Good Morning Sunshine

 A fresh bouquet of chocolate mint.
I've been getting up before the sun, to take advantage of the somewhat cooler temperatures, and get the watering done.
This morning, I cut a huge bouquet of chocolate mint.
Smells wonderful, and I placed it on the kitchen island, to enjoy all day long.

 I'm delighted that the sunflowers are beginning to blossom.
Just barely.
I have started additional sunflower seeds, so that I may plant them in succession.
I'd love to have an abundance of sunflowers well into the Fall.

 Lucky me.
Watching the sun rise over the mountains.
No better way to start the day.

 Flowers are all growing beautifully.
How cheerful.

 Garden goodness.
Little baby squash, and new squash blossoms.

The 'girls' get to play on the lawn, and get a bit of sunshine too.
They are beginning to feather out nicely.
Now... we just need to kick it into overdrive the next few weeks, and get the barn renovation finished so that they will have a home.

Yes... it's shaping up to be a great week.
Full of sunshine, and blessings.


Attitude of gratitude:
~I'm grateful for lemons. I buy them in bulk at Costco.
Nothing tastes better on a hot sunshiny day, than icy cold lemon water.
The perfect fruit!
~I'm grateful that I found some of my fabric stash.
I found an adorable soft yellow, and golden yellow, paisley print quilt at D.I.
Now that I've found my fabric, I want to make a couple of co-ordinating pillows for the quilt.
~I'm grateful that I found a couple of gallons of white paint at ReStore.
Perfect for re-painting the old wooden bench that sits on the front porch, and for re-painting the old wooden swing with.

Harvey, The Girls, & Mr. Satterwhite

 Harvey.
To be exact, he's actually Harvey 2.
And, he's old.
Older than dirt.
Almost.

 However... he still dehydrates food like a champ.
I had my sweet husband, dig through storage, and find Harvey.
We scrubbed him up, and plugged him in.
Even after all these years, he still is a workhorse of a dehydrator.

 My dad gave me this dehydrator, about 20 years ago; and that was after he and mom had used it for about 20 years also.
I tried to look this brand and model up on the Internet, and couldn't find out much.
I would really like to buy another one.... either as a back up, or to have an extra one running during the Fall.
No such luck. They are not made anymore, and haven't been made since the late 60' s  or early 70's.
Shoot and bagooties!
Honestly the best food dehydrator ... ever.
With a fan, and temperature controls, it makes dehydrating fruit, veggies, and making jerky a snap.

 A week ago Monday, 'The Girls' were delivered.
We shared an order with a friend of my husbands.
Fifty chicks. 
We only bought 12 hens.... but  all the chicks were delivered to us.
We picked out our 12 chicks, and took the rest to the friend.
25 of his are roosters.
Yikes.
He has a big ol' farm and will add the 25 roosters to the 50 or so chickens that he currently has.

 We also went to Satterwhite's lumber mill.
It's a great place to get lumber locally, and the prices are terrific.

 Of course, I noticed the cute flower hanger.
I'll have to add this to the 'would like to make' list.

 Satterwhite's has a scrap pile.
A lot of people buy wood out of the scrap pile for projects, and as winter gets closer, they stock up on the scrap wood for firewood.

 We needed some lumber for a partition fence, and we also found the most perfect log for my bottle tree.
By the time we finished loading the truck to the top of the truck bed with lumber and paying for it, all in all we only spent about $20.00.
A fraction of the cost that this much lumber would have cost us at the hardware store.
And, we never would have found the log with which we are making the bottle tree out of.
It is about 8 feet long, and 18 inches in diameter.
Should make a dandy bottle tree.

The little barn is getting a new roof now.
It's incredible to me, that after all these years, there is only one layer of shake shingles on that barn!
My sweet hubby has worked 72 hours in the last 6 days, and so progress on the barn roof has been a bit slow.
He's hoping to get a lot of work completed on it in the next few days.
New sheeting will have to be put down on the old one-bys and then the metal roof can be put on.
If I'm M.I.A. for a bit, you'll know why.


Attitude of gratitude:
~I'm grateful for getting our first squash blossom.
I'm going to baby, and appreciate that first squash like no other. Considering all the freezes that we've endured, it's nothing short of a miracle that we even have squash plants left in the garden.
~I'm grateful for all the over-time that my sweet hubby has been able to work.
Sure, it's hard to have him gone from home so much, but the over-time pay will come in so handy to really get some homestead projects done this summer.