Wow! Summer has come and with all its craziness; baseball, 4-H, gardening, mowing, kid camps, etc., etc. I will try to catch up on some of our activities. One fun thing I have been working on are flyers for Pilger Days. July 17-19. Here are couple new events. Participate if you can.... we really want to make this first year for these a success to lead to more fun years.

The Synchronized Swimming will be so fun to watch and do. You don't even have to know how to swim or get your hair wet. Pick a song and a buddy or two or more and go! Any age, any size, any talent!

And, this is the first year of what we hope to be a great jaunt for people to come to Pilger Days. Bring your crafts, art, produce or clean out your garage or grove. Bring your shabby, chipped paint, rusty, dusty junk..... someone is looking for it!

First fishing of the year

We took the boys and a friend of theirs over to a Pilger Rec area on Saturday evening. Gorgeous night, and they caught a fish about as soon as they threw their line in. But, they were all these tiny little "chubs" -- the worms were almost bigger than they were, which was fine since we preferred to catch and release anyway.

I had fun "catching" shots, including these pelicans. I couldn't get very close, but I thought it was quite odd to see them in NE Nebraska. Chewy the dog came along too and had a blast hiking and running around. However, I spent a couple hours afterwards pulling 60+ tics off him! Yuck!

Name that Calf

Our feedlot neighbor gives us his feedlot "accidents" -- fat cattle are not supposed to be bred, and a lot of these calves die. He knows they need extra care, and doesn't want to mess with them. And, we give them lots of TLC. Yesterday, we got the call -- you would think we would be prepared this time of the year, since this is our sixth one in the last few years, but we never are. We had to run to town for shots, colostrum, and milk replacer. This litte guy is doing great. He is a cross-Pinzgauer and just quite adorable. Pinzgauers are from Austria and are rare. His white markings are Pinzguaer, but they are supposed to be chestnut, and he seems to have more black.

Now, we need a name for this cute little guy..... any ideas?

Honey Do's & hard boiled eggs

Do you ever come up with what some may call strange or creative ideas? These ideas will pop in my head, and thankfully I have a husband who entertains those ideas and is handy enough to tackle them. I bought this bunk bed years ago at a garage sale. It was painted with thick glossy lime green, orange, and yellow paint, which may have been okay for some, but not me. I didn't have a clue what to repaint it as, but knew it would be perfect for my then toddler punks. Then, the idea hit me. We'll paint it like a log cabin and the slide a waterfall. Perfect! So after burning out a couple sanders and using Kilz primer we got it repainted. Sadly, my practice side is showing and the best side is against the wall, but still not bad. And, look at the awesome waterfall hubby came up with, including frogs, butterflies, fish, and a dragonfly. And, yes, Kermit lives underneath the waterfall. Another idea we have been working on for a couple of years was putting in a barn door for the door to my studio. I came across an awesome door on a falling down barn, asked the owners, paid for the collapsed barn, and walla we have a barn door. It took a bit, but dear handy hubby came through, and now we have this awesome door in our basement that works wonderfully too.

The latest project was some old wooden windmill blades. I knew when we got them I would want to try to hang them in our basement rec room. However, they are quite large and heavy. Well, while my mom, friend, and I were off junkin', dear handy hubby and our eldest punk got them hung. I was so excited. Everyone sees them seems to love them too.

I guess after 20 years of crazy ideas, I'll keep that dear handy hubby, even if he keeps putting fresh eggs in with my hard-boiled ones, and only hears half of what I say. At least he seems to hear the crazy ideas if I say them enough. You're a keeper. Happy Anniversary!

P.S. To decipher hard boiled versus fresh eggs, spin them. After you put your finger on the fresh one to stop it, it will start spinning again (and, it doesn't spin as easy as the hard boiled one). The hard boiled spins faster but stays stopped once you put your finger on it.

Cutting felt just got easy!

Quilters/crafters may know this already, but I stumbled upon a great idea when using felt. In cutting out the crazy templates we chose for my son's church banner, I just taped the shapes/letters on to the felt and cut right through the tape. No marks, so no need to worry which side to trace on, and the felt doesn't stretch or move when cutting in those small places, even inside the letters. It also made the felt firmer and easier to cut. My son was easily able to cut out nice shapes too. Walla!

Now, if someone can just teach me how to turn this photo, here's the finished project!

Button Flower Bouquet

A good friend of my mother's made these flowers for me and for a few of her friends. They sit on my little ironing board shelf in the mud/laundry room. With spring on the way, I thought I would share the idea in case someone had some extra buttons laying around. Have fun. (P.S. please ignore my wreath that is in desperate need of a refresh. On my to-do list!)

Our Little Angel...

It has been a healing blessing for us to share Aspen's story. These words have always helped us and we thought we would share them on this special day that they may comfort others.

Someone said these very simple, uplifting words to me, "She will be in Heaven waiting for us. She will be perfect, and she will know us and we will know her." Thanks Fr. Tim

Grande skinny mocha please.

It may have been the chilly morning and not having my coffee yet, but doesn't this town look like they are welcoming everyone with a cup of coffee? And, yes this is in April after a blizzard!

Pretty wires...

Don't all these wires look kind of pretty?

But, this all came from a huge mess that we are still messing with. We had to dig up part of driveway to lay a new power line, which then broke a water spout, and tore up some drainage tile. And, we can't park in the garage until we get cement poured, which would really be nice with this spring "winter storm" on its way. Such a mess. We even had to dig up our brick path and some perennials. :-( We we're just waiting for something to do! Ha!

No ironing required!

I rarely iron.... in fact, I got rid of my real ironing board that really only got used as a shelf, and now I have to run to my mom's to iron or just rely on that wrinkle-out spray; but, I am quite fond of this old one I dressed up a bit. It actually serves to hide the ugly space behind our dryer that we could see from the kitchen.

The letters are copper wire, the sunshine is made from square nails and an old shingle from the barn, and the fence is an old snow fence.

I also used an old wooden children's ironing board for a cute little shelf in the mudroom. Yep, about the only way an ironing board gets used at our house.