Less Than Half This Long Till Christmas Again!!! :O

Hello guys! (Why do I always start posts that way?) Anyway, this morning, our relatives from NY (who were down here all weekend) went home. We had alot of fun with them! I don't know about you all, but it seems like the year is just whizzing by! I mean, we haven't done that much out of the ordinary, but I really can't believe we are more than half of the way done with an entire year! Seems kind of weird to think that months can pass this quickly! But there we are! Here is a sort of update on our family, generally, and specifically-
Daniel- home from iGovern camp-counseling, working on the documentary with the Tates, working with Dad, teaching a guitar student
Me- finishing up my math book, doing some office-managing, turning 18 in 13 days, writing/painting a book for Grace, editing, and sending off a book to a publisher in hopes of being accepted
Sarah- trying to get rid of a watch tan, becoming the reigning "ninja" champ., taking care of our chickens, working every Sat. with Dad these past 3 weeks, getting her hair cut for the first time in...years.
Leah- waking each morning at 6:30 to milk Daisy, turning 13 in Aug., playing soccer with Benjamin
Anna- milking Daisy in the evenings, catching toads for me, playing with Emily, cementing allies among youngest members of the T. family
Benjamin- living the life of a country-boy, playing "world-cup" soccer with the Walker boys
Abby- Becoming fast friends with Bethany, playing spies, learning to dominate the Walker's dog Windsor
Gracie- being 3. Swooning when we play "Ten minutes ago I met you" on the c.d. player, reading, playing "Sickness", watching clips from musicals on youtube with me or Sarah, dancing while we sing "I know you" or "Ten minutes ago", playing dolls, having teaparties, etc.
Family in General- gardening, berry-picking, Dad working very hard, Mama helping organize meals for a woman at church who just had a baby, hosting company, getting ready for 3 oldest girls turning 18,16,and 13 this summer, surviving the blazing inferno around here, running a household, going to music theory class with Dad, hosting church each Sunday, putting up food from the garden, making multiple trips a week to the feedstore for our ravenous chickens, etc.....We are one busy family right now! So that is why our posts haven't been quite so exciting or interesting as we could wish! It is as much as we can do to get normal life done- not much room for adventures at this moment in time! ;) Ya'll have a great Wednesday! -Rachel

I've Done Been Promoted! ;)

Hey guys! For those of you who don't know us personally, you may not have known that we have a family landscaping business: Solid Rock Lawn and Landscape LLC. We are all very active in the business, and for a long time Sarah and I have gone out weekly to maintain our contracts with Dad and Daniel, along with helping out on the bigger, higher-end jobs. You might say that our "specialty" is high-end work. We have the landscape contracts on several very nice homes, and Daniel has gotten to be quite an expert on a 15 foot ladder with a hedge-trimmer, trimming pyramidal holly bushes and making them come out nicely without a second look! :) Here are some pictures of jobs we have done:

This is a Starbucks we did some simple landscaping for

This is a job in the "Rah-ther" fashionable district of East Beach. This is the same home that we prepared for a city-wide garden tour! (That sounded so uppity! :) Doesn't Daniel look mysterious, slinking around on the side?

Here is a sod-job we did. Last one to race onto the emerald grass and flop down is a rotten egg!

This picture and the next are of a home that we landscaped toward the beginning of our business. It had nothing. Literally bare ground, and the big trees you see. It was total blank canvass basically. We put in the steel edging, all the landscaping, the rocks, etc. We are quite proud of this one! Here, we learned that planting 500 little pachysandra plants in the freezing rain and mud is no fun! (Were you there Matthew?) :)

So, as you can see, we do some good work as a family! I don't mean to sound stuck-up, but I don't think there is anything wrong in admiring a job well done! Okay. So last night Dad sat us down and presented a new business plan. From now on we are keeping hours: 9-5.

I am being taken off of regular "outdoor" work, and am appointed Office Manager. That means the office is my domain entirely. I am in charge of the billing each month, of keeping files in order and filing new items, of typing up proposals for Dad, entering new addresses of customers into the computer, keeping an eye on when we must renew contracts, stocking office supplies, printing off any number of things, balancing the business (and home) checking account, etc. Dad gave me the grand run-through this morning, and I am going to be working in here 1-2 hours a day.

Sarah is now our "Media Director" of sorts. She will be designing a website for our business, and will be in charge of doing things of a media sort.

