Two Frogs
Fade_green_to_white

2frogs.net Blog

Update on Everyone
August 07, 2006 05:19
0 Comments
Tags: farming diet and exercise web development quilting scrapbooking mike lindsey thomas kayla adam homeschooling

Life continues to busily march on and on. Today was the last weigh-in before my birthday. I had hoped to get my weight down to 220 before my birthday on Thursday. I fell 5 pounds short of that, but I’m still down 24 pounds, which I figure is still nothing to sneeze at. And I’ll get there… hopefully before the end of the month. My exercise lately has consisted mostly of working on the chicken coop, since we’re losing more and more of them to predators who are finding the holes in the coop’s roof and sagging doors. I’m building new doors for both entrances into the coop, as well as new half-doors that let the chickens out to their pen. Next will be to fix the fence in the big scratch pen and build a new gate, then tramp down all of the brush that’s accumulated this year while that area was vacant.

None of this is helped by my back twinging today. Dammit.

I’m still learning more C# and ASP
Read the whole post...
Tiny Strawberry Harvest
June 15, 2000 18:03
0 Comments
Tags: farming food shopping web development

Yesterday, I had lots of energy for some reason. I managed to weed over half of the strawberry patch (two huge baskets of weeds) and harvest a small bowl of tasty little strawberries, that were actually quite yummy with last night’s dinner. I also did some dishes, a little laundry, and finally finished the flannel jacket I’ve been working on for Adam. It’s quite cute, if I do say so myself, although not perfect. I’ll upload a picture sooner or later.

Tuesday we went for a trip into town. We took the lawnmower (which wouldn’t start, for some reason) to the lawnmower repair shop. Then we went to the groomer’s, the fabric shop, the bank, the grocery store, and the grange. We also managed to get all of Adam’s diapers, clothes, and blankets washed and put away, and have made more progress on packing our hospital bag. I’ll be 33 weeks pregnant tomorrow, so I really have to get that bag finished. That’s my project for the r...
Read the whole post...
Boring Day of Errands and Egg Delivery
June 06, 2000 18:08
0 Comments
Tags: pregnancy shopping farming

We had a trip into Colfax today. It was actually a pretty long one – it started with two stops in Endicott (the school, to sell some eggs, and the post office, to pick up a package of diapers from Born to Love), then on to Colfax. First, to the doctor’s for a checkup; then on to the Catholic church where they hold the blood drives so Mike could donate; a quick stop at the hardware store; then we swung by the pet grooming shop (we sell eggs to the groomer, but she was already closed when we got there); then on to Becky’s where we were cleaned out of eggs and I picked up a few things; then to the bank where we made a few deposits and were scolded for not saving some eggs (we promised to go to the bank before Becky’s next week); then to the grange, where Mike loaded all of the feed while I sat on my butt; then to the grocery store; then the gas station, then home.
Incubator
May 10, 2000 01:18
0 Comments
Tags: education farming shopping

Yesterday, we went to the Endicott Elementary School, armed with an incubator and a half-dozen eggs. We went into the first grade class, and Mike proceeded to set up the incubator, teaching the kids how to keep an eye on the whole process, and promising them we’d be back in 2 1/2 weeks to check on the progress.

Today, we went to run errands, starting with a visit to the doctor. This was followed by a trip to the bank and fabric store, back to the doctor, then on to Subway for lunch for me, then the grange for feed and fence posts, then the grocery store. Our last stop on the way out of town was back at the doctor’s, to do one more blood pressure check. I came home and took a nap, then checked email, then went into town for a meeting of the Quilt Guild. While I was napping, the new farrier showed up and shoed Danny. Mike tended her (she doesn’t “tie”, so you have to hold her lead the whole time) for the whole two-hour process, so he wins the...
Kittens Moved to Garage
May 08, 2000 01:19
0 Comments
Tags: farming

