Recovery

The following pictures show just why I love monsoon season here...it generally signifies recovery. After months and months of brown and cold weather and harsh winds then HOT, the summer rains are just...refreshing.

Peter will be auctioning 3 meat chickens at the county fair. If you can't or don't want to bid on them, but would like to help him out in his educational endeavors, you can do an "add-on" which is a donation of at least $25 that will be added on to the price of whatever his birds sell for. Or you can bid by proxy. If anyone is interested, let me know or check out najlasite.org (Northern AZ Jr. Livestock Assn.)

Miss Gertrude is his bird for showmanship.

The nuggets are loving being on pasture- they are actually active and foraging! This is the breed that when we raised them before, just laid around their feeder sneering at anything fresh we would give them. 

 Meet Birdie Rooster (knock-off of Bertie Wooster), our newest addition. He's pretty amusing, though all the kids know he'll also be tasty if he ends up turning mean...

 The "tractor" set up this year. 

Did we mow the back yard, you ask? Why, no- we just have chickens. :) The yard close to our house is looking like a jungle.

 The rows of peppers, strawberries, corn, tomatoes- making a comeback after the attack from Mordor.

 This is one of the plants that had been completely shriveled!

 Watermelon!

 The flattened beans are no longer flat and are starting to produce.

 Silly cucumber!

 Onions!

 Pumpkin!

 Cabbage

Potatoes and asparagus

 I looooove the colors of summer!

This and That

Elijah loves his cousin! 

With all his teeth falling out, he's starting to look like someone I knew about 7 years ago...

The turkeys have moved on to another home. We found out we couldn't show them at the fair after all (don't get me started), so we sold them. They were so comical to watch run and follow you like a puppy, we'll miss their antics. :)

 The cats have been hunting grasshoppers- one redeeming quality they have anyway.

This morning we hiked up Old Cave's Crater, this time with Christian who was behind the camera the whole time.

 We're tough! We can do it!

 With kids, you just have to stop and climb on fallen logs. It's an unwritten rule.

 And you also have to stop an alligator trees.

 ...And tree trunks carved into seats...

 Our still lovely San Fransisco Peaks

 And Tirzah-the-pink-hatted reindeer

 And there's our house! Ok, well, you might be able to see the bus in our backyard if you look reeeeally hard. Or if you come over we can zoom in for you to see the house. In your spare time.

 We're sooooo tired!

 Just kidding! Well, mostly...

 Cave exploring

 Peter's getting swallowed by the cave!

 Brave girls

 Climbing out...

 On the way down

 We made it!

...and may have gotten a little too much sun! :)

Tour

Christian recently led a 9 day tour of the "southwest" (or at least parts of it)...

 The following pictures are from on top of Hunt's Mesa, where they camped out for a night.

 

 Almost looks like a tide pool in that rock!

  And Arches....

And we're glad to have him back home, at least for a few more days!