Pollination

Plants are blooming

Sweet Annie's Tea is growing.  I planted the seeds this year as the tea is good to counter-act Malaria and Babesia.  Since both my husband and myself have been infected with Babesiosis,  I figured it would be good to grow a tea that will help us. 

The garden a few weeks ago.

Amazing what some rain can do!  This shot was taken today.

Brenda and Aaron,  our volunteer interns,  have went home.  We are so grateful for all of their help!!  They both told me they learned a lot from me.  They are college students and they want to try having indoor and outdoor gardens at school this year! 

Is it a hummingbird? No it's a Hummingbird clearwing
Hemaris thysbe which is a moth. http://www.butterfliesandm​oths.org/species/Hemaris-t​hysbe

We're busy harvesting almost daily medicinal plants to be made into oils/salves/creams.  I also dry a lot of herbs and use them in our soaps.  Speaking of soaps,  this is our latest soap:

Scented with organic essential oil of lemongrass. 

 The Danbury Rail Museum.....a wonderful visit that took us back through history. 

Inside the museum it is filled with memorabilia from a time past and model trains. 

An insulator garden.

This was a very neat Steam Train.  She no longer works and one of the volunteers said they would need over a million dollars to restore her.  So she sits and demonstrates a former time. 

"Can you believe we get to go inside?",  said excitedly by Joshua. 

Inside the steam engine Joshua went over all the controls.  He knew most of them.

In the cupola of a caboose.  We learned why trains had cabooses and why they don't have them now.  Thanks to FRED,  a flashing rear-end device, there is no longer a need for cabooses.
  
Yesterday, the US Postal Service released a new stamp, Owney the Postal Dog.  Joshua and I remembered reading Owney's story.   We stopped by the post office to mail some letters and purchase some stamps.  We decided to purchase the Owney stamps.   They are a delight indeed!   

Who knew that later in the day we would be standing in a restored US Postal Rail Car. 

We wondered if Owney may have ridden in this car?   This car was beautifully restored.  We now want to learn even more about the US Postal Rail cars. 

I just love how Joshua's passion allows us to learn so much in so many areas.   As we walked around the Rail Museum,  Joshua took much joy in showing his mama just how engines couple up and other connections that I never knew about.  How did he learn all of this?  Why playing video games! 

His favorite computer game is Train Simulator.  It is a pretty hard program and not as intuitive as many programs that are out there.  It is learning how to drive real engines.  Not only does he learn about driving engines,  he learns geography because he loves to look up the *real* routes using bing maps or google earth.  Then there is math,  he often has to figure out if he is driving the train the right speed in order to make it to the next train stop in order to stick to the train time table.  Yep,  just like *real* trains. Depending on which route and which engine he chooses,  will depend on whether it's freight line or passenger line.  He also has used the program to create his own routes.  I have watched him plant trees along his route and draw mountains and tunnels.  I have done some research on the program and I have discovered he can eventually make his own engine designs using the program and many geometric shapes.  It is very advanced and I haven't showed him that aspect yet.  I wonder if he will figure it out on his own though?   He amazes me on how well he does with this difficult program that I believe is mostly used by adults.

This is one of our latest soap combos.  Comfrey leaf to color the soap (which is also wonderful for your skin) and scented with honeysuckle.  They sold out at yesterday's market in the first hour. 

My sweet hubby and I celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary yesterday.   Thanks to my parents who sent us a little anniversary present we celebrated our anniversary with a train ride for our boy!   Oh my,  seeing the joy on his face warmed our hearts and made it one of our best anniversary celebrations!  What a gift!!!

The 90 minute ride was wonderful in old cars.  Great views from the windows and we went through two states.

But before we left,  Joshua helped operate some of the model trains.

Waiting on the train to pull in.  We could see it in the distance.

This silly happy face is the joy of our lives!!

Looking out the windows.

The engine.

All the ticket sales are going to help restore this beautiful old station.

The Engineer watched Joshua and kept smiling.  He could tell that our boy was really into trains.  So he asked the golden question......"Would you like to go into the engine?"  WOW!!  Of course!!

There he is sitting at the controls. 

The Engineer was wonderful.  He was very willing to share knowledge and his time with our train crazy boy.   He was so surprised when Joshua told him what some of the controls were.  He looked so shocked and ask how he knew so much about the control board.   Train Simulator!  Joshua explained he drives a SD-40 engine on his computer program,  not a GP-35, so there were some differences.  One of the volunteer conductors also spent a lot of time with us too.  Once they see how much our little boy wanted to know more,  they are more than happy to share their knowledge. 

We ended our anniversary celebration with ice cream.  How perfect to buy ice cream from a caboose!

"Coupled up" to the ice cream caboose.

We've been busy all summer with harvesting herbs/medicinal plants each day.

I have many tinctures in the making and several infused oils.   I've also made Chickweed Salve and Comfrey Salve so far.  I will be making Calendula Salve, St. John's Wort Salve, Jewelweed Salve,  Bee Balm Moisturizing Cream,  Lemon Balm Salve,  and probably a few others.

