I wanted to post something today, but am feeling as dull as this weather, so bear with me.
Ummmm..... Oooh! I know! You remember reading about my jewelweed adventures? Well, the oil was finally done curing, so I was ready to make salve! Aunt Christy donated some beeswax in exchange for some of the oil, so I was all set! To make a jewelweed salve, you take your oil, and heat it slowly in a pot. When it is hot enough, you remove it from the heat and add a handful of beeswax. Stir it until melted, and then drip some of the mixture onto the counter. When it is cool, test the firmness of the product. If it is too runny, add more wax. So anyhow, I did that much of it and poured my salve off into a bouillon jar in the fridge. But I didn't have the oil soluble vitamin E capsule that they suggested as a preservative. Aunt Christy came to the rescue again with a list of other natural preservatives. Turns out that rosemary is a great one, so when we hosted church, she brought me a bunch of it fresh. This afternoon I remelted the salve and added rosemary. It makes the salve smell so good! Now I am waiting for someone to offer to catch poison ivy for me so that I can try this out :) Presently, I have two full jars of salve sitting in the fridge all by their lonesome! :) Thanks Jessica for joining our blog! We are now pleased to have the honor of a dozen followers!
I wish I could think of something dazzlingly clever that would earn us alot of comments. The only thing I can think of is a question and answer post but I will NOT copy that idea from poor Abigail who has seen it pirated at least twice already! ;) I'll wait a few months.
Ummmm.... this post must go down in blogging history as the most boring anyone has ever read!
So very sorry old chap!
Ooohh! I hear Sarah coming! Maybe she'll have a good idea? Nevermind! I thought of something that is sort of peculiar to only us large-family people: Can any of you lie in bed in the morning and listen to people walk down the hall and know who it is? I can! I love doing that! Dear Gracie is as lead-footed as they come! She sounds like a grown-up half the time! Sometimes I am wrong when I guess though. Another weird thing I can do is tell who it is when someone is breathing behind me, or coughing. (Sorry to gross someone out, but I can also tell who it is when someone is being sick in the trashcan :/
Now to finish this off, and I hope this awful post hasn't ruined anybody's good opinion, what do you think of this blog? That's one way to net some comments! Somebody please tell us that you have read this! We are desperate over here! ;)
In the Dullest State of Mind,
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

A Brief Post on a Brother O' Mine

Who of you people reading this do strange things with your brother? I personally love having an older brother. And mine, the prestigious, Gentleman From Virginia likes to do slightly odd things with me. For instance, we sit around late at night cracking weird jokes. We love to be funny, or try to anyway! If there is a thunderstorm, he and I are out on the porch watching it and wondering whether it is quite safe to be under a tin roof in the lightening. We both love horrid, cold, rainy weather for a short season,(A day or two; rather English and Scottish you know) and we love watching dramatic weather of any kind. Also, we love taking walks in the dark. I don't know why, but everything is very quiet, and mysterious, and chill, and then he entertains me, and Sarah if she comes along with descriptions of how this is just the kind of night and place that a black rider would like, and then we get a wonderful shiver out of it, and debate whether walking down the road in the dark with only a ditch and woods on either side is quite safe. (Run on sentance...) Then we decide to try it and hear a car, and Sarah says we'll be squished, and so we all dash back to our driveway. (Living in the country is such fun sometimes!)
Let's see what else that gentleman and I do... Oh! We watch commentaries on movies, I read books out loud to him in the car when we go to work together with Dad, I make cookies and he eats the dough, we revel in the fall temperatures and colors, he takes us places and entertains us the whole ride with various bits of nonsense. (Usually he assumes some accent and just speaks in that voice the whole ride, commenting on anything that he fancies. It is quite funny!)
He puts his eye on my arm and squeezes his eye shut when he has a headache, he pulls my hair gently when he hasn't anything better to do, we plan rather naughty comments to put on other people's blogs, but we never do. We are well behaved in that respect! :)
I watch him eat hot sauce and jalepenos on leftover for breakfast. We have a chummy battle over my pickles nearly every time he wants to open a jar. (I canned 120 quarts this summer, and now goodness nows how few are left. I guess I should take it as a compliment)
We listen to the soundtrack to L.O.T.R. and Little Women, and discuss how great it is.
We do lots of fun things! I don't know why I wrote a post about this, but it is great fun being around my gentleman, and I thought I'd write about it for everyone else to read! (Now I shall begin the business of coaxing him to promise to dance with me at the Alexanders's barn dance!)
-Rachel

