Beautiful day!

I couldn't have asked for a better day except one small thing, that my sweet hubby could have shared it with us. It was bright and beautiful! I'm thinking it was maybe 70, slight breeze and bright sun. The colors are just gorgeous. We hit the park after running some errands and I took some pictures of color, kids and "monkeys". Charissa just recently started gymnastics and is showing off her abilities while Kelsey "hangs" along.


We then headed home where I toted camera about the property a bit before getting to work on the digging. I just love fall color against a bright sky. It is so crisp.


I did begin some work on the trench we started last week. I just had to post this picture. When we dug last week we saw lots of clay deep down and knew this was part of the drainage problem. But what I found today was, to me, astounding. Look here at the TOP layer, after the first 1/2 inch of dirt....the densest clay I've ever seen. TOP layer! This just happens to be, by far, the muddiest area. Now I know why.


I just happened to get this cute little picture of our goats. Firefly, mamma, is behind Butter, who is not so much a baby any longer. She is near ready to breed. December is the month we'll breed if all goes well. They'll kid in May.
And now my favorite story. Way back in August during the Kitsap Fair we visited the area called "Farmer for a day". This is a fun area where kids can take part in make-believe farming activities. They roped a "horse", drove tractors, milked "cows", dug up potatoes (real ones), and picked "apples" from wooden trees (Joseph LOVED this and spent all his time here) and washed clothes in a wash tub with a wash board. Charissa LOVED this! She spent a long time scrubbing clothes and hanging them to dry. Yesterday I found a pair of wet jeans(kid jeans) tucked away in a bag and it appeared as if they had been there for quite awhile as they kind of stunk. So I put them in a wash tub of VERY mild bleach water to try and kill the mildew smell (I am very sensitive to this smell and cannot stand it.) and salvage them. Charissa saw them sitting there and decided she was the one who needed to scrub them. She dug around the cupboards to try and find something that might work as a wash board. When she couldn't find something satisfactory she wrote on my shopping list "wash bord". She scrubbed those jeans though squeezing the water in and through them then rinsing them and hanging them in the bathroom. The whole time she is lamenting about not being able to grow up in "the olden days", she changed into dress and covered her head. LOL! She then asked if she could do more laundry. So we put the wash tub in the bath tub (less of a mess) and she pulled out about 5 articles of her clothing. She scrubbed to her hearts content. We hung them in the bathroom on the rod with promises of her doing her own laundry the next day. I had recently decided the girls would do their own laundry (in hopes they'd be more careful about what went in the laundry pile) and so Tuesday was Charissa's laundry day. So this morning she pulled her BIG pile of laundry into the bathroom, readied her wash tub and began. She got about half way through the pile when she kind of ran out of time. We rinsed and went to hang them out on the clothesline. The pictures below of of Charissa appreciating the Quotidian Mysteries of life. I can only pray it holds and she will always have this appreciation.


Addendum: We are wanting a real washboard. If anyone has one laying around in their attics or garages, etc. and wouldn't mind parting with it, let me know. The girls would be so EXCITED!