Bee Balm being infused in olive oil.

Salves at the market.

We're busy also weeding and planting more & more.  I recently reviewed a wonderful chart of planting all through the summer to ensure fall and early winter crops.  We currently have a volunteer intern helping on the farm.  He arrived Wednesday and has been a big help already.  We have another intern arriving on Sunday.  I'm so excited about having the help and also sharing my knowledge with these wonderful young folks! 

We've been taking advantage of the summer sun and cooking in our solar oven and making sun tea.

Black beans cooking.  We made black bean and mustard green burritos.  Delicious!!

Irish Breakfast tea being made into sun tea.

We are ramping up our seed saving in addition we will be selling seeds this Fall and Spring.

King Richard Leek seeds in the making.

Red Russian Kale seeds in the making

We are participating in three farmers' markets and you can say we are very busy.
I'm always adding new products and trying to enhance the look of our booth.

Fourth of July weekend markets.  I'm going to be adding another burlap curtain behind the booth as well.  This helps provide added shade to the booth,  looks nice and keeps the booth cooler. 

Our soaps.

Farm photo cards.

We had thought about going to see fireworks on the fourth, but we all three decided building a fire pit, roasting marshmallows, making smores, and floating our lotus flower paper lanterns on the pond would be much more fun. 

It was beautiful!  

My sweet hubby and Joshua made a wonderful fire pit by one of our ponds.   It is situated next to a large rock with great views, privacy, and plenty of water for putting out the fire when we are done.  

The lotus flower paper lanterns floating on the pond were beautiful.  We each lit one and launched it. 

It was difficult, without a tripod,  to capture any decent  pictures of the lanterns floating, but I did manage to get a video.  Listen to all the frogs singing.

The fire was beautiful and perfect for roasting marshmallows. 

This was the only photo I took of Joshua roasting marshmallows.  Sorry it's fuzzy. 

As you can hear in the video with all the frogs singing,  we decided to look for any on the trees.  We did.
What a wonderful experience.

This frog is singing his love songs.

Now he/she waits on love.

The love connection.

I wonder how these frogs felt about their very private moment being in the spot light of our flashlights. 

It pleases me to no end that our farm is chemical free and that these frogs can live their lives naturally as Mother Nature intended. 

The trees were covered by these frogs,  you could hear bull frogs making their deep glunks,  and the ground was covered in little tiny frogs.  The ponds are also filled with various tadpoles.

To our family,  this was a perfect way to celebrate the Fourth of July!  Peaceful,  quiet (well not exactly for the singing frogs), and oh so joyful!

The medicinal plants are really blooming!   St. John's Wort, Calendula, Comfrey, Chamomile, Red Clover, Bee Balm, Daisy, Yarrow,  Valerian, Heal-all and many more.

I am harvesting medicinal flowers/plants each day! 

While Joshua and I were away at our homeschooling conference a surprise happened in the barn.

Three black chicks and four yellow/black chicks were hatched.

Look!  One of the chicks got a bug!!

We just finished reading:  Cody Greene and the Rainbow Mystery.  Joshua and I enjoyed this chapter book.  We love mysteries but this mystery was so refreshing to read!!  As a homeschooling family,  it was great to read that Cody Greene  (the main character) and his best friend are homeschooled.  This book mentions homebirthing,  vegan food, art, various ethnicities, local and organic food.  The book also has a glossary and lists an About the Illustrators section. 

We recommend this book highly!!   

You can also purchase this book directly from the publisher....a homeschooling mom!!!

http://www.doliferightinc.com/store/#ecwid:category=1193121&mode=product&product=4776127

While you are there,  be sure to check out her other titles.  We love them as well!!

Last week Joshua and myself had the privilege to go camping with 44 other homeschooling families from all over.  Two families came from India,  several from Canada,  and the rest were from all over the United States.

We Gather For *and* WITH the Children......This wonderful intentional community strives to honor our children and look at how our children shine.   We believe our children should have the same respect as adults get and expect.    WOW,  there was so much love at this gathering!!

Joshua spent the week running barefoot with his friends,  new and old.  He climbed trees,  went on firetruck rides,  went to a Luau Birthday Party for us all,  danced the night away at a masquerade ball, swam, roasted marshmallows,  and the list goes on and on.

I loved how Joshua had a chance to play just like I did as a child.  He played  all day with his friends.  Not like today where play dates get scheduled  or you have to drive somewhere to an event, etc.  This was "Mom going to the playground,  come get me when lunch is ready!"  He would eat as fast as he could to run back and join his friends.   I loved this!!  We don't have any kids in our neighborhood that he could play with like that.  We have to drive somewhere or schedule friends coming over, etc.  When I was a kid,  I remember playing all day with all the kids around.     

We rode in the cab,  in the back and up on top of this great 1968 Mack Firetruck.  It was fun and even Yogi Bear joined our rides.

Early morning barefoot space shuttle rides!

Mask making for the ball:

Finished prehistoric raptor mask

Dancing the night away....

We had so much fun and we miss our friends!!!