Summertime Is Here

I have been trying for several days to answer comments on my posts,but Blogger will not let me. I can't respond to posts on other blogs,either! I have tried resetting my password,but I keep coming up as anonymous,and then it goes right back to the password page. Go figure!

Things have been busy around here. Our garden is growing well,which I am happy to see since we had such a late start. I have two ripe strawberries,and I still need to trellis my peas and cukes. I did get my tomatoes staked. I will post pics of that tomorrow.

The boys have been working on levelling the yard and creating a swale in the back so the water doesn't drain from our next door neighbors yard through our garden area ,into the chicken pen and hopefully not in our basement so much. Today they are going to work on levelling the area for our set -it -up-yourself pool. Our grass seed is finally sprouting as well.

Yesterday we had an exciting morning. Rick and Brother B were on their way to go fishing when Rick almost stepped on a little kitten. It ran under our porch,but they were able to get to it:

We thought perhaps the neighbors cat had babies,but when we asked them about it,they said no. Apparently,though,they have seen kittens running around in the area,so a cat had a litter somewhere nearby. This poor little one is just a baby. It was very scared,and bit both Rick and I,but after a short while it calmed down and we were able to hold it. It's little spine is sticking out,so we gave it some soft food and tried to get it to drink a bit of milk. I have named it Smokey. I believe it's a male.He tried to snuggle with Moxie but neither Moxie or Little O were having any of it,at least,not yet.

I decided to try and make peppermint soap the other day. It's been curing now for about 5 days.I used the lye soap recipe and just added some finely chopped fresh mint when it was starting to trace. I  put in what I felt looked nice. We should be able to give it a whirl in a few days and see how it came out.It looks pink in the photo,but it's not. It's natural color:

When Zach got home from school yesterday he was very surprised to see little Smokey. He has such a soft heart for cats and dogs.Smokey is licking his face in this picture,tickling him and he couldn't stop laughing:

One of the other things I decided to try was homemade ice cream. We love ice cream,but usually have to watch the ingredients because of Rick.This way,we can make ice cream that everyone can enjoy. I bought an inexpensive electric ice cream maker and tried chocolate chip.It came out wonderful! Now I must go buy ingredients for chocolate today:

Today is Zach's last day of school. We went there this AM for the awards assembly. Zach was on 4th quarter Honor Roll,and made Honors All Year.Here he is this morning with his certificates and his autograph shirt:

He has had such a great year this year. Yesterday he won the 7th grade Poetry Slam. Earlier this year he won the 7th grade spelling bee. We are so proud of him!

Summertime is here,and we are ready for it!!!