Saturday, April 30, 2011

Must Find/Buy/Make

I got our bikes out of storage today. Filled tires, re-fitted kids, gathered supplies and we were off on our first bike ride of the season. Oh how I love biking. I think it is my favorite mode of transportation. I would love to see the world on a bike. Has the same charm of hiking but you cover way more ground. Every year particularly at the first of the season, I have moments of decreased productivity as I am caught away day dreaming of biking far distances with my kids, or summers of no car usage and so forth. Then I try to figure out how can I do this today with young kids - a couple of free-loaders with only fair endurance? And so I design in my head ways drag everyone with me. 2 years ago I came up with this and we are still using it today. It was/is great but there are two problems. I can't stand up to pedel making hills even harder then they already were with an extra 100 pounds. And 2 Xander is now almost 4 and is pretty much too big for the chair and he is ready to start pedeling. Soren is still on training wheels (this summers goal) and for any long distances would need the option to hook up even if he was off traning wheels. So, we need a new plan.
Upon researching options that have already been made I found this picture

I want this. Correction - I must have this!! Oh my word - I love it. double wheels in the back to increase stability and you could carry gear. Sign me up! Sadly they have stopped making them years ago and they are very hard to find. Disturbing news I know, and yet I don't feel limited. Hmmmmmm, could I make this or something like it? My brother in law does have a welding machine. The wheels have begun turning. Excuse me, I need to google now.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Energy Medicine

My Mom was diagnosed with an auto immune disease about 3 plus years ago. When my Dad somewhat suddenly died 2 years ago her health really went in the tubes due to the stress of it all. After 9 months of going to doctor after doctor and trying many many different antibiotics and treatments with no respite, she began to branch out to alternative medicine. Luckily she has found many things that has helped her immensely. One of those thing was Quantum Biofeedback - a type of energy medicine. It gave her such positive results she decided to buy this machine and become trained on it so to help others who are struggling to find things to medically help them. The whole thing is fascinating. Go check her website at


She lives in Bellevue Washington and if you or any of your family or friends have any health, or stress issues, I highly recommend trying some sessions out. They are incredibly relaxing and may just change your life as it has my Mom's.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Actual Hard work

I am having some bloggers block. We have been super busy in the Harris home/yard. But it all just seem so blah, boring and not that entertaining in my head. Well, at least not that blog worthy. I need a good story. I secretly like it when my life is filled with shocking stories and crazy events that evoke a "Oh my word, you have got to be joking me!!" - although I really only like the wild ones that do not provoke tears. Surprise and borderline shock = good. Tears and disbelief = bad. It is a fine line.

So, even though it is probably skim worthy I write this for posterity.

What have we been up to?? We cut down a small forest of dead limbs and trunks and trees (curtsy our goats and nature) and I got really good at using a chainsaw. This made a pile of 10ft x 40ft x 5 feet of trees and branches that we chipped and shredded to about 8 - 10 yards of bark. (that was fun - feel free to read with sarcasm) Then I brought in 15 yards of compost and amended my soil as it is now crap due to the build (my fault and I sort of hate myself for it and praying it won't plague me for years) rototilled it extensively and educated myself somewhat and bought a bunch of ordimental plants for the first time in my life and planted them - although most are bee friendly. Then I basically did the same to my veggie garden and planted all the cold weather crops with my friend Elizabeth who we will be doing a veggie garden together with due to her lack of sun in her lot and my extreme love of co-partnering with humans on pretty much anything I do. I also started a herb garden for the first time, removed my sick and poorly prunned pear trees and replaced them with cherry trees. I am also putting in 3- 5 new blueberry bushed attempting to grow blueberry bushes that get bigger then a foot tall (the goats may have something to do with that as well. Curse you electric fence!!). May I just say I feel so relieved all that work is done. I would like to give a special thanks to Ryan and the missionaries for all their help. Love those farmer missionaries. They are the best at manual labor!! I want my boys to work like that. Now if I can only find miles of pipe in Renton for them to move morning and night for years..... (I will post pics of the yard in a few days - I have to work tomorrow and it is dark now)

We are going to be replacing what we lost and farming smarter.....hopefully. We have 33 eggs incubating and should hatch in 2 weeks - always good fun. It will be an interesting experiment because 2 of the eggs have cracked. Apparently someone can pop the lock off the door knob and despite stories of horrific chick deaths the perpetrator seems unswade. I asked, Soren, "Did you go see the chick eggs without me?" After a little coaxing he replied, "Yeah, I took a knife to the lock and and showed Abby the eggs." Super! After some research I learned that if you put nail polish on the eggs to seal the cracks it might be just fine. Nail polish? Sounds like brain damage to me!! - But what the heck, I have never seen a brain damaged chicken before.......or have I? I also have another package of bees coming that same weekend. It reminds me of the weekend where I helped my goat birth a problematic set of triplets and installed my first package of bees (alone) all in the same weekend. Now that was blog worthy. I may have to backpost that story as I now have pictures to match.
This picture makes me chuckle. Right before this picture there instructions were "point to the eggs and look excited" Way to go Soren. You nailed it! ;)


Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Hard work

There is much to back post - until then I leave you with Xander's new favorite line-

"Why do I have to do all the hard work?"

Let me put this in context for you.

Quinae "Xander can you buckle up?"

Xander "Why do I have to do all the hard work?"

Quinae "Xander can you clear your plate?"

Xander "Why do I have to do all the hard work?"

Soren "Xander can you pass me a army guy?"

Xander "Why do I have to do all the hard work?"

Hmmmm. I guess he needs a little education on what hard work is - suggestions??