Backyard Volcano Experiment

Take a glass of vinegar and add a few drops of red food coloring.

A bottle with a couple of spoonfuls of baking powder.

Bury the bottle in the garden in a volcano.

Pour the vinegar in the bottle.

The lava comes bubbling out.

And runs down the side of the volcano to cover the towns people and capture them in time forever!

The inside of the volcano almost out of lava.

Let Me Explain Something To You

Spark is out telling the baby goats that they need to stay in the corral and not be out eating the peonies and hostas.  Talking straight to the moms, do you think they will make their kids behave now?  It was worth a shot, but about three minutes after taking this picture Giles was back in the flower bed.

Classic Spark

The kids and I went to Sam's today to pick up some Romaine Hearts and couple of other things that found their way into our cart.  Back in the frozen section a guy was giving out pizza samples.  Spark really wanted one of those pizza samples but the two times we went by his stand he was out of them and waiting for another pizza to bake.  Sensing deep disappointment in Spark, and the fact that it was 2:00 and we hadn't had lunch yet, I thought I would surprise the kids and get them each a pop and a slice for pizza from the snack bar. 

At the front of the store the first thing Spark says is that he wants a pop.  I told him no he doesn't need a pop thinking I am going to surprise him in a minute with pop and pizza.  We start putting our items on the conveyor belt and I hand the Sam's card to Spark and tell him to give it to the check out lady.  The people in front of us finish and I look up to see Spark at the snack bar so I dart over there because now we are holding up the line as the lady waits for our card. 

I thought dang, he is buying a pop with his own money.   I dart over to the snack counter to get the card and he is standing there with the pen from the credit card machine in his hand.  When I ask what he is doing, the lady behind the counter says that his card isn't working and she can't get it to register his charge.  I mumble that there isn't any charging on our card and quick give Spark a dollar because I need to get the card and get back to the check out.  What I really want to do is say to her, "Do you think it might be because he is ten!" and make him put the cup back but I don't want to make a scene and I don't want to embarrass him.

I finish checking out and asked Spark what in the world he was thinking and that I was going to surprise him and Dancer with pizza and a pop if he would have listened and obeyed but not now.  Part of getting no pizza was that I was irritated that he was more concerned with what he was going to get than helping with the task at hand and the other part was there was no way I was going back to the snack bar and face that lady again.

He said he thought I meant to take the card to the lady at the snack bar and pay for the pop.  We had a little chat about how you can only charge with a credit card and only people with bank accounts can do that and you would never use another persons card.  I explained  how Dad and I can't even use each other's cards because our names aren't on them. 

Now in his defense he sees us use very little money to buy anything, we always use the debit card.  I was happy I even had a dollar because usually I don't carry any money.  If I do carry money then I spend it a couple dollars here and there where as with the debit card I don't do that.

The more I thought about the incident the more I thought that I have to remember that he is ten, and impulsive, and that 95% of the time he does what he is supposed to do.  I thought about how both of us learned a little lesson today and it was a great teachable moment.

By the time we got home I was laughing out loud about it because it is so classic Spark to do such a take charge sort of thing to boldly march over to charge a pop and think he would just sign for it.  I love that kid, without him our lives would be so boring.

What is left will have to wait until next year

The last week or so we have been cleaning out things that are clogging up our house to get ready for the 4-H garage sale.  Today was the garage sale so we can quit cleaning - yeah!  Every year when we have the sale I have big plans to totally go through the house and get rid of everything we don't use anymore, you know how they, the organizing zealots, say that if you haven't used in a year to get rid of it.  That is a great rule, but not very realistic for sentimental mothers.  I did do better this year and let a few more things go, all the board books, the purple rocking dinosaur, the push bike, Spark's first Halloween costume and other items that are near and dear to my heart but aren't going to make my kids little again and will just get icky and smelly with time.  We made about five trips with the van over to the garage sale sight and our house looks like we didn't get rid of anything.  Now I can start making big plans about how next year for the garage sale I am going to go through the entire house and get rid of everything we don't use anymore.

Aloe Vera Flower

In all the years we have had Aloe Vera plants we have never had one flower.  This has been so exciting!

Just a little bud on March 21st

Starting to poke out on March 27th

March 29th

April 4th

Taller than three feet on April 16th 



All of it's flowers, which look like tear drops, are extended from the end and it is 41 inches tall.  May 5th.  At least if it isn't going to flower but once every I don't know how many years and it may never happen again, it's flower lasts a long time.

AWANA Awards

Spark was honored with two awards, one for finishing a book and one for perfect attendance. 

Welcome Spring!

 Unfortunately we need a comforter to enjoy it.