Leah will take my place on the maintenance crew. Wow! So we are getting a bit more official here! I am excited about being able to take the administrative side off of Dad's shoulders. He was cute. This morning he was discussing how it can be confusing to keep track of when contracts need to be renewed, and I suggested, thinking he had thought of this and didn't want to do it this way, "We could write the date they expire on the calendar."

The look on his face was so cute, because the idea had never occurred to him! I think this will be a great practice for me in future life! Who knows! Whoever marries me may get a bonus expert bookkeeper! ;) Well, enjoy the pictures and I"ll see you later! -Rachel

...And The Entreprenureal Spirit Lives On

Yesterday, instead of spending the entire day playing in the snow, Daniel and Sarah found a way to use it for their benefit. During the afternoon they went out to a neighborhood around here with shovels on their shoulders, and cleared people's driveways and walkways for money. It was hard work, but they were each rewarded with a nice chunk of money. Today Daniel and I are going back out, and we'll do more clean up. My only problem is that it froze super hard last night and everything is really crusty and icy! Dad has set a good example of a provider with this storm. As you would expect, winter is a pretty tough time for landscapers. Nothing grows, so no one needs our help! So Dad saw this storm as a good way to make extra money and leverage our income with his Kubota (sp?) tractor. He got 4 of 5 jobs to clear parking lots. (Blockbuster's, a vet place, two churches, etc.) He was pretty excited, but you can pray for several things: first, that the tractor will work correctly, second that Dad will be safe driving on these roads with a huge trailer and tractor behind, and third, that he will stay plenty warm! We are going to make the Wilson's chicken pie for him for dinner! Well, hope you all are staying warm and enjoying the snow! -Rachel
p.s. although I didn't get chance to go out with Daniel last night, I did wake up at 6 this morning and saw the most beautiful full moon shining on the snow. It was SO bright out there! I was half tempted to go right then in the dark and take a walk, but then I realized that 1) nobody knew where I was, 2) I could get hypothermia or something ;) maybe tonight!!!

Ane Daft Yang Limmer's Skirling

Hi! (the title is Scottish brogue for "One Crazy Young Woman's Skirling" (skirling is the way they describe a bagpipe's sound, so maybe it isn't the most flattering adjective for my singing!))This is me, Rachel! We are about to leave for a very spur of the day ;) get-together with the Wilsons! Yay! I don't think we've done something like this since last February, so I'm really excited! (guys, seeing you for an hour or so after church just wasn't cutting it even for the Dads I guess! :) I am so excited! Anyway, there is something strange going on with my mind- some of you may remember me writing about the odd things I think of when I am working with Dad. Well, I have been reading Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott. (It is all about Scotland and very exciting and I highly recommend it if you want to become familiar speed-reading Scottish Highland Brogue. Anyhow!) So this is the thing: maybe my mind is too occupied with Scotland right now, but the only songs I can think of are Scottish songs, and words to Scottish songs I've read. My mind was like this today:

(singing to myself) "Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonny Dune
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair"

The next minute- "I saw a thrush!
Sitting on a bush
And the song he sang was "A Jug of Punch" o-de-lie-delay!.."

(by the way, the words to the rest of it are not very good so I haven't learned it but the tune is catchy! :)

Then- "My love is like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June,
My love is like a melody
That's sweetly played in tune...."

Then, "....hmmmm (can't think of the words then a rousing: "The Maid that Sold her Barley!"


And then the words I somehow remembered from reading them in a book somewhere:

"Have Ye Heard of Kate Kearney?
She lives on the banks of Killarney,
From the glance of her eye
Shun danger and fly,
For fatal's the glance of Kate Kearney."

So I am trying to think of something else to sing, and by the way, I am almost, almost done with Rob Roy. I hate that Diana Vernon must go to a convent! But I'm sure in the next few pages Rob Roy will help Frank Osbaldistone get her out of that predicament! :) -Rachel

