Random cuteness

Play time with Daddy...

Morning play time - sporting some snazzy slippers....

Pups

We have two Great Pyrenees guard dogs, still just pups though, to protect the sheep and our property.  They tend to sleep during the day, or so we expect, but come up to the house at night to stand guard.  Since we got them, we've yet to hear or see coyotes or stray dogs, so they seem to earn their keep.

 

Our neighbor has about 100 head of cattle and the dogs, Shy and Tim, seem to really like hanging out with the cows.  We'd prefer it if they would hang out with our sheep, seeing as that's why we got them, but at least they're protecting something.  Every once in a while one of the neighbors bull sneaks onto our property and the pups are always right there with him.  I think they're actually friends.  We try not to make too good of friends with them.  Guard dogs will pick a "focus" to protect and you don't want them to pick you - otherwise they won't protect the property and other animals.  They'll come up to us to get treats and their food, but are constantly aware and somewhat aloof around us.  It's a shame too, because when they're laying around, I just want to go up to them and start scratching their bellies and ears.





Not that they'd let me though.  Oh, I've gotten a couple of scratches in on Shy (pic above), but Tim is a different story.  He's beyond cautious.  Maybe they'll make good guard dogs after all.

Crazy hair do's

About a month ago, Samuel started this weird habit of crawling into the corner of his crib when he sleeps.  Almost like he's shielding his eyes from light or trying to use the bumper as a pillow.  When he wakes up from his naps now, he often has some crazy hair! 

This particular day, he must have really had his head smashed into the corner because he also had a diamond patterned imprint from the bumper on his forehead!

The silly grin is 'typical Samuel'. He is the happiest kid I've ever seen when he wakes up from his naps - almost slap happy.  The only time this isn't the case is if we have to wake him up, which fortunately, isn't very often.

Another baby chick

Blackie, our mother-hen, hatched another baby after having sat on a batch of eggs for about two weeks.  Here are mama and baby soaking up some sun.

Mama and her babies

Dan's been taking more and more of the outside pictures and he happened to get a few of me.  Dan was on his way back up to the house from taking some pictures and he caught Samuel and I watching him from the family room window...



 

And although you can't "see" the baby in this picture, she's there.  Here, I'm 22 weeks pregnant with Samuel's little sister...

Happy sheep

The sheep have full run of the property now.  Dan used to enclose them in a large area via electric fencing to protect them.  He was especially afraid of stray dogs and coyotes while the lambs were small.  The electric fencing provided a jolt if any creatures tried to get in to bother the sheep. 

The lamb are almost as big as their mama's now though, so Dan thought it was time to let them roam more freely in one of the enclosed pastures, which is about 10 acres, at the far back of the property.  The only downfall to the new location is that we couldn't see them from the house.  They were there for a week or so, then one day we saw them up at the fence line behind the house.  Oh no!  I'm not exactly sure how, but they escaped.  The fence isn't down anywhere, so we can only guess that they got under it somehow.  Sheep aren't particularly smart, but they are apparently wily.  Just look at the picture below... doesn't this lamb look like he's devising some clever trick to deceive us?

Dan was going to line the perimeter of the enclosed pasture with electric fencing as a safeguard, but the ground is so hard he can't get the stakes in.  So, we've letting them roam free.  It's been about a month now and no harm yet.  They seem to be very happy running free.  They love running up to us when we enter the pasture.  They even like to play peek-a-boo behind trees...

And the ewe's like to show off their pretty eyelashes...

 But most of all, just like us, they like to hang out and be together...

Cruising

Samuel's officially a "cruiser".  He jets around the house holding onto furniture, walls and anything to help himself get around.  Unfortunately, he doesn't understand that some items move or are too light to help him - like empty boxes and rolling office chairs.  He's had two face plants so far, one resulting in a bloody mouth.  He seems to get over his woes pretty quickly though and gets back to cruising.

I place toys in the middle of the floor to entice him.  I figure one of these days, he'll want the toy badly enough that he'll let go to get to it.  So far this hasn't worked, but it shouldn't be too long!

Summer Vacation - Day 5 - Final Day

The whole reason we vacationed to Virginia was to attend Polyface Farm's Farm Field Day.  It's a day long event they do once every 3 years. The day consists of guided tours, topical discussions, and vendors to see hands-on how a pasture-based, organic farm operates.  Their mission is to leave the land in better condition year after year and feed people clean, healthy food in the process.

Although the day's activities didn't officially start until 8am, we arrived at 6am to watch morning chores and have free time to roam around before the set schedule started.  Since we're most interested in poultry, we headed out to the fields to get a close look at their chicken tractors, feed and water setup.