Family Ties

Dancer has this new obsession with the t.v. show Family Ties.  We get it on the Hub channel four nights a week and she rarely misses it.  Just in case she does miss one she gets the DVDs from the library to watch each season. 

Tonight she asks if I thought Dad watched Family Ties. 

I said I didn't know, what year was it from?

It was from 1984, so I told her no he wouldn't have watched it because he had stars in his eyes.

Spark pipes in quick as can be, "He had stars in his eyes because that is the year the Nintendo Entertainment System came out!"

Um, no, he was dating me.  I think ten year old boys have different priorities than 17 year old boys.  At least I hope that Dad had stars in his eyes because of me.

Hiding a Geocache

Dancer hid a geocache for a 4-H project to enter in the fair under the geospatial area. 

First thing was to make the cache.  This would be a small cache, they range in size from micro which can be as small as a finger tip to large which can be a fake rock or other large container.  An important thing to consider is if the contents of the container will stay dry.  She chose this plastic jar with a screw on top.

The jar is covered with duct tape.  It needs to be a little challenging for the searcher and this tape makes it blend in in trees, grass, or leaves.

 Next she chose some items to put in the cache for the people who find it.  This is called swag.  When you find a cache you pick out what you want and then put in something new for the next people to chose from.  The kids think this is the most fun part.  She put a Happy Meal toy, some plastic farm animals, a cookie cutter, a bracelet, marbles, erasers, a sheriffs badge, a winner medal, a plastic duck, stickers, a dice, a rubber frog and a few coins.

Next was to pick a place to hide it.  She chose, with the help of Dad, to put it at a boat landing.  We walked through the woods at the landing and she chose the middle of a bush.  It is quite easy to see now but when the leaves come out it will be much harder.  After placing the cache you hold your GPS as close to it as possible and take a reading for the coordinates.

Caches have to submitted and reviewer looks it over and approves it.  She first called this one 4-H Rocks because it was for a 4-H project.  However, that is the name of a group and we didn't know this, but that is not allowed so she needed to change the name.

Her cache was approved tonight at 8:03 and by 8:39 someone had posted that they had found it.  It is a big deal to be the first to find a cache but we never expected someone to run out at dark and find it!  She will keep track of the traffic to it now until the fair and then write up her project or make a poster about it.

A Little Bit of Sadness In Our Life

Spark went out to start the chores this morning and found that Phillip, one of Millie's new babes, had died during the night.  Spark went right away and dug a hole in the middle of the yard, not sure why the middle, for him to be buried in.  We had a few tears and words and covered him up.

While we are sad that he died we were not surprised.  He was so much smaller than his brother so we were thinking that for some reason he wasn't getting all he needed while in the womb.  He also didn't walk well and when we would have them outside he would lay down often like he was just exhausted, eating seemed to make him tired as well.  He also breathed like a little steam train engine.  We wonder if he had some sort of a heart problem and when he was born, and had to eat and breath on his own, it was just to much for him.  Whatever happened, we loved him while he was here.  I try to stress to the kids that we praise God when He brings us babies and good things and God is good and we still praise Him when He takes from us.

Out Exploring

King of the hill

The ball that Dad's hat is pointing to is an eagle's nest.  The sticks it made it's nest out of are just huge. 

The white spot in front of the branch going straight up is the eagle's head.  She watched us the whole time we were there. 

Dad said, "I'm a lichen that rock."

Flintstones furniture

This is a city park that isn't too far from our house. This is not the normal landscape for our area, in fact, I have never seen rocks like this sticking out of the ground and I have lived here my whole life.

Perfect fit.

A mini Mount Rushmore.

Wood Scrap Block Mirror

This project came from the book "The Big-Ass Book of Crafts" by Mark Montano.  Yes, that is really the name of the book.  We got it at a book store that was going out of business for a couple of bucks but have found that it is full of great projects and would have been worth more than the price we paid.  Spark made this mirror for a fine arts and crafts project for 4-H.

The project requires:

• 12" X 12" inch beveled mirror.  We could only find these in packs of six so there may be more mirror projects in our future.
• 2' X 2' piece of plywood
• Scraps of wood.  Not having any scraps Dad cut a bunch on the table saw
• Wood glue
• A can of Krylon Acrylic Crystal Clear spray
• Sand paper if you want to sand all those little blocks of wood.  Spark said "no thank you" to that part, it would have taken days to sand them all
• A hanger for the back

Measure where the exact center is on the board and glue the mirror down.  Start arranging the wood pieces around the mirror.  This is some what of a puzzle to get as many pieces on as possible.  Spark started by the mirror and made sure that the edges of the mirror were completely covered and the pieces were flush with the edges.  It took a good couple of hours to get the whole board covered as well as he could with the pieces.  Working out from the mirror worked the best.

