Maid-N-Meadows 2020 Summer Update

            I know! It is actually almost fall....just a few weeks from now. I wrote a spring update and then summer just HAPPENED! And doing anything beyond the bare minimum was just about impossible. But the heat has died back and the garden is dying down....we are almost caught up on the goat and sheep chores. This week we are cutting hay and working on getting the bees ready for winter.

        The babies have grown so much over the summer. Beulah will be 2 in October and Elora will be 1. I am both excited and dreading this year of toddler delight and mayhem. Little people keep things so stirred up! They investigate and move things constantly. The little girls keep each other in stitches or tears, depending on the moment. They are just a lot of life, all the time. :-) Very fun but lots to manage, as well.

    Jaden has become like a second mother. We often work together to get through cleaning, schooling, bed time and you name it. But she is also exploring new adventures when she isn't curled up with a good book. She makes the cheese with Daniel, most days, and today was practicing driving the tractor, raking hay. We are prepping the goats and sheep for breeding season and she is prepping her calendar for all those little babies she is going to midwife into this world.

 Jacob has kind of outgrown everyday life here. He works for a neighbor farmer and is gone most of the time as older teenagers often do. Karson has taken over the main labors of the farm. But he likes to work with his friends too, so this summer we arranged for him to work with a friend once a week. All the older children hang out with their friends on Sunday for fun, too. 

    But everyone gets involved somehow, somewhere. We had a ball this morning eating sticky honey while we worked to clean out the comb. Between finding old costumes and taking turns on the extractor...all were engaged.