The chicken tractors and watering system are nearly identical to ours, but each morning Dan drags and I push our tractors.  Polyface has this cool, custom-made dolly that goes under one end so one person can pull from the other side.  We need to get out hands on plans to make a few of these!

Next we moved onto the butchering area.  They have a really nice covered area to work and a good equipment layout.  Dan and Samuel are checking it out...

At 8am, a whole-farm tour started.  Our first stop was at the FeatherNet - a portable hen house on skids that can be moved from paddock to paddock.

Then we saw their combined broiler and turkey tractors...




Not pictured on the whole-farm tour were also cows and pigs.  They had several discussion topics throughout the morning that we attended:

Interns, Apprentices, and Young Farmer Germination
Hay Shed, Deep Bedding and Pigaerator Composting... (and boy, do they have a lot of hay!)




Then they had quite the spread for lunch.  Grilled Polyface meats - chicken, pork and beef, tomatoes, cucumbers, peaches and chocolate cake.

After lunch we had more discussions:
Metropolitan Buying Clubs and Online Software
Chick Brooding...

We had about an hour before our final discussion. We wandered around the main hub of the farm trying to see everything we hadn't gotten to yet.  Some of the vendors that we purchase supplies from were there, so it was nice to meet and chat with them in person.

Our last topic was a Q & A session with farm owner, Joel Salatin.  It was an open forum where you could ask anything you wanted.  A lot of great questions were asked and Joel always has an interesting answer.  Usually a very long answer, but a good one.



Samuel started wearing down a little after 5pm, so he and I headed back to the car so Dan could finish the Q & A session.  At 6pm, we departed Polyface and started heading Missouri-bound.  We stopped around 10:30 for a good night sleep.  We woke up bright and early and continued our drive home, finally arriving around 5pm.  Fortunately, we had the good sense to take the following day off work too, so we could lounge around the house and recuperate!


THE END!

Bread

After about 13 years of service, our trusty bread machine died on us. One day it made perfect loaves, the next they started exploding and then imploding. It wasn't pretty...

This might not be as dire of a situation for some as it is in our house. Except for some herb focaccia buns I buy at Costco, we don't buy bread. We make all of the bread we eat, so this was not good! My inclination was to hop on Amazon, find a new machine and have it overnighted. But, since my mother-in-law was diagnosed with Celiac's disease years ago, the only thing she's been able to do with her bread machine is make yeast door stops. So, she graciously gave it to us. Unfortunately, they weren't due to visit us for a month and a half. I could have made bread the old fashioned way, but instead I chose to support the cute little old lady that brings baked goods to our Farmers Market.

We had a good visit with the family, and the day after they left we fired up the new bread machine. Dan made the first loaf - whole wheat bread. It turned out beautiful...it neither exploded nor imploded. We let it cool for a bit then tried to slide it out of pan. It wasn't budging. We tried pulling. Nothing. We tried loosening the crust from the sides. Nothing. I stepped away and then Dan announced he got the bread out.



I'm not sure if you call this male or Yankee ingenuity, or both. It wasn't pretty and we weren't eating any sandwiches on it, but it sure was tasty!

Next was my turn. I had some very ripe bananas so I decided to try banana bread. One cool thing about this machine is that it has a 2 inch extension that can attach to the pan to make extra large loaves. I figure if I'm going to take the time to bake bread, I might as well throw a little more in and get a bigger loaf. I dumped everything in and 4 hours later I heard the wonderful beep indicating my bread was done. I opened the top slowly, still having residual fears of exploded bread, and not only was it beautiful, it was large. When the recipe stated 'extra large' they weren't kidding!



Here is my "It's bigger than my head" pose. And best of all, it slid right out! I can't help but crack up every time I look at this bread. It reminds me of those tall chef hats. Who knew bread machines could be comical too?

Summer Vacation - Day 4

We spent most of day four of our vacation at Thomas Jefferson's home - Monticello in Charleston, VA.  Its set back down a two lane road on top of a large hill.  We learned that he spent years leveling the top of the hill for his home and spent decades building the house, revising plans three times until he got it just right. 

We arrived around lunch time, so we stopped just before Monticello on that same two lane road at Miche's Tavern.




It was a country style buffet.  You went through the buffet line to get whatever you wanted, then grabbed a seat.  Then you had a waitress to get seconds, refills, dessert, etc.  The inside of the restaurant was nearly all original and had a really neat atmosphere.

 After lunch we continued on another 5 minutes to Monticello.  When you pull in, you're greeted by a large building that consists of a theater, museum, gift shop and cafe.  We made our way to the ticket counter and got our tickets for the house tour.  We had about an hour and a half to kill prior to our tour, so we watched the 'Jefferson's Monticello' movie, perused the gift shop and museum.  We hopped on the shuttle that took us down a winding road to the house.

