IT FLOATS!

Warren started working on The Boat this spring when Phil and Rachel got back to Homer. The family got a quick tour one afternoon when he was dropping off his tool trailer. The engine room is an amazing feat of engineering and so shiny and clean.

Warren showing where the solar panels are going to go on the flying bridge. It also has wind turbines and generators when all else fails.

Rachel has done an amazing job with the decorating. The inside just blows you away, between Warren's wood work and the interior design she and Phil put together, it is truly amazing.

Looking from the living room toward the bridge, galley on the left and wet bar on the right. All the interior wood is solid walnut Warren milled and finished.

The floor is walnut and ash strips. The stairs to the staterooms is at the far end of the wet bar. Rachel made all the drapes, cushions and mattresses.

Wet bar

Galley

Stateroom

Shower door detail

Sunbathing on top deck

June 15 was a low tide, minus 4.3, so that was the day to get the Miss Anne Marie in the water. Warren called and I took our kids, plus a few extra, out on our boat to watch. We had to wait for the tide to get high enough to float her off the trailer.

Waiting

Waiting

Waiting

Time to tow

There she goes!

Free!

They still have some work to do, getting the water system up and running and a few other details. Phil ran her around and tied up in the harbor, it looks huge next to the dock. They are living on the boat until it is finished and the plan, for now, is to run it down to Seattle by this fall.

Warren is an amazingly talented man. For those who may not know, Warren started working on this boat when Emerald was about 6 months old. He fiberglassed the hull and had a hand in just about every part of the building. It was a great project to work on and he loved having a place to showcase some of his best work. He learned so much and we have been incredibly blessed to get a chance to work with Phil and Rachel.

  

Spring Activities

Spring was filled with many activities some of which were photographed, and most of which were not. Warren has enough experience working the backhoe that he feels comfortable giving "rides". I was forced into taking a turn and it wasn't too scary, it was like a little roller coaster ride. 

We hatched a batch of chicks from our eggs in our incubator. Most of the eggs hatched and the chicks were so cute. The girls had a great time teaching them tricks and getting them nice and tame. They eat from your hand and fly up to sit on your shoulders.

 

 

Our 4-H club has gotten us interested in Geocaching and we have done a few hunts and fewer finds but we have a lot of fun. We planted our own cache this winter and try and keep it maintained. This was a great hide but the can had been put in the hole upside down and the snow melt soaked all the stuff inside. Everyone found something to trade even though it was wet.

Emerald started taking horse riding lessons with the Tutt's this spring. They have a cute little Shetland named Rachel that is just her size and she is learning to take care of her hoping that we will get to borrow her for part of the summer.

My girls were begging for play dresses so they could be like the Ingall's in the Little House Books. My mom offered to make them some dresses. They came right before Easter and they were so cute I made the girls save them for Sunday dresses. They had some hand-me-downs that were worn and not near as nice to use for play dresses. The girls love to wear them and tell everyone that they are home-made.

She also made Jayce a shirt and it was a good thing. He was playing the piano for the Easter Musical at church and his other dress shirt was too small. He looked very sharp. Jayce and his cousin Brandon were part of the trio that played the 6 songs for the musical. They did an amazing job and it was fun to see them rise to the challenge.

May Recitals

May was filled with the kids showing what they had learned during the year.  Emerald and Jayce joined Kathy Beachy's piano students recital.  They are the only students Shelly Erickson has, we are privileged, so we enjoy joining Kathy's recital.  We used the new stage at church and it was beautiful.  There were 16 performers and they all gave a very nice performance.

Kathy made a beautiful cake which we enjoyed with my relish and fruit trays.  We thoroughly christened the wonderful new foyer with crumbs.  Mary Epperson, who was Shelly's piano teacher also had a young student that participated.  He and Jayce are looking forward to play some duets together. 

At the end of the month Alectra and Alexis showed some of their new dance skills.  They started in dance in November and loved the class, teacher, and the other students. The class is a wonderful blend of traditional ballet and body movement awareness.  I've seen a lot of improvement in the girls balance and coordination.

Alectra

Alexis

Getting ready to waltz

Doing a reel

  

 

 

The Class

Easter Musical

I didn't get any pictures of the musical but I "borrowed" some from Kathy Beachy's blog for you to enjoy. "The Easter Lily" was a multi-age musical with participants from 4 to 80 years old.  I had a lot of help and everyone put the effort in to make it a great show and lots of fun.  The new stage was fun to work on.

Dress Rehearsal

Flower garden

Emerald had the lead girls part as the Easter Lily in Grandma's flower garden.  The rest of the girls made up the garden and the boys were a frog and a spider.  The story tells of two boys who break the Easter Lily playing ball and their Grandma forgives them and tells the Resurrection using the lily as a metaphor.

Choir

"Mom" and the two boys

Hoop House

With spring on the way we could finally finish getting the hoop house ready. We found out the NRCS changed the contracts and we were allowed to use electricity and put a dubble layer of plastic over the top.  Warren got busy and got it all fixed up before it was time to plant.  We put ceiling fans down the middle and installed an exhaust fan in this end with a motorized louver waiting to get installed on the opposite end. 

It has roll up sides but the ceiling fans are set on a thermostat so they come on when the temperature reaches 65 degrees.  The exhaust fan comes on at 80 and shuts off at 70.  The hottest I've seen it so far is 115 degrees when I didn't get the side up soon enough in the morning.  Thankfully it is finally warm enough outside I can raise the east side a little on cloudy days without making it too cold.

The weeper hose gave us a lot of trouble. The first batch we bought kept splitting and flooding everything. So we went to the local store (Ulmer's) and bought a whole new set.  That set has been much more reliable.  The water come in the center aisle and T's to the outer aisles, where there are four way valves to control each half row.  There are two aisle along the outside but they are hard to walk in since the sides slope inward.

The next difficulty we had was getting the weed block fabric to stay where it was supposed to.  We ended up splitting it into 6' strips and using lots of ground staples to try and keep it in place. We try to walk lightly without steping on the side of the beds. It still moves quite a bit, but it's working.

Emerald has been my number one helper.  She is out with me watering, weeding and planting almost every day.  She has been wishing for a paying job that she can do well.  She is great to work with.  The kids each have an end of a row that they planted and take care of, Emerald's is the nicest by far.

So far we have flowers at the top of every row.  Row 1 has spinach, lettuce, cucumbers, peas, limas and the sweet potatoes are just about ready to go in.  Row 2 (where the flats are sitting) is green beans, corn, pumpkins, squash, with lots of room for anything else I can find. Row 3 is dill, basil, tomatoes (stakes), peppers (that aren't out of the flats yet), egg plant, and garlic that gets planted this week. Row 4 is onions, broccoli, cauliflower, brussle sprouts, cabbage, turnips, red beets, more onions and my potatoe experiment.

Warren thinks I need more of everything so I keep starting more plants.  I'll be interested to see how long I can harvest this fall so I'm going to keep planting.  I would love to have fresh spinach for my birthday. I knew having a space that is 30 feet by 96 feet would be a lot of work and it is but it is also fun.  Plants are an amazing gift from God.  Every day I'm amazed at what they do and how yummy they can be.