Jumping into June

I've been spending the past couple of weeks getting the garden planted.  I still have a few herbs and flowers to find homes for, and there will be at least one or two more staggered green bean plantings, but now the main focus will be on subduing the weeds.  I'm also researching crops for late fall and winter harvests to help keep our diet healthy, costs down, and which can be grown in our hoop house.

Friends came and helped reposition the shed our neighbor gave us for Marc to use as his blacksmith shop.  Wayne hopes to get the hoop house attached to the side of the shop so it will double as an entry into the hoop house (providing a buffer from the cold air to enter and exit during the cold months).

On the 1st Wayne and I celebrated 28 years of marriage.  It's hard to believe that so many years have passed.  It's been a wonderful adventure!
   
Yesterday I celebrated my 50th birthday...half a century!?!  The girls made a spaghetti dinner and a cake for me.  It was a wonderful day of relaxation and rest.

Tomorrow the 'baby' of the family turns 8...that doesn't seem possible either!   We're going to make a family trip to Syracuse and try to get to the zoo for a special birthday present.  If the weather doesn't cooperate, we'll try out the hands-on science museum.  Ian will be thrilled with either activity, and it will be fun to do something as a family.

The girls finished their standardized tests, so they are 'officially' done with school for the year.  As soon as we receive the test results, I can file our end of year reports with the school superintendent and I'll be done for 2012-13.  School never really ends since there's always learning experiences in life, but it'll be nice to have a little less structure to the schedule and some extra time to do all the things we put off for summer.

Today we made a difficult decision and took two of the alpaca to auction.  We got rid of "Mr. Wonderful" and "Peter".  Mr. Wonderful didn't have very good fleece and was getting quite old.  Peter was a kicker and his fleece was difficult to work with.  Culling the herd is hard, but I know we need to make these difficult decisions as part of our business.  I will miss "the boys" but will try to keep my focus on what we have left.