But, we still had time to kill, so we looked around the grounds first.  There were outbuildings, a gift shop, Jefferson's grave, gardens, etc.  We started at the gardens.




You can tell why Jefferson picked this spot - it's absolutely gorgeous!  And since he excavated and flattened the top of the hill, it has views like this all the way around the house.  Originally, there were small sleeping quarters and shops along the garden, but they were built out of wood and have completely deteriorated.  Only plaques remain to tell us what was there.

 I love this picture of Samuel.  I have no idea what he was doing or thinking, but he wasn't nearly as bored as he looks in this picture.  He had a good time the whole day.  It was really hot this day, about 95, so we all took a break at the gift shop to get a drink.

 Time for the house tour!  Unfortunately, they don't allow pictures inside the house, so you'll have to venture there one day to see it.  Jefferson definitely had a creative mind.  He had unique features and ideas throughout the whole house - some were very grand and others were very modest.  He was very conscious of space and made sure the house was as efficient as it could be.

 It might be hard to see, but see the white railing and small brick buildings on either side of the lawn?  They attach to the house.  Above ground, it's a large deck that leads to those buildings.  But what's unique is under.  It's a basement area with many small rooms all the way around the house - much bigger than the footprint of the house itself.  Jefferson put anything that generated heat (kitchen and smoke house) in the basement to keep the heat out of the house, anything that needed to stay cool (wine) or just otherwise wasn't fitting to have in the main house (privy's for slaves and staff).  He also had a dumbwaiter that went from the basement to the dining room to get food, wine, etc to the house.



 Monticello was unique because it had 6 privy's - 3 of which were indoors.  One in the house and two in the basement area.  This was unheard of in Jefferson's time because indoor facilities were not considered a necessity.  If you look at the bottom left of the sign above, you can see the house in the middle and the basement 'tunnels' that extend out from the house.

This concluded our tour of Monticello.  Our hotel was about an hour away, so we headed back and found a local restaurant for dinner.  We had to get a good night sleep for our long day at the farm that followed!

Swimming Pool - Final step

 The firetruck is here, the firetruck is here!




We already had about 800 gallons in the pool to test it for leaks, make sure it was level, smooth the lining, etc.  This is a 2000 gallon tanker truck.  We'll need 3 tanker loads to fill the pool!

They hooked up the fire hose and blasted it into the pool.  It took less than 10 minutes to empty the truck.




 As you can see in the background, we didn't even have the equipment boxes out of the way before Dan and Brian were in the pool.  It was pretty darn chilly, but they did have a purpose for getting in. 



We opted for a salt water filtration system.  Using this method makes pool maintenance much easier because there are no chemicals to mess with.  The salt naturally keeps the water clean and clear - just like the ocean and our tears.  It's at a super low level, so unless you take a big gulp, you'll never know it's there.  They dumped 150 pounds of salt into the pool and got in to mix the salt into the water.  Now we just need to tidy up around the pool area and we'll call this project finished!

Summer Vacation - Day 3

We all got a great night sleep and woke up ready to move on.  This day was another driving day.  Our destination was Virginia.  But first we had to finish driving through Kentucky and made our way to...



 West Virginia is a memorable state.  Unfortunately, just not in a good way.  The drive through the state is, well, just not pleasant for travelers - horrible roads, miles of construction that appears to be permanent, etc.  There was one notable thing I liked - the Travel Plaza (aka: a huge glorified rest area). 




It had 3 restaurants, 3 places for dessert, a gift shop and a convenient store.  (Quizno's and Cinnabon not shown on the sign.)



Except the Cinnabon rolls we got were horrible.  I thought about calling the company and asking for a refund, but I let it go.  And the garlic butter we got for our pizza was kind of scary.  Maybe I didn't like this stop so much after all.

A good portion of the state is a toll highway - the West Virginia Turnpike.  It seemed kind of pricey at $2 per car.  We thought "Well, at least we'll have nice roads to drive on."  Wrong!  It seems as though they consolidated the worst roads in the country's interstate highway system into this stretch of road.  Just when we thought we were through it, we came to another $2 toll booth.  Wait... didn't we just do this?  Deja vu!

Fortunately, we blew straight through the state and made it to...




 Virginia is nothing like West Virginia.  It has very nice roads, little road construction and is beautiful everywhere you look.  The tall hills turned into mountains and we saw one idyllic setting after another.  We finished our drive on day 3 with a preview of the whole reason we vacationed to Virginia...




