The Future is Here!

The girls last day of school is tomorrow and then our adventure truly begins! Our house had its first showing Sunday (they are coming back with their parents to look again next wekend!) and another showing tomorrow evening. The 142 chicks arrive at the end of the week -130 freedom rangers (the reason behind that exact # lies at the bottom of a wine bottle-never shop for chickens with a credit card and an empty bottle of wine!) and 12 laying hens-3 each of white leghorn, easter-egger, rhode island red and welsummer. I agonized over the laying hens-and ultimately picked for winter durabliity, laying ability (duh) and egg color. I ordered the layers from My Pet Chicken to avoid having to buy a large number of a single breed. I am a bit nervous about the chicks, but there is a first time for everything-go for it!

We begin living in our camper more or less full time at the end of this week. Until the house sells we have the option of coming back here for showers, laundry or as a stir-crazy escape hideout if needed. Tom and I are having a very hard time sleeping in the camper bed. It is big enough-although maybe too soft after putting the memory foam pad on top. Perhaps it has nothing to do with the bed and everything to do with a lack of background noise, or that we are sore from the extra work. Whatever the problem is I sure hope we resolve it quickly!

I am giving up on the homemade bread and yogurt (and homecooking in general) for the time being. Once we get a routine down I may be able to pick those things back up. Right now I am struggling with the transition from camping cooking to everyday cooking. I cannot live on grilled hamburgers, brats and foil dinners for the entire summer. We used the camper oven to make muffins and it worked great-6 muffins at a time!

The girls are enrolled at the small rural school. I have such mixed feelings about this. To go from 450 per grade to 30 is a big change. Some good, others not so. I am most concerned about Erin -our 12 yr old. She just finished her 6th grade year with straight A's in all AP classes. 96% in math, 100% for science last quarter, now she will be in regular classes and I am afraid she will be bored to tears. I need to find some enrichment material she can do at home. The time may come when I can home-school but not for a year or two.

The garden is thriving, now that we have had a little rain. I still have some transplants to put in. I was waiting until I could be around daily to water (or cover!)

I promise to remember the camera next trip out so you can have some visuals to go along with my descriptions! And sorry for all the ranting before this-I am going to remove most of that post to protect identities!