone stand in Hawaii that sold snowcones that were layered snow+ice cream+snow+syrup! People drove for miles to come to that stand. Someday I want to be brave enough to try the snowcone/ice cream combo.

So ends another eventful day. Oops...I had just typed those words when I got a phonecall from Sarah, who was sitting in her truck on our driveway. Copperhead! Everyone grabbed flashlights, shovels, and camera, and ran out the door. We saw him...but he got away. I drove everyone around in the truck searching for him, but he was gone. So exciting!

We are having a few days with beautiful weather in the 80s. It's wonderful! Hope you are having nice weather wherever you are.

Many blessings ~ Kathie