 Yup.  A farm.  We drove two days to go to a farm.  Not just any farm though.  Polyface set the standard for beyond-organic, pasture-raised, sustainable, eco-friendly farming.  The owner, Joel Salatin, has written many books on the subject and hosts events to teach others how to do the same.  Day 5 of our trip we spent a whole day at a Farm Field Day event, which they hold every 3 years, to see first hand how they do what they do.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  I still have all of day 4 to tell you about, so hang tight!  I know you're itching to learn more about this "farm of many faces".

Swimming Pool - Part 2

After several weeks, we're back to the swimming pool project. The next step was to level the ground and make sure it was free of rocks.

After checking for level, raking, checking for level, raking, throwing out rocks, checking for level (you get the idea) the ground was as level as it was going to be.  Next we watered the area down to help speed along the settling process.

Now the fun part!  Setting up the pool.  First we laid down two tarps to keep grass and weeds from growing up through the liner.  Then we positioned the pool on the tarps.

 Then you just insert the cross bars, legs, support strapping, etc.  Dan did this part by himself in about an hour.  Then he put about 2 inches of water in the pool to...

1) Make sure it didn't leak.
2) Smooth out the lining.
3) Play in the water.




Now all we need is some water!  Our well is only about 30 feet from the pool, but we chose not to fill it from there.  Since it hasn't rained in weeks, there's no way to tell how much water is in the well and Dan was afraid the well pump might burn up filling a 7000 gallon pool.  So, we called the Fire Department and they're going to deliver the water in a day or two.  It's not necessarily cheap to have them do this, but less expensive than a new well pump.  Pretty soon I'll have pics of us swimming!

Summer Vacation - Day 2

Parents = 0 hours sleep
Baby = 5 hours sleep

Despite this, we all got up in a really good mood.  I think Dan and I were beyond the point of tired, so our bodies just moved on.  We booked our hotel at the Shaker Village for two nights, but we decided it would be best to just spend the day there and then drive a couple of hours closer to our next destination.  We packed up, loaded the car and headed to checkout explaining why we were leaving early.  They admitted they probably weren't the best accommodation for babies and graciously let us off the hook.

We bought tickets for a self-guided tour and donned with a map, started exploring.  One thing that caught our eye as soon as we arrived were these beautiful stone walls all over the village.  Miles of them.  I've always thought dry-stacked stone wall were pretty, but these had a particularly interesting top.




Here Dan and Samuel are standing in front of a cute little gift shop.

I explored the Meeting House - where they gathered every Sunday to worship.  The purpose for the two doors is 'balance'.  The Shaker lifestyle, we learned, is all about balance.  Men and women are equal, so all their buildings have a door for each gender and are very symmetrical.




It's a very non-descriptive, open space were they could dance, sing, worship, etc.  The Shakers also believed everything had to have a purpose, thus very little adornment.  If it didn't do something functional, it didn't need to be in the design.




The whole upstairs of the Meeting House was where the community leaders lived - 2 males and 2 females.  Again, we see the balance.  They lived their lives very separate from the rest of the community.  Not because they believed they were better than the rest, simply to remain objective - to determine if what they were doing and how they were doing it was working.   Here is one of the 'apartments'.

After this tour, we decided to break for lunch.  There is a restaurant in the village that serves great Shaker style food.  Other than a small snack shop with sandwiches and soda, this is the only place to eat in the village, or anywhere nearby for that matter.  The Shakers even put all of their food to use - nothing was wasted.  For example: they had pickled watermelon rinds and lemon pie that included the whole lemon - rind and all.  We were a little hesitant, but had to try it.  It turned out to be really good!

Dan explored another house - this one was a bit prestigious.  Only families/community members that were highly regarded and looked up to were allowed to live here.  Although men and women are equal, the Shakers did have a sort of hierarchy to their lifestyle.



The Shakers lived a celibate life, so to thrive they had to recruit new members.  For about a 100 years this worked well because everyone in the community shared the labor, but they also all reaped the benefits.  However, due to industrialization and food that could be bought, the Shaker lifestyle became less enticing to people and their numbers started to dwindle.  In 1910, the last Shaker member in this community died and the village and it's 5000 acres were auctioned off.

We explored more shops and by late afternoon storm clouds started moving in, so we decided it would be a good time to move on.  About two hours later, we pulled into a Hampton Inn - which was a site for weary eyes.  Here we had no squeaky floor boards, nice firm pillows and sound proof walls. Ahhhh........




But it was only about 5pm, so we found a local restaurant and had a leisurely dinner.  Then, since Samuel had never been swimming, we thought it would be fun to check out the hotel pool.  After Dan got acclimated to the cool water, Samuel got in with him.  At first, Samuel was very confused and didn't like the chilly water.  But after a while I think he realized it was just a really big bath tub and he started splashing around and having fun.




Needless to say, all three of us slept like rocks that night!