A Pictorial View of Our Lives

Christopher has a knack for finding unique bugs- can you find the beautiful moth here?

 Stephen has begun a donut business. He employs his brothers and cousins. This Mama is so happy there is at least one female involved! (Cleanup issues) And that the cooking has moved to an outdoor burner!

Matthew

Austin

Mervin

Sylvia

We had a very successful week of Summer Bible School in the town of Romney. Peak attendance was 80. A busy, happy week.

 Fence work for the garden and orchard has been happening this summer. Tear down the old, install the new. It has not yet been completed but it is exciting to see it progressing.

 Lots of canning going on this summer. Lots of green beans. Some peaches. Not as many peaches as usual because of the price this year.

 The boys enjoyed getting to know more of my cousins' children on the Summy side of the family. We had a reunion at Wilda Lake in VA.

 My sister Doris and family followed us home from the reunion and were with us for a few days. Here is one of her cutie pies.

 Speaking of pies- we made 100 for the Romney peach festival. After that ordeal, the weekly 16 or less seems puny. We made 50 crusts two days in a row, then 50 pies two days. They are asking me to do 120 next year. I'm having a hard time making up my mind!

 The boys and Grandpas did the bulk of the corn while I did other things. Not a super duper crop but enough.

Melvin

Grandpa

Grandma

Christopher

 My co-teachers and I took a couple of the girls from Kid's Club on a bike ride- the few that earned a treat. Sixteen miles of biking. Thankfully it was a continual slight downgrade. Even so, it was hard to sit for a few days.

 We took a trip to TN for a Troyer/Schwartz family reunion. It starts with a list, you know. We stopped in Gap Mills for lunch and business. All five boys were sitting on the bank eating lunch but one moved before the picture was snapped. Aunt Katie is 95 years old and has a large family. The family graciously invites other relatives to their annual reunion. I met relatives I didn't know I had this time around- my dad's cousins and their children. The aunts stay young by playing Scrabble. And the boys decided that this is a reunion worth going to again though they balked about going (as usual).

Aunt Katie

Cousin Barbie Schwartz looks on

Aunt Fannie

 Our latest venture was going camping with the church youth group.

 Peppers anyone? We harvested 3 (5 gal) buckets this week.

 I've been listening to a lot of webinars, helping me to understand the best ways for schooling our sons. One screenshot. Have you ever heard of a commonplace book? A wonderful idea for a profitable avenue of writing. Donna Goff has a lot of helpful webinars at her Mentoring Our Own site. Check it out if you are homeschooling.

 The men so graciously put up a laundry line for me this spring. If you've never been able to step out the washroom door and roll your laundry out on a line, you don't know what you're missing! It has been such a tremendous blessing.

Photo of first post set (taken from laundry room door)

Second post

In use

We are so rich! 

Luke 16:19-31 is my challenge for myself.

This age of marvels like laptop computers and outdoor electrical wiring allows me to sit on the deck and write as I watch the boys' Sunday afternoon ball playing. But then the rain came (only gentle dropping that didn't come through the leaves over the deck but I didn't know how soon it would come and ruin my technology) and I moved indoors.Boo-hoo! 

It is exceptionally pleasant today. Nice and cool. Heat is in the forecast for the coming week so we'll enjoy this while we can. Now I sit in a pleasant location indoors and enjoy the cool air coming through the screen. 

Part of my day is being spent doing things in preparation for VBS which begins next Sunday evening. We are doing last minute scrambling this year. The ones who were on to help us, backed out and they were not replaced in a timely manner. We didn't want to just do our own thing so we patiently (with fingers twiddling) waited. The week ahead looks busy with getting all last minute details in place plus regular life.

Regular life includes a lot of baking. Monday and Friday are my bake days. Last week I made 18 pies and 20 loaves of zucchini bread. Strawberries are over and peaches have begun. I still have apples from last year's crop and bought some blueberries. That means three varieties of pies. Melvin and Christopher are my steady helpers and they are getting really good.

From this....

