Zachary, Wesley, Mitch (a friend from Tucson) and Andrew (another friend from Michigan) loaded up their gear and readied themselves to leave one morning after a breakfast of oatmeal and toast(??).  Zachary made the breakfast so I’m not sure if he added toast to their fare.

Notice the bananas in Wesley’s hands (far right).  I gave that to them at the last minute so they’d have some back-up provisions because these boys only took a few homemade bread baguettes to sustain them; the rest of the time they were going to live off the land.

Also notice, Andrew (on the far left) is carrying his sleeping bag in front.

The boys just barely dropped down the hill from our house before Andrew decided the sleeping bag just wasn’t going to work riding in front of him.  The boys were joking with him that if they did meet trouble he didn’t have to worry, he was protected in front with the sleeping bag and the backpack would protect him in back.

The jokes continued as Andrew lay down to have the sleeping bag tied on his back.  ”Hey boys, let’s jump on him.”  ”Okay, it’s time for a lunch break.”  ”Let’s just set up camp here.”  I was having a good laugh as I listened to their repartee.

Wesley!  Why are you already eating a banana?  (It must have been the 50 foot hike  that got his appetite raging. )

Okay, all good.  We’re ready to go again.

Supper that night consisted of a rattlesnake found on the trail -their first time to try such a delicacy. (written with a shudder)  They said the only problem was there just wasn’t enough meat on that snake.

Here’s the soup they made using rattlesnake meat and squirrel that they shot.  They also added young green pine tree needles which added a very strong pine taste that wasn’t much to their liking.  For added flavoring, Zachary had brought some garlic from home, along with an onion and he added that to the soup.

Excuse me, I’m afraid I’m losing my appetite.  How about you?

A modern day mountain man.

Beautiful spot

They even found a mountain lion track.  Thankfully that’s all they found.  Ei, yi, yi!

Russell met up with Zachary the next day, bringing along Justus and the boy visiting from Canada, so they could have some fun in the woods.

Later that afternoon, we rode quads to meet all the boys in a clearing.  We then picked up the 2 younger ones so they wouldn’t have to hike back the 3 miles.  Everyone was happy to see us.

Even Mitch had a big smile for me.

As soon as they hiked home they devoured all my leftovers and anything else I had on hand.  Living off the land didn’t feed well, I guess, but the memories they made are priceless.

This picture was not taken on Sunday.  Justus really didn’t wear this spotty t-shirt to church.  Really!

Then we had boys arrive from Tucson and Michigan.  My boys and them wanted to test their mountain man skills and live off the land; so they packed up their gear and headed for the woods (about 4 miles from our house) with some bread and bananas.    The boys took a camera and got some good shots.  I’ll try to get a post up later in the week on the excursion.

Then friends from Canada arrived with 2 of their children…

Saturday afternoon the boys were back at the house and after supper I put the boys, Serenity and  Jennifer from Canada, to work making Sunday’s lunch – enchiladas.  Oh yes, by this time another boy had joined the party.  The boy on the far left is from our 4-H group and Zachary has really enjoyed getting to know him.  God is really working in his heart.  We found out that his father is an atheist and that this boy is the only one in his family that goes to church.   

On Sunday we had 25 people for lunch for a meal of enchiladas, rice, beans, sopapillas & ice cream.  Oooo la la, we were full!

The adults visited and the kids had a good time playing Dutch Blitz, a fast-paced Amish game that is a lot of fun.

And that, dear friends, was my week.  How did your week go?

Here’s one of them…

and here’s the second one… (The black string was some I found in our barn that held a hay bale together. )

My brother-in-law gave us quite a bit of peg board that he had used in his furniture store.  It was pink but my laundry room is beige & black…

so Serenity spray painted them.

then we hot glued white ric-rac along the edges.

Then I used the peg board holders that I purchased from Home Depot and placed them where I wanted.  So easy, so fun!  Oh yes! and somewhere between the time we glued the ric rac on and I placed the items on my board, my husband screwed the board into the wall.

Does this really qualify as a craft?  I don’t know but I sure felt crafty when we finished.

Serenity really desires to learn to sew and I’m actually in the middle of writing up a unit study that we can do together that will cover learning to sew as well as some of the history & science of it all.  I think it would be just great for us to have a permanent place to set up the machine so that our mess is out of the way and when we have a few extra minutes to sew we’ll be able to.