We moved Casper and her kittens outside today. We’ve decided to close off the garage to dogs and let them home-base there. Mike put some food and water on the ground near an old sleeping bag, and we lugged the kittens out with the mom. Everyone was very timid at first, but they eventually made their way around the better part of that garage. If Mike or I was standing outside the garage door, they’d come out for a bit (the garage isn’t closed completely; it’s a couple of inches off the ground) and kind of play around. Mom made sure everything was ok in the garage, and safe, then she went on the prowl. Within about 15 minutes she was back with a mouse. Within 30 minutes she had nabbed another one. I know she caught at least one other today, but can’t say for sure how many she got altogether. She’s still got her touch. :)

I slept better last night. And I slept a lot today. Several naps. Probably catch-up sleep. Besides that, I’ve j...
Read the whole post...
Spring Babies
May 07, 2000 01:21
0 Comments
Tags: farming quilting

It has been a VERY long time since I did a diary update, I know, or updated this page at all. There is an excuse, although I’m not sure it’s a good one. FrontPage suddenly decided it didn’t like this particular site anymore. It just refused to open it! Mike could open it from his computer (the data is housed on a common server) and I could open other sites on my computer, but not this one. It was a real stumper, and I finally just gave up on it since it was such a source of frustration. But since lately I’ve been feeling very pregnant, I wanted to move this computer downstairs but wanted to work out this problem first. It’s odd, I feel kind of out of practice, so hopefully you’ll bear with me.

Well, lots has gone on, and I can’t remember specific dates so I’ll just kind of spew things at random. Zorro also had a litter of kittens, but she only had 4. Between the two litters, we got 9 females and 1...
Read the whole post...
Spring has sprung on the farm
March 22, 2000 23:06
0 Comments
Tags: farming pets

Our farm is just growing by leaps and bounds! The broody hen we have has finally hatched all of her eggs. She hatched 10, and 8 have survived. They were housed in that infamous back bathroom but have now been moved into a separate enclosure in the chicken house. They don’t have a run yet, but they’re so young I doubt they need one. It’s on the list of “to do’s”, though.

Also, Casper had her kittens! I’ll get pics up as soon as I can, but she birthed 6 hungry, greedy, wiggly little kittens last night in the rafters right above the back bathroom. That area must be the maternity ward! I’ll have to keep that in mind if I go into labor too soon at home. ;-)

The duckies are growing like little weeds and have already quadrupled in size in two weeks. They managed to scarf down 50 pounds of food in those two weeks so it’s not all that surprising. That’s about all the news there is to report. If you’re...
Baby Birds and Volunteer Teaching
March 16, 2000 23:07
0 Comments
Tags: farming quilting education

We now have baby duckies!! They arrived a little over a week ago. When I get a chance, I’m going to update the “Our Family” page and you’ll see pictures of the little cuties. They’re growing like little weeds, too, already doubling in size from when they got here.

As of this morning, we have new baby chicks! Momma Chicken hatched at least 3 so far. The other hens were nagging her while she was setting (even climbing into the nest with her) so we relocated the chicken nursery to the spare bathroom. Last time we went in there we saw 3 very, very new baby chicks. Don’t know how many we’ll get in all, but that’s at least a start.

I’ve also started volunteering at the school. I was there all day today, spending most of my time with the first grade class. They’re so cool! Mr. Anderson (the first grade teacher) has informed me that I can come and help whenever I get the urge to. He’s also planning a...
Read the whole post...
Tour of the BIrthing Suite
March 03, 2000 00:48
0 Comments
Tags: pregnancy education farming

My, but it HAS been a busy few days. Let’s see.. well, I went to watch part of the basketball playoffs for this area over in Pullman last Friday. St. John-Endicott’s boys team made it to the state playoffs, along with several other teams from Whitman County. SJE plays tonight, and if they win, they play for the championship title tomorrow. If they win, I’m going to go to Spokane and watch the final game. :)

Hm, well, Monday we had baby class again. The first hour was spent with Dr. Mellor telling us about pain medications you could use and what the effects of each were on the mom & the baby. I’m pretty much hoping I can get by without needing anything at all, and I’m going to try. But don’t be surprised if I report needing an epidural. :) The second hour, we went to see the birthing room. Someone had just had a baby that day, so we couldn’t see the recovery room, but that&#...
Read the whole post...
Broody Hen
February 22, 2000 23:28
0 Comments
Tags: farming quilting

