summer, gardening, animals ,children and fun!!

  Here it is soon to be the first day of summer for 2015!!  The days are getting much longer now. Doesn't get dark till about 12 or 1 p.m., and then light again by about 3 a.m. Pretty neat!!


 It has already seemed like summer for awhile though. We still have cool evenings and mornings a bit though.


 Our garden is going like crazy, but unfortunately so it the weeds too! But what is a garden with out a few weeds huh!? We just got lots of much needed rain here. That is so good! Now we have to wait for it to dry up a bit and then attack those weeds! I honestly can't stand weeds!! Nothing more I like than a nice clean looking garden! :) 
  We have a  bigger garden this year with lots of variety. We even managed to get Chinese cabbage  which we started our selves by seeds in the house. So that's exciting! This year besides starting seedlings in our cold frame we built last year, we also set up fluorescent lights in the basement and I started some plants that way too under the lights. They turned out really well. I just planted out the rest of the tomatoes we started under the lights. They look great!


  The children are nearly finished with school. Maybe about 3 weeks or more left. We get a bit behind when we go to Texas in the spring time.
   Nathan who turns 15 in July is finishing up 9th grade. Clayton just turned 13 yesterday completed grade 6,and  Samuel age 11 is finishing up with grade 4. Sarah turns 8 in July and is almost done with grade 2. Then we have Anna ,5, she did Kindergarten this year.  Then our 2 youngest Benjamin 3 1/2, and Daniel one.


  Lots out door fun things are occupying the childrens' time now, besides helping with the garden and other summer work projects we have lined up. Always so much to get done in the months with no snow!  The summers are short and sweet here in our neck of the woods!  Some of our projects are:  painting the house, replacing some windows, putting up a fence for our cows.


 Yep, we got cows!!!  They are at someone place for now though. I am anxious to get our fence up so we can get them. So we can milk our cow!!  I am so happy to finally have a milk cow!! Lots of fresh milk, cream, home-made butter!!! YAY!!!


  We got our chicks ( 125 of them!)  in early May.  They will be our meat chickens come late summer/early fall.  Yay, for our freezer!


 The big weekend I had planned for most of a year was just last weekend ( June 5th-7th)  An Above Rubies Ladies Retreat held here in our Northern Alberta area!! I am so glad I got to be a part of organizing and planning it!  It was a very special weekend! Nancy Campbell author of the Above Rubies magazines for over 37 years was our speaker. She is so gifted in speaking and ministering to ladies. And what a great message she had for us.  We had a big turn out, over 100 ladies and teens, and several babies too!  Sadly we had to turn down ladies.  Lord Willing we hope to have another ladies retreat in this area though, or a family camp with both Nancy and her husband Colin.




 Now that I am not busy with the preparing of the retreat, I will put my energy in to other things  again. I want to spend more time reading great books, reading my Bible, and memorizing Bible verses. Plus posting more great things on here for your enjoyment and encouragement!


  Wishing you a very great summer! Stay strong for God! Keep Him first in your life!


In Him,
~Mae