Garden and Chicks Update...

The Gardens are in full swing...

Some Jalapenos and Tomatoes are growing too...

The Chickens are Growing!!

These little ones are the Egyptian Fayoumi chicks. They're about a month old and are starting to change from their original brown to their new silver, black and white.

These are the Cochins running around in the back yard...

Eli has a different kind of relationship with these birds...

they follow him around like he's their mother.

They like to hang out in the gardens eating the ants and other assorted pests.

Evan's Wedding

This is late in coming but I still feel the need to share it with you all. The wedding was April 26th. It was beautiful and well worth all the effort put in to it. It was wonderful to see everyone who could make it there. I think my favorite guests are the ones in the picture below...

In case you couldn't tell this is a 5 generation picture. From youngest to oldest: Elijah VanZoest (15 months), Emily Terpstra (22), Jon Terpstra (46), Joan Terpstra (69), Daniel Koppenol (95). This is a very special picture to me. I don't know alot of people who can honestly say they have 5 generations still alive. Not only are they still alive but they're all still married with the exception of my Great-grandpa as my Great-grandma passed away in 2004. My generation in the family is the first to have a children outside of marriage. I believe there are at least 3 of these situations between myself and my cousins.

Okay, Okay back to wedding stuff. I was in the wedding, obviously, as a bridesmaid. I looked good in my dress, which is a good thing considering how much it cost. Everyone looked amazing.

This is one of the coolest wedding things I've ever seen. Kim (Evan's wife) won the use of a photo booth at a bridal show. Normally this would cost about $1,500 everything included. They got it free with 2 operators, 2 copies of each photo (1 for the guest and one for the bride and groom), they make a scrapbook with all of the pictures and a little piece of black cardstock that you can write a little message on with a silver sharpie ( the scrapbook left with the bride and groom at the end of the night), and digital copies of all of the pictures. Way cool, Eh?

Below are a few more pics from the reception...

...I love this one!

-Emilie

Chicks...

These are our new chickens...I love them. They're beautiful. We got 6 of them, 3 of each kind.


Cochins...2 Hens and a Rooster. They're gorgeous. They have feathers one their feet. To give you an idea of how big these birds get...When you go a restaurant and get a piece of chicken (or don't if you don't swing that way) it comes from a bird that weighs about 2-3 pounds. These birds will get to be about 10-12 pounds. They also make great pets as they are very docile.

These ones are called Egyptian Feyoumi. They're crow at 4 weeks and start laying eggs at 4 months. However the downfall of these chicks is that they're soo skiddish. They're still pretty little. Just over 3 weeks old.

We'll have eggs in a few months. I'm excited. They do a really good job of taking care of the bugs in the garden. We let them run around in the lawn and graze as they like.

HELP!!!

So, as I may have told most of you, this year I'm going to try square foot gardening. Here's how they look so far...


They look all well and good from about this distance until you get down closer. This is what I found this morning when checking for damage from the rain...
There seems to be some sort of insect devouring my plants...all of this damage happened in just one day. They were gorgeous on sunday and now i'm a little worried. I looked around in the plants for a bug that might be just hanging out but I found nothing. I did walk past this HUGE ant infestation in the lawn about 2 feet from my boxes...

It's about 2 feet across and full of ants. Do they eat plants? I planted the marigolds to keep animals away but I think the rabbits are the least of my worries at the moment...

I'm really not wanting to powder my garden with poison. Any ideas?

Good Ol' Michigan Weather...

Normally I'm totally okay with Michigan's Bi-Polar weather but this past week has been almost too much for me to handle... 90 degrees in the morning, hailing in the afternoon, near frost at night and debilitating fog to boot. Last night I sat on my roof watching and taking pictures of the storm roll through until about 3:45...

Then today after church on the way to Auntie Elaine's Birthday party Lily, Rosie and I happened upon a river running through Ivanrest. I'm fairly certain it was at least 18 inches deep and flowing rather rapidly through someones lawn, down the driveway and right across the street. I first saw it a little before 1 this afternoon and then drove back through it around 3:45. It was still flowing strong. It's supposed to storm hard again tonight but we'll see what happens with that...

Count me in...

So, here's the deal with this whole blog thing...I started it mainly as a way to share pictures of Elijah and things with my family. However, after some thought and reconsideration I decided that this might be a good way to keep in touch with my favorite people who I don't get to see as much as I would like.... I can't promise that I'll always have something interesting or thought provoking to share but I'll do my best.