I always look forward to Monday: the start of a new week and routine. Weekends are wonderful with Adam home but there isn’t much routine. Don’t misunderstand; it isn’t chaotic but we are very busy and we never know what project will jump to the top of the priority list by the time Saturday arrives. I’ll let you guys guess by the end of this post which task you think will “go to the head of the class” for this upcoming weekend.
I didn’t sleep well last night and I was awake by 4:20 this morning. This might sound odd, but I was excited about having an extra hour to myself. I was able to read and study my Bible, milk Reba, read a chapter in a book, go for a walk and start a load of laundry. The kids’ alarms went off at 6:30 and they were diligently out feeding/watering animals as I was wrapping up my morning duties outside. I was thinking, “Yeah! We are going to rock this school day!” We had plans to go to the library and swim with friends after lunch so I was excited about finishing our chores and school before heading to town.
Well, the Lord had different plans. I was outside hanging the second load of laundry and I heard a car honk several times on the main road. This might not seem abnormal to you guys but when you have two Houdini dogs, my red flag went up immediately. I walk around to the front of the house and I don’t see those two rascals. I called the reinforcements out (children) and the dogs were nowhere to be found. I told the kids to start their Spanish class while I drove around the neighborhood looking for the dogs.
I’ll spare you the details but I drove around for thirty minutes with no luck. But on my last circle around, I saw a beautiful bunch of elderberry that I couldn’t leave behind. Then on my way back to the house, there was a turtle in the road. I put the elderberry in the front seat and the turtle in the back and headed home. When I arrived home, the kids came out and said “Mama, the Spanish lesson was short, so we did Biology as well.” And then they headed out to Woven Hand Wood (more details to come on that soon) to look for the dogs. Turns out they were out there frolicking the entire time.
You might be wondering while I provided so many seemingly useless details. Here is why: instead of coming home frustrated with the dogs, frustrated with the loss of thirty minutes of my precious time, I decided to look at the silver lining. I went straight to the kitchen, de-stemmed the elderberry and made a beautiful, aromatic, delicious elderberry tea (cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, lemon juice, turmeric, ginger). The kids were forced to be more independent in their lessons today because I was unavailable. We are beginning a study of turtles with our nature group for September, beginning Friday. We now have a live specimen to study. So we set aside our normal school subjects (minus Bible) and focused on studying this Panhandle Box Turtle. The kids created a beautiful habitat for him (I have a video of his habitat but pictures don’t do it justice. They fastened three rabbit hutches together. They buried a pan for his pond and planted plants around the pond. They made a “play” area for him with a log and then a “sleep” area for him with a glass jar filled with rocks). They sketched drawings of him. We learned what he likes to eat, what his habits are and how we can best care for him over the next month. And we will forever remember this day. Graham said to me later, “Isn’t it so neat Mama that because the dogs got out, we were able to find the turtle!”
I want to create a habit in myself of seeing the good and being thankful for the interruptions that sometimes seem like a frustration. I want to see the silver lining.

When I was growing up, I knew people that went scalloping every year a few hours from our house. I always intrigued but had never given it much thought. So when our friends who go scalloping every year left on their annual camping trip near Port St. Joe, I jokingly mentioned that it would be fun for us to head over for a day trip and experience this adventure called scalloping. Then I looked at the distance and decided that spending 5 hours in a vehicle in one day just didn’t seem worth it. My friend kept sending me these amazing pictures and videos -hundreds of hermit crabs scurrying on the shore, the movements of a living sand dollar, the RV spot where they were parked, the private pier and beach with NO high rise condos and tourists- and it kept getting harder to not go. Her gracious husband, bless him, mentioned that they would sacrifice their bed and move kids around to accommodate our family and we would all spend the night together in their Airstream that sleeps 6 people. He sent that text at 9am Sunday morning and we left by 2pm Sunday afternoon (Adam had to work yesterday so he wasn’t able to go this time). I have to say, it is one of the best 24 hours I have had in a long time.