I saw this awesome craft room makeover and it inspired me to make my own pegboard to hold scissors and such.  Mine would have to be quite small but I still think it could be useful.  Be sure to check out Creating by Cami’s blog.  She has a lot of great projects that will make you itch to get into sewing if you’re not already.  And I promise you will be inspired by her craft room makeover.

I’m still browsing the internet to see other pegboard ideas.  Click on any of the links to see some I’ve found.

Here’s one on Craftzine

One from Erin Compton Design

A great pegboard for stampers

another one here at My Craft Room

still another one from Going’s on at the Glenn’s

and from Our Fixer Upper

and for the last pegboard picture… The Inspired Room (a really great blog)

You may want to show your husband this board so he’ll be able to understand why you want one for your crafting area.

Of course you’ll need to know how to hang your pegboard.  Be sure to read this article to find out how.

If you’ve done one of these pegboards, please link so we can all see yours and be inspired.

Seth left for Manitoba, Canada, Monday morning at 12 a.m.  I’m  missing him!  I grab 8 forks out of the drawer to set the table and then realize, oops! I only need 7.

Russell took me on an anniversary get-away.  Our anniversary was in April while the 4-H EXPO was going so we had to hold the celebration.  21 years.  Unbelievable that it has went by that quickly!

When we arrived home from our time at the Scottsdale Plaza Resort, which is very reasonable this time of year because of P*riceline (our little secret ), we found this awaiting us, along with the cutest pop-up cards..

put together by our Serenity, our always thoughtful and sweet dear daughter.

Excitement was great over our arrival home.

I was very excited, too, to hear that they had cleaned the house as well as the outside yard.  They worked SO HARD!  Thank you, Zachary for thinking of every little detail.  What a blessing for mom because it was just in time for my father-in-law’s 80th birthday celebration we held at our house on Saturday.  

Before Saturday arrived, baby chicks were delivered.

I now have a permanent chick enclosure, thanks to Russell.  Awesome.

The week ended with the 80th birthday celebration for my husband’s dad.  Here you have the most lively, spunky and energetic person you will ever meet.  He has more energy than people 20 years younger.  He’s also one of the friendliest and hospitable.  There’s one other person I have met who rivals him in all these areas and that is the same age and his name is Al.  They give hope to those of us in our 40′s who are feeling old already. LOL

Here’s the clan and if you know your tartans, you’ll be able to figure out what Scottish clan we belong to.  My father-in-laws only brother is sitting next to him.  They had went to some highland games earlier in the day and wore their plaids.  This is the whole family except for about 21!  As my mother-in-law said, “This is a pretty big crowd for just starting off with 2 people.”

And that, dear friends, is my week in review.

He’ll be staying with his aunt (Russell’s sister) and her husband for 6 weeks doing construction and also commercial fishing which starts in June.

We’ll miss you, Seth!

For my own benefit, since my blog helps my memory,  I am going to write out some of the things he’s doing at this stage and a little bit about his personality.  It may not interest anybody else in the world but I think it will be a great place to record it.

Justus was born 7 years ago today.  He had 3 brothers and 1 sister waiting on him when he arrived.

Justus can be shy.  He is also my most sensitive child – not that his feelings get hurt easily but that he feels sad when he hears an unhappy story.  For this reason, I’m especially careful of his seeing or hearing things that might bother him later.  Of course, that is probably a good policy to have for all the children, right?

He enjoys being in the kitchen on occasion.  Here he is at 4 years old with an almond cake he made with almost no help from me (besides telling him what he needed to do).

He likes being a cowboy like most other boys his age.

He’s teaching himself to read with some help from his phonics.  I told him that he needed to slow down because I wasn’t even done with his phonics book and he’s trying to read everything.  He’s the first one of my children to do this.  

Here he is wearing some glasses he picked out of the Treasure Chest for finishing a step in phonics.  We use Sing, Spell, Read & Write which I love.

He looks up to his brothers and wants to do the things they do.  For example, they are on a strength building program of doing so many push-ups a day, etc.  So Justus has been doing push-ups, too.  It’s very impressive.  He did 24 of them the other day.  For someone like myself that has never even done 1, I’m impressed.  Really impressed!  I didn’t think those little matchstick arms of his could have such strength.  What a man he is!

On the trip home from Denver, Colorado a few weeks ago, Zachary sat in the back seat with him and explained the workings of the world to him.  He sat there and listened attentively, his eyes having a distant expression as he absorbed what was being said.  

