Camp and Back Again

It was a long day:

We left the house about 7:00 A.M.

7:34 (entered state #2)

8:03 (entered state #3)

8:23 (entered state #4)

11:56 (Mississippi doesn’t have a sign at the line on state highway 14, but this is the first town you come to)

12:15 (entrance to the camp)

12:23 (the girls back together)

Then seeing the Baileys, waiting in line, getting Lauren registered, unloading her stuff, loading up Jenna’s stuff that she no longer needs now that her work is over, saying goodbye to the Baileys, then the long trip home. 800 miles later, we were home by 12:30. Rebekah was a trooper, never complained, especially having no sisters to talk with on the way home.

If you are wondering, Alabama’s roads are by far the worst of the five states we were in. I-59 is a bumpy, pot-holed mess with few exceptions from start to finish. But they make up for it with their rest stops!

Weekend Miscellaneous

We are not having good luck with the birds. It seems the mom disappeared, which resulted in all the babies dying. The dad is still around, maybe he’ll start over. We cleaned out the box, and someone is starting to rebuild the nest.

There is another nest in the tree just off our porch. I have no idea what kind of bird it is. There were two babies. This morning, both were on the ground, one dead, the other still alive, but clearly not ready to fly yet. We put it back in the nest. The mom has been in and out of the tree all day, so maybe all will be well.

The deer have been in the garden already, chewing on various things. Not sure what we’ll do. I suppose we’ll try to save up over the course of the next year and invest in an electric fence. In the meantime…

Our cars turned 400k this week.

Hopefully the top one will make it back and forth to camp twice and back and forth to Texas.

May was the 6th month in a row with over four inches of rain. Though currently, we are in the middle of the longest we’ve gone all year without rain: 8 days. It was also cooler this month than last year by about 5° and included two frosts in the middle of the month.

Rebekah has a friend over to spend the night tonight. They just got back from a clogging performance that her friend was in. Lauren is babysitting a 4 year old at our house, so lots of excitement in the house. The girls have already been swimming as our neighbors “opened” the pool last week. They said the water was really cold, and with mornings in the 40s this week, I imagine it was.

We take Lauren to camp a week from today. She’s excited, and we’re all excited to see Jenna.

Beginnings and Endings

The baby birds have arrived. Feeding those five little mouths must be a non-stop chore.

Though papa did take a break on the backyard fence long enough for me to take his picture.

The girls all finished school, including their required standardized testing, today. So we now officially have an 11th grader, 9th grader, and 6th grader in the house.

And the garden seemed to survive the frost. Now if we can keep the deer away.

Comings and Goings

We think we might have babies with all the coming and going today. We’ll check tomorrow. Is this the look of a proud papa?

And speaking of going: I may be going back to the feed store for some more plants. We had a frost last night—officially 33° on the front porch, but there was ice on the car windows this morning. Everything but the zucchini looked okay today. It is supposed to frost again tonight. We’ll see how it goes.

And one last going: Jenna goes to camp in less than a week.

Water Park Trip

A couple of weeks ago, my Classical Conversations class went on a class trip to Wilderness at the Smokies, a water park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. We arrived on Sunday, and then spent that evening and pretty much the whole day on Monday playing at the water park.

It was a fun experience. I was surprised that I did the big slides because I’m not much of a scary slide or fast roller coaster kind of person, but I did, and I actually liked them. There was one that had a big drop and then a toilet bowl where you go from side to side. I did that one twice, but I guess going down backwards spoiled that one for me. It was sort of scary not being able to see where you’re going. But I enjoyed the other slides, as well as the wave pool, the regular pool, and the hot tub.

I had a blast spending time with my friends and hanging out. I’m not sure if it would have been my choice to go to a water park, and I’m not sure if I would want to go again, but it was fun to have the experience.

Lauren

Bluebirds

The other day, the “bluebird lady” stopped by to check on our bluebird house. Bluebird numbers were in such a decline by the 70s that the North Carolina Bluebird Society sought to increase their numbers. We have a county coordinator who has put up several bluebird houses (including one in our yard from before we moved here) and monitors their activities. She showed Dana how to check the box and nest and gave her a sheet to monitor the nest. Here are some pictures of our box and eggs.

The house on its pole.

You approach the box from the side and lightly tap so if the mom is on the nest, she will fly away. Then you open the side of the box…

…exposing the nest

and slide the nest out to check the eggs/baby birds.

These should hatch sometime in the next week. If so, we’ll have some pictures of the babies. 18 days after hatching, they are full grown and fly away.

End of the Year

Another school year has come and gone (well almost).

First day of school:

Last day of school:

We finished up our last day of Classical Conversations yesterday. Both girls have a little math left to do, but the end really is in sight now. And we now have two high schoolers in the house.

At the end of our day yesterday, we had a lady come and talk about etiquette at formal dinners. She had been trained at the Protocol School of Washington and has done protocol training for many years. Then Jenna’s class got to practice at a four-course meal.

Afterward, we watched Arsenic and Old Lace with Cary Grant, one of the plays we did in their reader’s theater elective class this year.

It was a fun evening with a great group of kids, which I had the privilege of working with every week. We are looking forward to next year—well, ok, we’ll look forward to it after a nice break.