Their camping spot was on the Gulf side of a strip of land between St. Joseph’s Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. We arrived late in the afternoon and decided to go exploring right away (after the ladies prepped burgers and veggies for dinner). We took the inflatable boat to a deserted shore to explore and have a nature walk. There were several protected sea turtle nests but we also found a few nests where the turtles had already hatched. We saw a pair of bald eagles and found their tracks in the sand. We chased ghost crabs, handled a dead jellyfish, collected beautiful shells and finished by walking the shore as the sun was setting. The kids had fun naming a fresh water pool The Nile because it was reddish in color, they made a fort around some abandoned cement pilings, they climbed fallen limbs and trees, and ran and splashed in the Gulf. We headed back to cook dinner: homemade burgers with a mix of homegrown pork and local beef, potatoes, broccoli, brussel sprouts and homemade fig bars. It was quite late so the kids got ready for bed and the adults went and sat on the pier; we could see every star in the sky. There was a lovely breeze coming off the ocean and it was such a peaceful time.

Monday morning we spread fruit and nuts on the outside table for the kids to graze on while us ladies walked the beach with our coffee and her husband went fishing. The kids grazed and played in the Gulf and we returned to make a delicious spread for breakfast. We knew it would be a long day in the sun and we needed to fuel our bodies to last until a late lunch. We cleaned up and started to pack for a day in the bay scalloping. Her husband took Madelynn and Graham by bike (there were only 2 helmets) to the boat launch and the rest of us drove to a nature trail that led down to the bay. We saw so many beautiful things on our nature walk: tiny toads hopping around, Willow Apple Gall fly on Sand Oak trees, wild false rosemary, large flowered rosemary and camphor weed.

We waded into the bay and hopped (easier said than done, trust me) into the boat to find the best spot to scallop. This was our first time snorkeling; the kids caught on quickly but I had difficulty convincing my brain that I wasn’t drowning since my nose was covered. I lasted about 15 minutes but I’m glad I was able to experience it! We sat and watched the kids explore, scallop and find amazing things in the water that we had never seen before; eels, sea urchins, scallops, puffer fish, horseshoe crabs, huge blue crabs. A few of the younger kids were stung by multiple jellyfish so us ladies took 4 kids back to the camper to begin lunch. The older 2 boys stayed with the husband and they hit the jackpot with scallops. We made a grazing lunch of homegrown ham, cheese and veggies to hold us over until the boys returned. About 3pm they returned and all the kids went to the Gulf to play while the adults sat around outside and cleaned the scallops. We cooked scallops and mackeral for an early dinner. It was delicious!

After dinner, we headed home for our almost 3 hour drive. The 2 younger kids were asleep in the first 30 minutes, then Graham finally fell asleep and Kathryn and I chatted until about 30 minutes from home. We made so many memories and we plan to spend this week learning about all of the things we saw and experienced. Zeb had already nature journaled two things this morning before breakfast.

Buzz first arrived on the homestead the same day Reba arrived, last November. Buzz was a Nigerian Dwarf and he was a “wether.” That means, he was a castrated male. We brought him home with Reba as a friend for her; goats are herd animals and very social so they don’t do well by themselves. We told the kids that Buzz would be a temporary part of the homestead because our goal was to have two dairy goats. Well, we sold Reba’s twins a little over a month ago and we found out about a Nigerian/Saanen doeling from the same breeder who sold us Reba. He was very gracious and told us to let him know when we were ready to pick her up. We sold the twins but we kept putting off picking up the doeling because the kids weren’t ready to part with Buzz quite yet. We had many family discussions about our goals at Milligan Hill and how we gave Buzz a good life and it was time for him to give back to us. Everyone was finally on board so last Friday we picked up Lena. She is beauty and slowly adapting to life here.

Today we planned to help a friend process his chickens and he agreed to help us process Buzz. One of our goals all along was to use any extra goats we have for meat but as with any new skill, it seemed overwhelming. After a long morning of processing 11 chickens and bagging the meat, livers, hearts, feet and heads, we were ready to begin with Buzz. It was hot and everyone was tired but the guys pushed through and finished the job. We are excited to try the meat and we are so thankful for this animal and the life he lived and the meat he provided for our family.

After everyone left, we cleaned the kitchen, packaged the meat, took showers and then rested for a few hours. We milk Reba at 5pm, so we headed back out around then to clean up buckets, bury organs and blood and put processing equipment away. I didn’t help process the animals today but I did clean out all the bloody, feather-filled buckets. We will all rest well tonight.

It’s been awhile since we have posted consistently so here are some pictures from July. We have an toddler into the mix as well; a dear friend is on bed rest during her pregnancy and we are helping care for their daughter. It’s been fun having a little one in the house again!