Cherry Pickin' Fools

Dallan, July 12 2009 The heat has struck and My over sized body has complained bitterly. I got dehydrated this last weekend, and my body started having contraction and pains, “and trembling and flutterings all over. You don’t know how I suffer with my poor nerves and all“. Anyway the Doctor ordered some tests and the test came back that I was still in the clear to not try and deliver way ahead of schedule for which we are grateful. And I have been kicking my feet up much more often and having great big glasses of ice. My over active baby house has since calmed down and I am not able to stay down with my feet kicked up for very long. My family still thinks that 3 meals a day should magically happen. Nobody else thinks that it is their responsibility to change any sort of smelly diaper. And the laundry doesn’t do itself you know. Not to mention the need to milk goats and hoe the weeds in the gardens, mow the yards and get the water on the pastures.
So even though I am “taking it easy” I realized that on Wednesday night that the Cherries were on, and the immediate need to pick cherries was before me. The birds like to pick cherries and do not share well with their neighbors as Jon and I learned last year. So I woke up early on Thursday morning and With the help of my kids and a couple ladders we went to work. Jon’s Mom and Sister, Julie, came later in the day and picked a bunch, and my tenants, the Millers, picked for a while with us as well. I gave each of them an ice cream bucket full of cherries and then I headed in out of the heat and started the real work of canning them. Jon’s Mom found some Cherry pitters at a store and bought them and brought them over and we spent a long time cleaning the cherries, and pitting them, and then putting them in bottles and all that is associated with canning. I have 16 quart jars now filled with cherries. I made a pie with some of the cherries and Jon said “It was the best cherry pie he had ever had, even if it was full of pits.” (the kids had ‘helped’ pit those cherries and were not very thorough ) That says a lot coming from my husband who never likes pie and never compliments a pie. I made some juice with some of the cherries with my new juicer and decided that I would not try that again. The cherries are too sour to make into juice. IT takes A LOT of sugar to make it taste yummy.
I forgot to tell you a story about our last camping trip. Erica and Hunter and I were on a 4 wheeler ride and about halfway through the ride I told Erica to watch for deer and elk and other animals. Well a minute later she says “MOM! Look! A Horse!” I knew we were camping in an area where people bring their horses for a ride and I turned to look fully expecting to see a horse and instead it was a doe! Hunter was super excited and we chased after the doe for a while. So next time we go looking for wildlife I am going to tell my kids to look out for horses as well.
To the delight of my kids and my husband Today is and EGGcellent day. After months of taking care of chickens the chickens have laid 2 eggs today. The first eggs on our Woodin Nickel ranch. If I had any idea that finding eggs in the chicken coop would have brought such glee to my family I would have planted a bunch of Easter Eggs out there just for the kicks and giggles of it.
William has joined the ranks of “relocation engineer.” All of my kids are part of this society. And Will does not want to be left out. He is not as avid of a relocation engineer as my niece JET was but he is starting to move things around. He is also not shy about eating anything off of the Kitchen floor. I am going to great lengths to try to keep food up off of the floor but William and Hunter are both equally good at throwing most of their meal under the table so as to have access to it at a later time.
Erica continues to claim Jon as her Favorite Parent and Dubs him as “cool” and told her Grandma Woodin that She would be friends with her “ONLY on her Birthday” so as to obtain a gift from Grandma. That girl is definitely trying to work the system but hasn’t figured out ALL the angles yet.
Marcus is growing like a weed. If Stiles wasn’t as well I would almost swear that Marcus would pass him up any day. In the mean time Marcus is this tall skinny kid with no meat on him what so ever. And I can’t keep that boy inside for nothing. His skin is turning browner by the day and his hair continues to sun bleach. His eyes are still as big as ever but I think one day he might actually grow into them.
Hunter continues to look like a battle field. The mosquito bites are still all over despite dressing him in long-sleeved shirts and pants. At church today I was asked by at least 4 different people if he is getting over the chicken pox. I tell them they are just mosquito bites and they give me this look like “you bad mother, don’t you know how to protect your kid from that” and I tell them he gets outside when I don’t realize it and gets eaten. And most of the time he does get covered in DEET but it only takes about 10 minutes with out it and he is MR Acne face again. I do have to tell you about him falling asleep when we were camping though. I realized that I had not seen Hunter for about the last 10 minutes and so I started looking for him. I got up and walked around and checked all of the places he had been playing and was just not seeing him. About the moment I decided that I should perhaps enlist the help of the other campers in my search for Hunter one of the older kids who was walking through the meadow calls out. “HEY there is a kid asleep here, with his face in the mud!” I was so relieved and felt so blessed because the meadow is a pretty big area and the grass would average about knee high on an adult. We could have walked right by him looking for him a ton of times and never found him because the grass was so tall. And sure enough his face was down in the mud. So I scooped him up and took him back to the camper and tucked him in for a much needed NAP!
Stiles deserves a huge KUDOS for all the hard work he did this week to help me. HE picked and picked and picked Cherries and then he cleaned them and pitted them endlessly and even complained when I sent him out to help his grandpa milk the goats. Declaring that he got to pit Cherries when he came back in. I assured him that the job would be there waiting for him when he returned. He worked non-stop for two days helping me with the fruit. He is such a big help when he decides to be. When he thinks the job is dumb though… Well lets just say there is much crying and gnashing of teeth.

We love you and pray for you always. It is easy to become discouraged. That is what Satan wants. But there are so many things to be encouraged by, that is hard to stay discouraged for long. Look for those good things, they are there even if sometimes they are hard to see. I am still planning Hunter’s birthday party and a welcome home party for you in February. My Kids are determined to see you on the 10th.

Love Monica and The Cherry Pickin’ fools at the Woodin Nickel!