She's a Beauty

Beauty is top hen in the pecking order. And she is so friendly, too. She comes right up to us, jumps up on us, snuggles with us, and lets us pick her up.

Meet Beauty...

Summer is...

 taking chances...

 cuddling with doggies in the grass...

spending time with Dad...

 perfecting your handstand...

 making new discoveries...

 (a cicada)

 cloud watching in the grass...

 and feeling the sun's warmth, and the beauty of a sunset...

Happy Summer!

More chicken fun

Girls and their chickens

It is so fun to watch the chickens. The way they walk, and run, and try to fly.  The way the chase a fly, scratch for bugs, even the way they drink their water.  Their little fluffy butts and the way the walk remind me of lil toddlers running around. And the way they stretch their legs...all of a sudden stretching one behind them...so cute.

The girls spend a lot of time with the chickens.  They let them out in the morning, check their water and feed, make the final count before shutting them in for the night.

We've found they love strawberries and tomatoes the most. They don't care for raspberries as much. They try to sneak in the garden and eat zucchini, cucumbers, pumpkin, and melons. But they won't eat tomato hornworms!

When evening nears and the sun starts going down, the chickens start heading towards their coop...which happens to be near the garden. At this time of day the garden is shaded...so we have to make sure to round them up and keep them in their run, a 40' by 40' fenced area, until they head in for the night.

Molly the dog has captured a raccoon and two opossums...one of which was actually IN the coop with the chickens.

And at least one of the ladies can jump the gate out of their run.

Chickens....who knew we would find so much joy in keeping them! It's been a great experience.

Couscous and Molly

I just like this photo.

Sketch Time!

Girls enjoying a peaceful morning as they sketch.

Winter exploration

Sleet, freezing rain, snow, winds...we went out to explore what nature has created...and destroyed.

our ice covered landscape

 snow drifts are always interesting to see

trees are budding...isn't it too early?

 finding tracks in the snow

doing a penguin belly slide

relaxing and soaking in the beauty of the season

improvised game of hockey

they found sticks from downed limbs,

cut them to their desired length,

used ice blocks as pucks, slid around on the ice.

(I'm in two of the photos, too...do you see me?)

they are so creative

We saw a red squirrel come out of here!

 saw a lot of limbs down...

we added some to their stick shelter (not pictured)

this was NOT fun to clean off

the tires were stuck in the layer of

ground ice!

Who watches the shopping channel anyway??

My kids do!  When they first decided to check it out, I thought, "oh brother, this is going to be so boring." But, as always, they make everything fun!  They are so funny.  They love to laugh at the hosts, their funny expressions, how excited their voice gets.  And you know what....they've actually learned a lot from watching it.  They have learned about several gemstones and minerals that I had never heard about...even going in to their history and when and where they were discovered.  Of course, we got into talking about the value on rocks!  On how the more rare ones are given a higher value, which gets into the supply, demand discussions. And they've learned the names of different muscles of the body from the fitness infomercials. They crack up when they show the before/after photos of people's butts and always say, "why does anyone care what their BUTT looks like!?" LOL. And then there are the advertising tricks.  They know how advertisers want you to buy their product.  They have never been one to hear, "you need this toy, it is the best, everybody has one" and come running to me and ask for it.  No, they are pretty smart cookies...takes a lot for them to be fooled! We try to use our critical thinking skills here. They've even discussed making up their own commercials as a spoof, and filming them. I think that would be great!

Healing from a Virus

I am writing from the laptop.  The desktop has some type of virus!  I have run scans from four different security systems and found some things with each.  Re-ran the scans and nothing shows up.  Yet, I know it is still infected because the internet browser goes wacky!  Argh.  I have spent a lot of time trying to fix it...scans take a long time!  And the computer wouldn't get into safe mode at first.  Poor thing.  Hope it is healed up soon.  All my photos are over there! I have the older ones on disk in our fire-proof safe, but not the newer ones from the last three years!

This has obviously spawned some deep discussions on computer viruses, spyware, bad people, internet safety and all that good stuff.

I'm giving it a break today....have to go run some errands later and know if will take at least another four hours or so of cursing, running to the laptop to look things up, running back, trying something else, rebooting....

Mid Winter has come

And boy it was a cold one!  Today is the halfway point between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox...winter is half over!  The past couple of days we have had freezing rain alternating with sleet and snow.  The ground is covered with a couple inches of ice, which then got covered with an inch of snow.  Very dangerous out there. The wind didn't help much either...gusting beyond 40mph in some spots.  Looking outside it just looked like a big white nothing.  Though when the wind died down we saw the effects of all that heavy ice and the strong winds.  We have tree limbs down everywhere, but luckily nothing else worth noting.  The barns are all intact, as well as our siding, lol.

We did lose power last night around 10 PM, and it didn't get fixed until around 11AM the next day.  With no electricity we did not have heat! The interior temperatures went from 67* to 40* when the electricity returned.  We were just in the midst of planning our escape, to my husbands parents' home, when the power came back on. It's a good thing, too, because it was dangerous outside...and they ended up losing electricity right after that.  Can you imagine...packing up and making the dangerous treck over there only to have to turn back around?!

This day also reminded us that we are not prepared for such emergencies.  We are in tornado territory. In fact, the past two years we have had tornadoes touch down within five miles of us. But we never seem to get around to gathering our necessary supplies. No water, no crank radio... And we definitely need an alternative heat or power source. I think we may want to skip the generator and go straight towards solar power.  Oh, one can dream, huh. But then again...if the power goes out it is up to us to fix.

