Rachael Eliker's Blog, page 59

To Give Life

A perfect representation of mother's day with young children!Neill Marriot recently said, Love is making space in your life for someone else...Mothers literally make room in their bodies to nurture an unborn baby--and hopefully a place in their hearts as they raise them--but nurturing in not limited to bearing children...I believe that "to mother" means "to give life."
Our ever-patient hen, Licorice, and one of her new babies.Relatively speaking, I am fairly new to mothering. I have four...

Eventful Birthday

Happy 21st Birthday Stoney!!!Stoney turned twenty-one at the end of April, so we celebrated in style because, after all, you don't turn twenty-one every day. And by "in style," I mean he had a bunch of carrots, got to enjoy green grass and a good grooming. He's pretty low key like that.
Stand still, buddy!Stoney didn't get the message though that his birthday is supposed to be fun. The day after his big day, he came out onto the pasture with a slight limp that got worse every day. I wracked my...

Master Bath

The finished product!It's always incredible to me that a space can go from horrific to one of the favorite rooms of the house with a bit of work. Okay, a lot of work.  One of those rooms would definitely be the master bathroom. Have you forgotten what it used to look like? Let me refresh your memory... So black and white.When we shared our Indiana Home Tour post, some friends commented on the heart rate monitor pattern on the wall, which I think accurately describes the former owners...

Birthdays Together

Enjoy your cake, Jack!Jack just celebrated his thirty-first birthday, which means that we've celebrated more birthdays together than we have apart. We kicked off the weekend with our first seasonal campout, which is always memorable and after recovering from the trip (camping is hard work with little kids!), Jack and I got all dolled up, dropped the kids off and enjoyed a very rare date at a swanky restaurant with a gift card he won at last weekend's plane pull. The food was delicious, the pe...

Wilderness Hotel

Our camp set up.For Jack's birthday weekend, we were going to go to a fun-looking amusement park a few hours away from us, but with rain guaranteed in the forecast to the south, we did the next best thing: went camping.
Jack set up his trusty hammock. His Eagle Scout knot tying skills don't disappoint!Now that we have our new car, we had plenty of space in the back to really jam pack it full of the comforts of home--I brought a fouton mattress, a hide-a-bed mattress, the tent, blankets, f...

Raining Leeches

Watch out, Evelyn!We've been enjoying some impressive spring thunderstorms that have helped the grass green up and scared the dog out of her wits. The one last night has taken the cake though: it rained leeches.
Apprehensive at first, then fascinating.We walked Evelyn out to the bus while our car was being worked on in the shop, around the puddles and to the end of the driveway. It didn't take long to notice the long, black thing wriggling in the shallow water wasn't your run-of-the-mill earth...

Ear Fungus

Finding some new mushrooms.While taking a stroll around the property, Jack discovered a new kind of fungus we'd never seen before. It's brown, rubbery, filled with jelly-like meat and is shaped like a human ear. Apparently they're known as jelly ear fungus and are edible, though not particularly delectable.
Knowing Jack, once he figured out what kind of mushroom it was (and seeing the body part resemblance) he plucked it off and stuck it in his ear.
Like his new ear?Jack: always good for a laug...

Plane Pull

The 30 ton plane all the teams pulled! A few weeks ago, Jack signed up to participate in a plane pull to raise money for the Indiana Make a Wish Foundation through Rolls Royce. It sounded like it'd be a fun day, though, honestly, we've never been to one and didn't quite know what to expect.
High-fiving the lady on the stilts.Since the event was to raise money for seriously- and terminally-ill children who are to receive a special, memorable gift (like meeting their favorite baseball team...

Queen Bee

The hive entrance dusted with yellow dandelion pollen.Jack can't help himself. He's obsessed. With bees. Really, it's not all that bad because when all is said and done, we get jars and jars of sweet, sticky honey with relatively little work on our part This year is the first year we've successfully kept a hive alive through the winter (hooray!), in part, because they're stock from a local swarm that showed up last summer. They were able to keep those horrible wasps at bay and...

A Long Way

Since Stoney has lived in our backyard, first in Iowa and now (sometimes literally) in Indiana, he has come a long way with his fears. He used to spook at strollers, kites, umbrellas, kids giving each other piggy back rides, poultry...and now he barely bats an eye at them. Of course, except towards the rooster. Everyone has strong feelings about him.