Grab a drink and join me for an update.

Wow, life got busy all of a sudden.  Spring hits and so do all the end of school events for both boys.  It is of course also gardening time and time to get ready for the summer farmer's market.  I went and became the market manager so my time has been filled with lots of emails and organizing in preparation for market that starts in June.

Bear gets done with school next week.  So does Tom and that means there are music programs, field days, faculty meetings, summer school planning, and all sorts of craziness going on there.  I am trying to organize getting another kitten since one of our cats got killed last fall.  I have a 5K coming up on Saturday that I am not ready for at all because I haven't been able to run much.  Stinking spring blizzards.

Speaking of that.  Mother's Day we got almost a foot of fresh snow.  It snowed for 12+ hours straight.  At least the snow should have protected all the little shoots poking up when it froze last night.  I do wish it would melt and dry a bit though because we need to mow the lawn.  How goofy is that? So goes Spring in our weird weather area.

We haven't minded being trapped inside too much since we've all had colds too.  At least it means we don't feel bad about staying inside.  I would like to get out and get the garden planted though.  I know better than to rush it too much.

Let's see, what else do we have going on? Market prep, gardening, school...Snow, planning a family camping trip, and trying to figure out how to have animals.  Anyone want to sponsor a ton of fencing?  Fencing and hay are killers when trying to figure out having livestock of any kind.  For example: Hay.  Based on some really rough numbers for sheep, if I were to have 8 sheep that ate 4 small bales per week that averaged 80 pounds per bale I would end up needing about 5 ton of hay for 9 month.  For easy figuring let's say hay is priced at $200/ton that makes $1000 in hay alone for less than one year for a few critters.  Those numbers go way up if you have horses.  Middle of the road numbers for beef and probably less for goats.  And then you get to start figuring prices for fencing.  I have been too scared to really price it out.  I know fencing panels start at around $20/panel and go up from there.  Field fencing is cheaper, as is electric fencing.  Honestly I will probably go with some electric fencing since that will entail the least amount of money and work overall.  It will still require a lot of work and money but not as much as some of the methods.  I luckily already have good fence posts in place and have barbed wire fences.  That just won't hold goats or sheep.

So that has been my main dilemma.  In the back of my mind there is also the fact that I want to add bees to our orchard that we started.  I think for that I will see if I can work with our local bee man to see if I can even remain calm around a hive of bees.  That is a heck of a lot of bees in one place.  Bees would be wonderful to have though.  They would help the garden and orchard and I love honey so that would all be lovely.

Hmmmm... Family trip.  We hope to travel to South Dakota and do some camping.  The Black Hills and Mount Rushmore are only a few hours from us so it would be an easy weekend even if it ends up in the middle of the week.

Tom is teaching summer school again this year so although he is wrapping up one semester he is planning summer classes already.  He doesn't get much time off this year.

I have Bear in 4-H too for the summer.  As if we won't be busy enough.  He is old enough this year for the Clover Kids program.  That means he can't qualify for the state fair but he can enter our county fair with his project.

Mia is doing her best to be ready for Kindergarten.  She isn't even going to preschool yet.  We'll wait another year on that.  I don't want to do two years of preschool.  A couple of reasons there.  The cost and the fact that it is in another school in town, that is separate from where Bear goes.  Enough miles go on the vehicle taking Bear to school since we have no bus service.  But, back to Mia.  She knows her alphabet, is starting to write her letters, counts to 30 with very little if any help, and is starting to spell/read.  Her and Bear do addition and subtraction for fun when they are sitting at the table so she can add most of her numbers up to 10.  Bear is starting to teach her the concept of subtraction.  He is an incredible and natural teacher.

I think that about catches us up.  Spring is always busy and for some reason we insist on adding to the normal Spring busy.  We must be crazy.