It's a quiet house!

Jeanne took Meshayla, Morgen, Kara & Kaela to Bird City convention on Wed. afternoon, as those kids didn't have school on Thurs & Friday. Relyssa left with Ryan for convention Fri. eve for the weekend, so Leon & I have had the house to ourselves. I spent most of the day Thurs & Fri playing catch up on the cleaning that I don't seem to accomplish when the kids are here, then we had a really fun dinner party here Fri. eve for my sister's birthday! Just 6 of us, & NO KIDS! What a novelty to happen at this house!
I talked to Dalayna today, and she said Jessi just started to crawl last week. I'm really getting anxious to see her again, they change so fast at that age. Sounds like I MAY have a chance to go up there next month. We're looking forward to seeing Kyrie & Trey again soon too. Kyrie's planning a visit to Grammie & Grampa's in Oct, so I'll try and post some new pictures!

I just finished what will probably be the last canning this year. 18 jars of grape jelly! This is my 2nd time doing grape, and last year I didn't have very good luck with it, so I'm hoping I did better this time! We didn't get much fruit this year. I bought peaches & froze & canned those, skipped on the jam as I still had some from last year. Our 2 cherry trees and 2 pear trees were loaded, but the birds & squirrels got every last one. Not even one left on the ground. We had a few apples on our "baby" trees, and more peaches on our tree than we've had for several years, but the same thing happened to those trees too. Others in this area have said the same thing happened to them this year. Evidently because of the horrendous ice storms that we had here, the food supplies for the squirrels were depleted. We always have a lot of birds, rabbits & squirrels in our yard, but never had this happen before. Not only that, but the mulberry tree was raided too, not that I cared quite so much about that... just saved from lots of stained faces, hands & shirts, not to mention the feet!
This spring we planted blueberry bushes, grapes & raspberry bushes. The raspberries & blueberries actually had a few berries. I have to try to keep them picked before the kids nab them tho. I love making jelly & jam but I need to learn a little more about growing the fruit, as I hate to have to go buy it.