Happy Father's Day and a little of this & that

Better late than not at all.....life has been busy and it has been difficult to sit down and blog...I have some catching up to do reading other's blog as well!
Happy belated Father's Day to all including my Dear old Dad up North and John's Dad who is soon to be 81 and of course to John! The kids gave him some homemade goodies along with some much needed muck boots, work gloves, and a couple garden tools. He was very pleased! John is a great Daddy to Luke & Leah. He is been very involved in their care since day one. We are very fortunate to have him. He is an awesome role model for the kids and he does a lot of fun stuff with them that most children will only dream of. Since they were young he always reminded me that it was the simple things that the kids enjoyed most such as taking them fishing, for a 4 wheeler ride, frogging, nature walks, and he is so right!
Your a keeper Babe!

Animals
*Last week we had to lay down our eldest cat, Garth. We estimate he was around 16 years old. I came home with him from the Veterinarian's office about 14 years ago. He was a stray and they had rescued and spayed. He was a great cat weighing in at 17 lbs in his healthier days. He was very affectionate and tolerant of the kiddos. We buried him right next to Mags, they were pals!
*We had to quarantine one of the partridge. John found him with both eyes filled with goo (medical term, hee, hee) and some damage to one side of his head. John thinks he/she?? may have got it's head caught in the wires. We washed his eyes up a couple times with warm water and applied some antibiotic ointment...we will see what happens.
*Bob the rooster can officially crow now and I caught him doing the naughty a few times with one on the other RI Reds. Man he is rough! Then I noticed one of the hens heads was scabbed over and bleeding. Luke wrestled her up and I did wound care on her applying some neosporin to her head gash. I put her in with the younger barred rocks. Not sure if that was the right move but they seemed more scared of her than anything so I doubt they'll be picking on her.

In the kitchen
*I have made a couple batches of rhubarb crisp and thinking about making some strawberry rhubarb pie. Any suggestion on what else I could do with it?
* I finally started a compost pile, John had been resisting for quite some time for fear of attracting rodents but I just finally did it. We easily fill up my container 1-2 times per day with egg shells, coffee grounds, and veggie/fruit scrapings. I never realized how much we threw away.
* We been eating lots of salads with garden lettuce and tomatoes and I've been buying the other fixings at local farm stand. I have also been buying a lot of my groceries at a local super market doing less business with Wolly World etc..that is exciting!

On the land
*We have the sand on the pool site and it is just about level. We have had a good amount of rain so it is getting packed down, not sure if we still need to rent a compacter? Now we just need a day when we are both off to put it up, that puts us into July, so sad!
* We have been in the garden endlessly. Today we planted more corn and the rest of the tomatoes. I rote tilled and John weeded and mulched the vine patch. Last year we rented a brush hog and after the field was hayed we gathered up several trailer full of hay with a pitch fork and threw it all into one pile. The pile was starting to decompose and is filled with worms, the plants are going to thrive!