There’s not been much going on except that one of our hens has gone broody on a clutch of a dozen eggs that Mike set out, and we’re hoping to have baby chicks in 3 weeks. I have a machine quilting class with Donna Slusser on Friday, and besides that I’ve just been quilting along on a project I need to finish up.
Egg-Selling
January 25, 2000 15:16
0 Comments
Tags: pregnancy farming

Had my third ob. appointment today. Then went to Becky’s and sold all but 3 dozen of the eggs we’ve got. Then came home, did chores, and we’re now settling into our evening routine. Mike’s working on an article for H2G2 at present and I’m getting ready to go downstairs and continue working on a quilt. Ain’t life grand??
Shay
December 09, 1999 13:32
0 Comments
Tags: pets farming

My dog is a sociopath. The younger one, I mean, Shay. She’s the mutt we got from the Humane Society when we got here. Now she’s just over a year old, and she’s still very much a puppy. Chewsome, my goodness, that dog can chew up anything. She terrorizes the cats inside from time to time, pinning them down with her ENORMOUS paws (just ask Amanda) and slurping and gnawing on them. She’s never hurt them; she seems to have a soft mouth when it comes to cats. She also likes to “tree” the outside kitties. Finds that to be great fun. But Friday.. Well, we’ve finally let the guinea fowl start free-ranging during the daytime. They still don’t go very far — just venture into the garden adjacent to their pen — so now they’re vulnerable. Well. Friday, Mike was outside stringing an electrical cord to the stable (to put a deicer in the horse’s watering trough) and the dogs were out, to...
Read the whole post...
Chickens and Llamas Arrived
August 15, 1999 03:23
0 Comments
Tags: farming pets quilting books mike

OK, so it’s been forever! Well, I tried to make up for lost time – there’s new stuff all over the place. I would list it all, but it’s basically the whole site. Just take a look around.

Let’s see… well, we got the chickens in. They’re a little over two weeks old, and we haven’t lost anybody yet. They had their first yard walk today. Mike let them out for about 15 minutes. About a third of them went out. The rest stayed under the brooder. We’ll slowly introduce them to the notion of being able to come and go as they please.

The llamas arrive Wednesday. We finally got the fencing put up, although we do have just a bit more flagging to do, so they won’t run into the barbed wire. Danny’s fine – she’s been allowed to roam into the neighboring pasture while we wait for the llamas. I think she’s enjoying the distraction. Her only other big news is that she’s in love. It’...
Read the whole post...
New Llamas
July 24, 1999 16:43
0 Comments
Tags: farming quilting pets shopping

Happy Birthday, Grandma!

Typical overly eventful week here at Freedom Hall. Still quilting, canning, writing books, editing magazines, planting, weeding, watering, tending our growing flock of animals, repairing outbuildings, and sorting junk. I’ve also decided to open a booth upstairs from the boot and tack shop in Colfax. They had some extra space upstairs, so they’re renting out spaces by month. Mine is a 10 1/2 × 9 1/2 foot space, but I have one extra bonus – one of the “walls” is the overhang for the stairs, so I get to hang things over the railing to attract attention as people go downstairs. That sounds like a small thing, but if you’ve ever done merchandising you know that’s a pretty good thing. I take “ownership” of it August 1st, so I’ve been busily painting and sewing and doing all the other things needed to get a booth like that ready. I’ll be selling woodcrafts and cloth items (think ...
Read the whole post...
Horse Gets Hurt
July 17, 1999 16:46
0 Comments
Tags: pets quilting farming

Happy Birthday, Aunt Bobbie!