Something was said at this point that really clicked with him and he became quite excited.

He’s very good at playing by himself but he also plays with Audrey sometimes.  Yesterday, they had a grand time pretending they were swimming and fishing, so they donned life jackets and swim suits.  This swim suit is for beginning swimmers with built-in flotation.  He looked quite hilarious in this too-small outfit.

We asked him to remove it for this picture.  The combination of swimsuits and a construction apron with tools (which was his birthday present) just didn’t seem fitting.

The tool set came from L*owe’s and sold for $20.  All of the tools are real, not plastic.  It also came with a tape measure.  He wanted one of these so he could help his dad.  His cousin, Lincoln (hi, Lincoln ) had a real belt with tools that Justus saw a few years ago and he’s wanted one ever since.  I thought the tools was a better choice for him than some of the other things he had written down on his birthday wish list like — hearing aids!  ”What?” you say.  You read it right.  He wanted hearing aids!  I have no idea why.  Maybe he thinks they look like fun since he’s heard them make noises when someone’s adjusting them.

Who can know all the things that run through little boys minds but I love them anyways. (xoxo) 

Even when they’re dirty…

or being silly…

They’re little men in the making.

Results are in!  (Drumroll, please!)

It’s worked great for coloreds and did fairly well on some very dirty jeans, but when I did a load of whites it didn’t work so well.  I picked the dirtiest sock I could find.  Now this sock is not representative of how they always look – sometimes they’re worse!

What I did for this load of whites was to use 1/2 cup of homemade detergent and 1/2 cup of 3% hydrogen peroxide.

Before the wash.

AFTER the 1st wash – not so good.  The dirt is still there.

For the 2nd wash I used 1/2 cup of my homemade detergent and regular bleach.  Much better results.

I read that if you have a real dirty load to throw in a scoop of Oxy-Clean.  That appears to be a very good suggestion based upon my findings.  I am also curious if my whites will get dingy over time using the homemade detergent.  I’ll need to keep an eye on that.  My next test should be to soak my whites in 3% hydrogen peroxide before they are washed and see what results I get.

laundry detergent. I really do dislike all the perfumes in regular detergent; they are just too strong smelling making my nose twitch.

I used Fels-Naptha in my laundry detergent this time but I would like to try using my own homemade soap.  Fels-Naptha has some “unnatural” ingredients as well as yellow dye that I would like to avoid.  Fels-Naptha looks like a bar of soap and it is used for the pre-treatment of stains.

Here is the recipe I followed this time.

The ingredients are few:  water, Fels-Naptha soap, Washing Soda, Borax.

Step 1.  Grate 1/3 bar Fels-Naptha.

3.  Add it to 3 pints of water and dissolve over low heat.

4.  Add 1/2 cup Washing soda & 1/2 cup Borax.

5.  Stir until thickened. (I never saw a major difference in thickening after I added the soda and Borax.  I have read that, if that’s the case, add more Fels-Naptha next time.)

6.  Add 1 quart hot water to 2 gallon bucket.

7.  Add soap mixture and mix well.

8.  Fill bucket with cold water and mix well.

9.  Set aside for 24 hours or until mixture thickens.  (This is what it looks like after setting 10 hours.)

10.  Use 1/2 cup of mixture per load.

Here is the recipe once again, taken from the soap forum I belong to.

Liquid Laundry Detergent
3 pints water
1/3 bar Fels-Naptha or Castille soap (once again I use my own soap)
1/2 Cup Washing Soda
1/2 Cup Borax
2 Gallon Bucket
1 Quart hot water
Cold Water
Essential Oil or Fragrance Oil to preference (use only oils that are safe for skin)

Dissolve grated soap bar in 3 pints of water over low heat. Add washing soda & Borax. Stir until thickened and remove from heat. Add 1 quart hot water to 2 gallon bucket. Add soap mixture and mix well. Fill bucket with cold water and mix well. Set aside for 24 hours or until mixture thickens. Use 1/2 cup of mixture per load.
I have marked lines on the container I use to mark the water levels so I don’t have to measure each time.

Washing Soda & Fels-Naptha can both be found at A*ce Hardware.  I actually found the Fels-Naptha to be cheaper at A*ce than at the groery store. 

I will be trying this homemade detergent out in the next few days as I am almost out of my store detergent.  I’ll post the results after I use it.

Also, I have read that you can use 3% Hydrogen Peroxide in place of bleach.  Has anyone tried this and what have been your results?