So we began the day with double socks, sweatshirts, pants, hats, gloves, and piles of blankets playing board games on the guest bed with candles as lighting...to shedding our layers and getting back into technology.  Kids with their Wii, and internet searches for oddball marine life, Dad watching a hockey game on satellite tv, and me blogging away at the laptop.

We did watch some pretty interesting TED talks on ocean life.

David Gallo on Underwater Astonishments and Life in the Deep Oceans.

And Brian Skerry on Ocean's Glory and Horror.

And we watched the movie Finding Nemo...love that!

Blackberry Jam

I have canned my first jam!! My first canning anything for that matter!! It was blackberry jam from my mother-in-law's garden. I did it the old-fashioned way with no pectin. It took a LONG time stirring that damn pot but we got it. Tastes deliscious. I need some more canning jars. I have 8 more to use then I'm out.
I need to go pick up Georgia in about ten minutes. She is at Survival camp. She went to her birding camp last week.

No pain, no gain...or so they say

I have been busting my butt lately...trying to prepare the house for the arrival of my sister, two nieces, and father. They will be visiting our new home for the first time, and staying with us for a week. So I have been busy painting, decorating, furnishing the house. I am always so over-ambitious in my planning. I'll write out my goals, or to-do list, for the day. By the end of the day I end up finishing one or two tasks out of a list of ten to fifteen items. I must think things take less time to do than they actually require. My kitchen is painted, trim and doors. The outside door is painted, and the porch is furnished and decorated. I still need to pull the old carpet from the guest room and buy a new bed...the guest room is storage right now. So much work to do. Yesterday my back started bothering me...really bad. I have had back problems in the past and have had to have muscle relaxants and pain killers. I was out for a couple weeks! So I'm hoping if I rest it today, with anti-inflammatories, a heating pad, and some Ben Gay, I may be alright. Here's hoping...

15 inches

That is how much snow we received this weekend. The high winds were kind enough to stack the snow into tall snowdrifts...so high they went higher than the car and truck. The girls had fun sledding down the drifts, though. Mark is out there now trying to shovel behind them enough to get out. Luckily, with snowdrifts, there are hills here...and then cleared ground there...so it evens out and we will be able to meander our vehicles out of the lane one way or another. More snow expected on Tuesday. I love it!!

Our day of doing nothing

Today I woke up with a migraine that just continued to grow throughout the day. It is also a freezing rain sorta day, so no playing outside. I felt bad about not getting much done, and I felt bad for the girls that I didn't feel like doing to much with them today. Then Mark came home from work and I started rattling off the things we did...then I realized, huh, we did do things today!

Georgia watched a documentary on the Travel Channel called Earth's Natural Wonders, like Niagara Falls, Mt Everest, and the Grand Canyon. She also watched a show about extreme bathrooms around the world! Olivia typed on the word processor and I showed her how to change font, letter size, color. She had fun typing words and changing how they looked, then deleting them and starting over. Both girls got interested in reading though some of our travel guides. (we have a collection from every state) Georgia wanted to make a travel journal to pretend she traveled to the places she read about, so we made one from a large piece of construction paper and stapled in some lined paper. Olivia wanted a journal too, so she made one also. She said she would use it for whatever she wanted. Both girls got their NWF magazines in the mail. Georgia got Ranger Rick and Olivia got Your Big Backyard. Olivia and I sat down and read hers cover to cover. Georgia read hers, too. Olivia had fun on Club Penguin. She also had her dinosaurs out and played with them. I'm sure I could remember more of what they did today. It just proved a point for me. Even if I think we are not doing much, when the weather is icky, and my head feels like it will explode...we ARE doing things. This I need to remember for days like today...when I feel like I am not doing enough, when I feel like I could be a better mom...I need to remember today and realize we are just fine. I need to relax and trust in our lifestyle. I need to stop worrying!

After supper we ended up going to a pajama party at the library. The girls had a lot of fun making crafts, putting on a puppet show, reading stories and having hot chocolate and cookies. We picked out a few books. (about 20) When we got home, Olivia and I snuggled up on my bed and read, giggled, snuggled...and Georgia came in and shared things from the book she was reading. Even Molly the dog snuggled with us. It was a perfect ending to our day of doing nothing.

Saturday, Jan 23

Today I tried making the chocolate chip banana bread mix I received as a gift this Christmas. It came out horrible! The mix was too runny to begin with so that should have been a clue. It dripped all on the bottom of my oven as it rose! All the chocolate chips ended up on the bottom of the loaf pan. I haven't sampled it yet...hopefully it at least tastes good!

This morning we identified a spider for my father, who e-mailed us the photos from Maine. He found an Argiope aurantia.

Mark has been outside clearing vines off the barn and burning some brush. The girls were outside having fun most of the day. It's a foggy day, but not too bad temperature-wise. Mark found an orange fungus on one of the vines that we will need to identify. Our maple trees also have a green fungus or something growing on them. Since I've never had maple trees before I don't know if this is normal or not...or what to do about it. I'll have to do some investigating.

Georgia helped me make some guacamole for our layered Mexican dip. I use Alton Brown's recipe found here. After the guacamole was made, Georgia wondered aloud whether the pits could be planted for trees. Off to the computer we went...and we found our answer here. We now have two avocado pitshanging

Georgia is also voraciously consuming the North American horse breeds book from the library. She has also been sketching various breeds and her sketches are quite impressive. I'll have to scan a few to share here.

The girls have a collection of matchbox cars, including work vehicles for farm, construction, and emergency vehicles. Last night they were asking all sorts of questions about police and fire. They have gone to the fire station open house for the past two years and loved that. They got to use the hose and try to put out a pretend fire, and they learned all about fire safety. Still they had a lot of questions about the nuances of the job, and what they are allowed to do and what they cannot do. It was quite an interesting discussion.