Woo-hoo! An update in under a week! What is the world coming to? ;-)

Well, the fun just never ends around here. Thursday afternoon Danny injured herself. She was sticking her head over the fence to eat grass on the other side (she’s got 3 acres of pastures, so why she was doing this behooves me) and when she pulled her head back she caught her ear on a nail and cut about a 3-inch gash in her ear. I discovered this when I went out to groom her in the evening, and immediately went into panic mode. We called the vet, who advised us to (1) put fly spray around her head and ear so she wouldn’t toss her head so much, (2) put ointment on the infection, and (3) stable her to keep her calm. Danny was NOT happy about this advice. But we did it as best we could (we got the fly spray on one ear, ointment in the general head area, and put her in her stable). She didn’t like being in her stable R...
Read the whole post...
Escaped Horse, First Harvest
July 12, 1999 16:50
0 Comments
Tags: pets farming quilting shopping

Happy birthday to my nephew Don!

The day after the last update, Danny got loose. The wire lift-up latch on her pasture was evidently loose, and she just lifted it up and walked right on out! We, of course, panicked. Drove the countryside, at least as much as we could. Told what few neighbors we knew.. met a few more and told them. We skipped the Fourth of July doings down at the park (ice cream social and fireworks display) because Danny decided to have her own little Independence Day. There was no sign of her for two days. Then a neighbor we had never met named Randy drove up on his motorcycle and said his neighbor had a horse in their yard. So the word has spread. We drove over to check it out, and it was her – 6 miles away, fly-bitten like the dickens, and exhausted. We don’t have a trailer, so we then had the problem of how to get her home. Mike started walking her home and I went into St. John to try to find someone with a trailer who would help us out....
Read the whole post...
New Horse
July 03, 1999 16:55
0 Comments
Tags: pets books farming

A lot has been going on since my last update. As you probably have seen, there are lots of new pictures up. If you haven’t seen this yet, go back to the home page and take a look – there are bridal shower photos, pictures of Danny-girl (the horse), and all kinds of other knick-knacks. Tomorrow I’ll be working on wedding photos and the wedding/honeymoon update.

Well, obviously we bought a horse. She’s a 13-year-old Thoroughbred mare, 16 hands high, brown (no white markings at all), registered. We bought her from a couple out by Spokane, and she was delivered here almost a week ago, on June 28th. She’s fitting right in, and has jogged down a little track in her (3-acre) pasture. Some time next week, we’re going into Spokane to get a saddle and a bridle so she can be ridden; she’s been getting a little restless. Mike has been easing into taking care of her little by little, which turns out to be a very good thing. The other day I h...
Read the whole post...
Gardening and Shopping
June 18, 1999 16:13
0 Comments
Tags: farming shopping cooking

Well, we finally did it. We got the entire garden weeded, tilled, and planted in a week. The plot right next to the house, anyway. At some point (we say that phrase a LOT), we’re going to prepare another plot out behind the barn for “tall” crops – beans, corn, stuff like that. So far we haven’t seen any sprouts out of our garden, but the tomato plants haven’t died, either. Mike has taken to weeding the strawberries out behind the house. Last night he even watered them. (Contrary to popular belief, the Spokane valley area, where we live, doesn’t get near the rain Seattle does. The Cascade Mountains keep it all away.)

Yesterday we drove into Colfax to run some errands. I bought some boots (picture to come soon), we made some deposits at the bank, then we went to the grocery store and did some shopping. Amazingly enough, we bought no chips or cookies – it was all vegetables and paper products. OK, OK...
Read the whole post...
First Plantings
June 10, 1999 16:15
0 Comments
Tags: farming shopping quilting cooking

We managed to finish the weeding yesterday. I pulled the last weed chunk out of the ground just as the sun was going down. Mike also got several posts set into the ground, using a post-hole digger and gravel to set it. This morning he finished the posts and strung 3 feet of chicken wire around the perimeter of the garden to keep the dogs out. Eventually, he’ll string it up to 6 feet.