...to this! (Unbaked)

Here is my latest DIY project. A wall clock -found at Amazon.The clock we had here just couldn't keep time and it was totally frustrating. This one looked like something unique and that's my style.

On Thursday two of "my" girls from Kid's Club came over for the late afternoon and evening. We went swimming in the river and played with kittens. They did. I watched. Neither sport being down my alley of expertise. The girls were in no hurry to go home. It makes me sad to think about the homes they have.

My nieces Jean and Monica came to swim with us. Especially because I don't swim and I wanted someone along who knew more about it than I did. It helped to make it more fun for the other two also (who swam like fish!).

This morning contained another rude surprise. An impromptu need to teach the adult ladies' Sunday school class. Again! This happened to me just recently. Thankfully the lesson (Joel 2:17-the end) was full of wonderful things, so there was something to talk about. And I wasn't so totally unprepared as I was the last time.

A lot of people were missing this morning from our regular attendees but there were a lot of visitors! There were only five from our regular class and only two of us that regularly teach. We both looked at each other and said, Not again! The youth girls who were there joined our class so the total number of ladies was 17. At least, being visitors, some were kind enough to share their thoughts.

It was good to come home today and have lunch together around the table as a family. So rare these days. We even sang a few songs. Something we enjoy but rarely find time to do.

The garden is yielding more goodies these days. Zucchini, potatoes and cabbage. Melvin, Christopher and I were transplanting rhubarb (discovered we had at least 19 crowns!) near the potatoes one day and managed to dig up a nice looking potato. That made the boys hungry for new potatoes for supper. So they dug more. A wonderful treat.

And zucchini is delicious in so many ways. One evening I made a dish with burger, onions, peppers, garlic and lots of zucchini fried together and topped with cheese. The family really enjoys that. Another one is zucchini crust pizza. We had coleslaw for lunch today. Delicious cabbage. Especially when you know where it comes from.

A week ago (Saturday) we helped some friends butcher chickens. At least 75 chickens got done that day for three families. They gave us five whole chickens just for helping! Bless them. We had some of that chicken for lunch today. 

 And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of
the Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my 
people shall never be ashamed. Joel 2:26

Are you praising the name of the Lord your God?

Has He dealt wondrously with you? If you begin to praise Him, you will find that He indeed has.

Large beauty

Small beauty

Motivating boys to work

How do YOU do that?

Mama is going to town today. (Everyone in the house hates going to town but this is a necessary evil that must occur periodically.) There is clean laundry that needs to be folded, slops to be put on the compost pile, more laundry to wash & dry, dishes to wash & dry and garden work to be done. How are 10 (almost 11) and 12 yr old boys going to be motivated to accomplish these things while Mama is in town?

When I returned from my trip to town six hours later, the work was done and the boys were playing in the dirt. (They have a spot under a certain tree where they drive their cars and other matchbox toys, building roads and etc.)

Before leaving I detailed each son's work list, like so-

Melvin
Wash dishes (30 minutes)
Dump slop (10 min)
Fold laundry (1 hr)
Pull weeds from a garden bed $1

Christopher
Dry dishes (30 min)
Wash & dry a load of laundry (10 min)
Fold laundry (1 hr)
Pull weeds from a garden bed $1

"Fold laundry" included hanging up clean shirts and putting them in closets.

Here's the deal- If the job gets done in the amount of time listed in the parentheses, the child receives that amount of money. Thirty minutes = thirty cents. If the job is accomplished in half the time, the child will get double the money. Time listed is thirty minutes + job is done in 15 minutes or less = sixty cents. This method worked well for their older brothers. House cleaning got done lickety-split when I detailed it this way. So I pulled it out of the archives and revisited it today. Ta-da! It still works. 

The garden bed had its own reward beings it was a big job in the heat of the day. 

Here's the tally they kept-

Prayer meeting/Bible study was cancelled this evening due to a power outage at the church house. So we had a nice free evening to relax and ....blog. 

We have new critters around here. This one was ripping around near me while I typed. I managed to get a photo before he tore off in another direction. Most of the time the pose was lost by the time the camera "clicked". See below.