8-5-11 Friday…

…and we’re off to WI Dells for the annual Kaiser Weekend Away. And once again enjoying travel in our new van, looking forward to a weekend of fun and family. I drove awhile, played with Josh awhile, and now it’s my job to keep the rest of the crew quiet so he can nap awhile :). Precious little boy – still has his runny nose (going on two weeks now) but hopefully soon on the mend.

A few px the kids bypassed for their posts, some pretty, some not-so-pretty, all worth remembering.

Peaches to remember.

 

(from our trees!)

The part we hope is soon a distant memory.

:(

Another pic of the meadow/sledding hill, pre-lake stage. If you look closely you can see pink flags which mark the lake boundary.

  

Lane which will not be lane next year, if I understand the plan correctly (I think the lane will be on the east side of the field so the cows will have access to a slice of the creek). This is to the right of the new driveway, looking straight north.

 

Due to the outrage from the boys at the tubular gate for the new horse pen, we now have new tubular gates which replaced the rotting wooden ones which they made years ago.

Ain’t they fine??!!

Time to wash the roof!

(No, Kate is not stepping on the telephone wire although it certainly looks like it. I guess that’s called trick photography…and it definitely was not intentional!)

Dad & I enjoyed the beautiful sunrise when we walked this morning.

The Hereford and her heifer twins are confined for a time so we can watch them more closely, making sure they’re both nursing ok…

…which they are, so far.

Kitten crop is still doing fine :)

Another not-so-pretty.

8-4-11 Randomness

<Tori>

There’s hasn’t been much going on here this week. This evening Dad and Mom went out for supper, Levi, Jesse, Jacob, and Ben went down to Sauder's to go fishing, and the rest of us hung out here. Tomorrow we are headed to WI Dells for the Kaiser Getaway. It should be a fun weekend, with lots of swimming, late nights, and fun with family.

Two of Kaitlyn’s sphinx moths hatched.

 

Some bug that Kaitlyn caught.

 

The entrance to the lake was put in this week.

The pasture before the lake is dug, facing southeast.

Looking north from near the bridge.

 

Looking south from the top of the hill.

-

Honey-grilled chicken, one of our favorites.*

Jacob after working with the calves awhile.

 

*Honey-Grilled Chicken

5# skinless chicken pieces (we prefer thighs, wings, legs)

Marinade:

3/4 cup honey

1 cup water

1 cup vinegar

1 cup ketchup

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 Tablespoons salt

1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/2 teaspoon soy sauce

2 Tablespoons prepared mustard

1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

Mix marinade ingredients and pour over chicken. Marinate overnight or a couple of nights. Cook over indirect heat for 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours, turning occasionally. Do not grill on foil.

(indirect heat = turn outside burners on high, but place meat on inside grates on which burners are left off)

[from Mom: This recipe is one of our favorite suppers, all except DAD!!! The original recipe used sugar, but I modified it to use honey instead, and the result was wonderful, very sweet and juicy.  And SIMPLE which is big for me. I’m not a huge chicken fan myself, so I thought I was doing pretty good to find a recipe that the kids liked and I liked too. I mean, REALLY liked, like we can have it once a week and no one ever gets tired of it! EXCEPT DAD!!!!  He HATES it!!! So he gets a hamburger or steak instead :). (Is he pampered or what?!!!!!)(Of course HE IS!  He’s DA’ DAD!!!!!!)]

8-3-11 Calves

by Jacob

This year 4 out of our 9 cows have had calves, but we have 5 calves. One of them had twins!!

Twins!

 

(p.s. from Mom: while we were at church tonight another calf was born!!!)

8-2-11 Ben’s Garden Report

I pulled my last onion. In this picture I'm holding it about a foot off the ground.

My corn is not growing much. It will probably start dying soon.

I picked off some ripe tomatoes today. In the corner of this picture is Mom’s mint.

Pretty soon my soybeans should have pods.

My potatoes are probably getting big underneath. In the corner is my maple tree; it’s about nine inches tall.

These are Grandpa Kaiser’s beans. They have pods on them.

 

8-1-11 Sunday Night

by Kaitlyn

Sunday night A. Sarah came for supper and the evening. She told us about this park that she had found off the internet and said it was in Pekin. A. Sarah said it was a great park and we would love it (which we did!!). We left right away and we were there in about 20 minutes. It is open until 11:00 pm so we had plenty of time to play! This park was by the riverfront so the boys(Levi) wanted to fish. It was a 5 or 10 minute walk down to the riverfront so we didn’t have to worry about the kids going down there!! It was lots of fun.

The park had these water fountains that the little kids loved (big kids too!!). We were the only people there at the time but later some other people came too.

Josh is amazed!! So cute!!! A. Sarah said that this was here so we took the 3 little kids’ swimming shorts!!

One of the fountains shot diagonal across them all!!

 

Josh kept trying to drink the water:(!

Pretty pleased!!

Pretty pleased too!!

Sarah is pretty pleased also!!!

Jess is content to watch!!

Levi took his fishing things so he could fish. Jacob fished also! Jesse and Ben went out later.

Everybody going to where the boys were.

Levi re-baiting the hook. All he got was some bites. He said he was glad he went anyway!

The railing was about 3 inches apart so know one was going to fall there!!

Jacob got into fishing!

We were going to have brownies and ice cream at home but we decided to take it with us. We put it into  a cooler and it was fine!

Everybody had a great time on the play ground.

The slides were very sticky. Looks like Jesse is having a great ride!!

These slides were very steep!

Jewel playing on the little mountain.

Standing on the monkey bars!!

Dad and Mom sat and watched!(and took pictures)

Levi was out on the pier and called Dad and said the  barge was moving. So we got our stuff and ran to the pier! Mom walked behind and took this picture of us all watching.

Thanks A. Sarah!!