Early this afternoon we drove into Colfax again. We went to the hardware store and bought some string, some garden hoses, and a few other odds and ends. When we got home we started planting. So far we’ve gotten down pole beans, tomato plants, cabbage, brussel sprouts, cucumbers, carrots, collards, and pumpkins. That’s four rows worth. We’ll keep working on it until we get the whole plot full, then we’ll probably start clearing another plot. We’ve ordered a greenhouse that should arrive any day now. We’ll get some seedlings going in there, too, so th...
Read the whole post...
We're Married (Again!)
June 09, 1999 16:16
0 Comments
Tags: marriage farming cooking quilting shopping web development books

Well, it’s official! We’re legally married. We even got our marriage license in the mail Monday. I know it’s been a (very, very) long time since we did an update, but we’ve been indescribably busy. Because of.. um.. technical difficulties, there won’t be any new pictures up for a few days, but don’t worry – they’re coming.

We’re back home now, in Endicott. We got in Sunday night and were just amazed at how overgrown everything was. In some places the weeds are hip-deep. We quickly added “lawnmower” to our shopping list. The first thing we did was start unloading the RV. We just brought everything in and dumped it in the middle of the living room floor. We’re slowly going through it as time goes by. We unloaded until we were exhausted, then we came in and slept. Oh, by the way, he did “carry” me over the threshold. Those of you who’ve seen us know that I’m much larger than Mik...
Read the whole post...
New Pet
April 18, 1999 15:40
0 Comments
Tags: pets farming wedding shopping

I have been a BAAAAD girl!! 10 days without an update! Well, I guess I have a lot to catch you up on.

Biggest news by far is our new puppy. We adopted Shay from the Palouse Humane Society. She’s a 7-month old Chow mix and is just about the sweetest thing there is. She thinks she’s a lapdog, but she’s already as big as Max, so it could be interesting. She also thinks the middle of the bed belongs to her, and her ALONE. Mike has fun working his way under the covers at night. :) They told us she wasn’t housebroken, but so far so good. Max likes having a playmate, too.

We also bought a tiller the same day. Mike’s been messing around with it, getting to know how it works and stuff. As far as I can tell, it works just fine. Makes nice, plantable, soft soil. Shouldn’t be too much of a problem to get our garden in the ground after the wedding. We’ve also been doing some wo...
Read the whole post...
First Trip to Moscow
April 08, 1999 15:50
0 Comments
Tags: shopping farming guns

Today we drove over to Moscow. That was about our last major sight-seeing trip planned for this area. Moscow is just BARELY inside of Idaho, and it’s the “big” town around here. It has a Wal-Mart, Staples, a mall, several fast food joints, a 24-hour grocery store, and the purported “Most Interesting Store in Idaho”. I forget the name of it, but that slogan was too much for Mike to resist, so we stopped. No lie, they were holding a turkey-calling class. Standing room only. We looked around; it’s basically an outdoorsy haveny fishing-and-hunting-and-stuff-like-thaty kind of place. I was interested to note that they had horse tack. :) No western riding saddles, though; only English. We bought a bunch of stuff from the Wal-Mart, including my hard-fought-for pressure cooker! I can now can vegetables. And don’t think I won’t!!

Before that, we did some work outdoors. Clearing brush is ...
Read the whole post...
Loan Approved, Readying for Farming
February 09, 1999 18:30
0 Comments
Tags: food farming books

OK, I’m feeling much better now. I had the flu and was absolutely miserable for about a week, but now I’m much better. Mike has been taking excellent care of me, including making chicken and dumplings (comfort food… mmmm). Anyway, at this point I’m just down to a nagging cough and have pretty much abandoned the sick bed. So we’re just packing up the RV as we go along, getting ready to head back to Dallas for awhile this weekend.

Friday I tried to make jelly. It was an awful mess. And it didn’t jell. :-( I was trying to make 3-berry jelly (strawberry, blackberry, and raspberry). I did it exactly according to instructions, and now I just have this really expensive ice cream syrup. Oh, well. It was just my first attempt. I think next I’m going to attack blueberry jam. No straining!!!!! (Incidentally, I’ve grown to hate cheesecloth.)

Now the big news… our loan was approved on our property! This is the acreag...
Read the whole post...
Copyright 2009 - 2010, Dana Jones. All rights reserved.
Website designed by Sterling Rose Design
Frog photograph in the header of this site taken by 8UGS