Now You'll Think I'm Crazy! :(

Today Daniel and I were in "the Beach" doing a pruning job. When Daniel has the trimmer going highspeed, and we are both wearing ear protection, there is not much room for talking. So what did I do today? Well, I sang the new words I made up to "the highbutton shoe song", (which you'll get to hear soon I hope!) "Lyda Rose", "Sweet and Low", and "Goodnight My Someone" all from the Music Man, a few old songs from K-love, "Silver Stars" and "Gonna' Build a Big Fence around Texas" both from Roy Rogers too, and several other songs that I hummed since I didn't know all the words. Then when I got tired of singing and there were still beds full of leaves to rake once Daniel trimmed, I proceeded to have a fake interview with myself about one of my books. (I was pretending I was someone else interviewing myself.) That went on for a good while, and then I made up some other sort of thing talking with myself. And when I was tired of that, I went back to singing. (I think I also thought about how irritating Legolas is in The Two Towers book because he is always, without fail the right one about anything!) :[
Anyway, while all this sounds really weird, I can assure you that I am not some nut who mutters to themselves about everything, am I Sarah?
*She shakes her head emphatically*
I can also assure you that I thought about a great many other productive things such as helping Dad grow plants for the business next year, what a blessing Daughters of Destiny was, about my article in TETCM, and when the first issue will be out, what I am giving people for Christmas, and why those particular customers had a game of Scrabble on their table, and were the parents playing it or did they have an unusually smart 5 year old? :) (And I was not being a Peeping-Thomasina. They have a huge picture window in their dining room that you can't help seeing into!)
So anyway, this was a really pointless post that I shall be ashamed of tomorrow, but I just thought that I'd write about what I thought about today while raking clippings! -Rachel

What we did today

Greetings all our faithful followers! I shall endeavor to regale you with a tale of derring-do, a story of mud and slop and friendship, in fact, an epic day in the life of... well, us! Now!
Our dear friends, the Wilsons are preparing for the beautiful and charming maiden, Morgan's graduation. I actually have been enslaved as a hairdresser to make more beautiful her Rapunzel-like tresses. You might say I am her graduation-maid instead of a bride's maid. (There, if that doesn't make humble Miss Morgan blush I don't know what will!) But anyway, they are in the middle of a large kitchen remodeling project, and all that sort of thing. Dad offered our services for today, and it turns out tomorrow. But anyway, our tale begins in the dust of a deep, dim, cluttered cavern. In fact, our garage. Dad had an elders' meeting this morning, so he left us a very long list of tools and supplies to gather. Most of them had rather mysterious names such as "flux", "teflon tape", "bernz torch", and others of that sort. With Daniel's help in decoding the words, Sarah, Benjamin and I gathered the tools while Daniel loaded lawn equipment, and then we left. We met Dad and Mr. Scott at Lowe's, and proceeded to spend the next hour and a half there. (It's no wonder that some have nicknamed it "Slow's"!)
After we escaped from that place, we continued on to the Wilson's farm. Sarah and I showed off our weed-whacker prowess, (just kidding) as we whacked their yard into shape. Then I used the walk-behind mower to mow the back area. We helped the Wilson girls sort out a load of pork they had just gotten back from the butcher, and did various other sorts of farm chores until near lunchtime. I was glad that I had packed my mud boots! I had forgotten how indispensable those are on a mucky day! Morgan and I went inside and set out lunch, and now Sarah wants to write about the remainder of the day....
(It's me Sarah, and just as a post-script I didn't bring my mud boots, and suffered having to stomp through muddy fields all day!:(
Anyhow, while we were weed-whacking Daniel had pruned all the front bushes in the flower beds and limbed up the crape-myrtles down the drive way and that was quite an improvement. So after lunch, I helped Maddie collect and wash/dry/put away 24 dozen eggs and then we went inside to make "fudge". I learned today the Wilson's quick and easy way to make a nice fudge and the secret is; Hershey's Chocolate Frosting layed out pretty thin and frozen til you can cut it!
(One more thing leftover from the morning: The Wilson's Jersey cow, Moon, delivered a bull calf earlier this morning, so we got to witness a calf's first day ;)
After the fudge making we cleaned up our mess; we'd been making it on the counter Dad and Mr. Scott had temporarily set-up!
The same two, had been setting out and arranging all the cabinet bases for their kitchen and had to make yet another run to Lowe's for a few things.
Maddie and I watched the younger ones inside while Morgan, Katie, Hannah, Daniel, Rachel, and the younger boys were picking up debris from the yard work and unloading feed Daniel had picked up earlier this afternoon.
Eventually I helped Maddie milk her goats and then the others did the cow milking.
Then we came home, out of the mist and mud.
And that pretty much sums up our Epic Day!:)
The End