Of Rewards and Old Brown

"Odd's Life wot a title!" you may be thinking, (If you were Cockney perhaps) But there is a reason for such a name to a post. I thought I'd share with you an ingenious system Dad and Mama have used for us children in years past and which has just been resurrected for the youngest five of us. (Everyone but Daniel, Me, and Sarah) Basically the idea is that Mama buys a bunch of little trinkets and things that look rather enticing to juvenile eyes. (and, I must admit, this afternoon I almost wished I was young enough for this sort of thing) Then, each child gets a little chart, or, they are using little paper apples, and the idea is to collect star stickers. We do not give them a sticker for doing their chores well, rather they get one if they do them with a willing attitude. The idea is to reward them for having the right heart. So they know that at the end of the week they shall be able to exchange their stars with something from the "store" which is the tub full of trinkets. But we do have a rule: they cannot ask if they will be rewarded a star for playing without quarreling, or something else. If they do ask, they will lose a star. So anyway, by this afternoon the kids each had around 10 stars apiece. All except for Little Gracie. Sarah and I interceded for her because she hasn't been rewarded as many stars simply because we don't remember to give them to her. But Mama had bought this little plastic teaset with Winnie-the-Pooh on it, and we wanted her to be able to buy it. (She only had like 6 stars) So the way Dad handled that was to not set out the little teaset as something they could choose this week. The items all have different prices: a mystery matchbox car cost 10 stars, a packet of bracelets cost 6 stars, and various little pieces of candy cost anything from 4 stars to 1. The kids all loved "buying" something! It is not bribery you understand, just an extra boon when they do practice having a willing and submissive heart.

So that takes care of the "rewards" part of the title. Now for Old Brown.

As some of you Beatrix Potter fans will realize, that is the name of the owl in Squirrel Nutkin. Well, on the way to the T. family's house today, we drove past something in the middle of the road that we thought was a baby fox. On the way back, we stopped and realized that it was an owl! Of course, Mama stopped the car, we all jumped out, only to be told that we were on a big curve of the road and for pity's sake to be careful. So we chose Sarah as the ambassador, and she retrieved the dead owl. For some reason it was not squished. It looks like it broke it's neck, but anyhow, it was in tip-top shape for roadkill. It sat in the car while we went to Food Lion, and then we brought it home and showed everyone else. It is so beautiful and soft! I love it's feet! As Gracie remarked as she pet it, "He has a pinchy nose!" :) Isn't God's creation marvelous? I would have put a picture of it up here, but number one, I already dumped the camera once today, number two, we haven't quite figured out how to position numerous pictures on one post.

Okay, so that was our day, and please pray for me tomorrow, because I was asked to share about what God taught me this week at Daughters of Destiny in the middle of church. I am nervous, because it turns out that several people from there will be here. Just pray that Jesus will speak His words through me! Thanks! -Rachel

Lunch With The Butlers

Hi Guys! Today we had the Butler Family over for lunch. We have been trying to get together since Elliott's graduation in April, but we just have been so busy! Yesterday afternoon and this morning, we were preparing and cleaning, (we are also hosting homechurch this weekend) and generally making ourselves useful. They arrived about 10:30, after getting lost briefly (like everyone else does) at the corner that doesn't have a road sign. (Why Mapquest and g.p.s. things take everyone the Tar Road way is beyond me. It would be much easier and prettier to go the scenic way down Garrison!) When they arrived, we did some farm chores that the little kids could help with, and then we stood around talking for an hour. (I can never think of anything at first to do with people I haven't seen for months!) But after a bit the sun got us thinking that it might be nice to come inside and play a game or something. Now Sarah's starting. We decided to play Balderdash which is a game that anyone in our family that has a bit of Walker humor loves. (Go ahead, Oldest of Many, plume yourself on your wittiness) Anyway, we did that for about an hour and the whole time was spent laughing at the ridiculous bluffs, definitions, etc. It turned out that Rachel won, Kendal was second, Leah and I tied for 3rd, and Kelsey was 4th. Just as we finished, we were called down for lunch: grilled chicken Mexican salad, focaccia bread, and jelly granola bars. These are something that would be Popeye approved, as they contain pureed "spinage". No, really you can't taste it, and it adds more vitamins. So after lunch the older girls went out on our front lawn to do a couple of Civil War dances. We actually mastered the Harper's Ferry , which is a intricate and graceful dance, if done properly. Any of you girls, who had been at our "winter May Day" party would be glad to know that we did not tear up the grass this time. :) After dancing the Virginia Reel, Gay Gordon, Spanish Waltz and the Harper's Ferry (all to the soundtrack of "Little Women") it was time for the Butlers to leave. I know you bloggy people who have the beautiful blogs full of pictures will shake your heads, we didn't take a single picture with our camera. But Mrs. Butler took several with hers of all of us on the front steps. They left about an hour ago, after which Leah went down and haunted the mailbox, only to find two little uninteresting pieces of mail. (Now it is Rachel speaking. Sarah says that last sentence had nothing to do with anything. I say Hmph!) Well, that's all for today!