This is just a few of the wood pieces, it took a whole lot!

After all the pieces are put down with only small gaps here and there glue them all to the board starting at the mirror and working to the outside. 

Let the board sit at least over night to dry.  Spray the board with the Krylon spray to make it shiny.  Do this OUTSIDE because this stuff smells awful.  Spark brought it back inside awhile after he sprayed it and the smell was still to much for us.  Give it a couple coats of spray being sure to get all the surfaces of the wood because now they are jutting out at different levels. 

Put a hanger on the back and you have a one of a kind masterpiece!!

Millie's New Babies

Millie was due to have these babies on Saturday.  We kept checking on her but no babies.  We thought having them on Sunday would be cool because it was Easter and my mom's birthday.  Nope.  Yesterday was the most beautiful day, warm and lots of sunshine.  She just layed sunning herself out in the corral chewing her cud.  We even left her out until dark in case she would go into labor it would be easier for her to have them outside.  Today is rainy and cold.  We went into town so the goats stayed in the barn, they hate the rain anyway and would have been crabby and miserable outside.  This morning when we left she was laying in the hay looking as non in labor as could be.  When we came home a couple hours later she had had two little boys.  They were still wet and the placenta was hanging out of her so she couldn't have had them much before we got home.  She is sneaky about giving birth, in four years we have never seen her have a baby.  As soon as we saw that they were boys the kids named them Niko and Phillip. 

This is little Phillip getting his bath from his mom.  He is really tiny.

The other boy, Niko, is really big.  This picture shows Phillips on the left, Niko in the middle and Giles, who is three weeks old, on the right.

Niko is bigger than Lola who is also three weeks old.  Millie has never had two babies before, she has only had single births and they have all been huge.  This year, not only we were surprised that she had two but they were such different sizes.  Niko doesn't even act like a newborn, he stood right up and started walking with steady legs.

Phillip has one floppy ear.  Sometimes that happens with Saanens and people will tape them on a piece of cardboard to make them stand up straight.  Both were floppy for a couple of hours after he was born so we hope that the other one will follow suit without us intervening.

Out Hunting for Tupperware in the Woods

Schools around here didn't have school today so we hooked up with some fellow geocaching friends and went out to a wonderful county park to find a few.  We have been amazed at the great parks that are near us, ones we would have never gone to if we weren't looking for caches.  This park is several  square miles with woods, prairie, rivers, lakes and the usual park grassy areas making it seem like we were in a lot of different places all in one day.  We brought lunch with and had picnic so it seemed like we were on vacation without the cost of a vacation.

There were a few of these hand pumps around the park the kids thought they were just the coolest things.  If this had been a hundred years ago they would have thought it was work.

One of the lakes we walked by had downed logs in the water and there were turtles sunning themselves on all of them.  If we got to close to them they would slip off the log and float in the water looking at us waiting until we left and then climb back up on the log. 

One of the hazards of Geocaching - prickly ash.  This is just one of the scratches we are sporting.  Dancer and I wore long pants and that really saved our legs but Dad and Spark look like they got in fight with a barbwire fence or something equally as evil.

Scientific And Natural Area

For Easter afternoon we thought it would be a good time to check out a Scientific And Natural Area we have been wanting to explore.  These areas are part of the state Department of Natural Resources.  They are usually out of the way spots of land that have remained completely untouched by humans for the most part.  The one that we went to doesn't even have a parking area, you just pull off to the side of the road and park part way down in the ditch so passing cars don't hit your car while you are off hiking in the woods.  There are no trails, or other facilities, so you just wander about enjoying what it would have been like it you were going through here on horseback or covered wagon.

It is nice to do these things now because it is finally warming up but the mosquitoes haven't come out yet, just the ticks.  It was really cool in here, it reminded me of a movie set.

A red mushroom fungus thing, these were so pretty popping up among the brown leaves.

I look back and Dad is laying on the ground behind a log.  I call back to Spark if Dad has had a heart attack.  Nope, he is just taking a picture.  You really should tell someone what you are doing before falling down on the ground like that.

Moss, I love how it makes it's own miniature world.

All the animals trails..... 

lead to the watering hole.  It was really muddy in here I don't think they will have this water source for much longer. 

The trees were so, so tall.

We did see one bit of wildlife, a snake.  He is the horizontal striped line right behind the branch.  I don't like snakes and everyone always tells me that they are more scared of me than I am of them.  I don't think so but thankfully he slithered in one direction as I ran in the other.  Dad, who is not petrified of snakes, ran after him like paparazzi to get his picture.

A few spring flower are starting to pop up.

Captain Barbosa was looking out of the tree.  No sign of the Black Pearl.

Everything is working hard to break out of it's winter covering of leaves.  Soon, soon spring will be upon us.