Today was a 'slow' day. Slow as in, sleep in a bit, wander around aimlessly a bit, just slow. Yesterday I met my sister in northern VA to pick up Moira. Moira's two month visit turned into a two week visit. Unfortunately for my sister, their family's plan to move fell through. I know someday they WILL indeed make that move. And when they do? It will be glorious indeed. In the meantime they try to figure out a new plan.
Moira really enjoyed spending time with her cousins. There are plans for a cousin get together (of sorts) for this summer. I know she will be looking forward to it.
I took Aubrey and Merida with me on the trip North. Merida did amazing, seeing as how we left here at 11:30 in the morning and did not return until 12:30 AM. She only did a wee bit of crying. Aubrey was a great big brother, helping to keep Merida happy, and helping me when we needed to make a few stops along the way.
Needless to say, I wasn't feeling very motivated to do much of anything today. I took the boys out this morning. The temps are supposed to go from spring like (mid 70's) to chilly fall (low 50's). Today was one of our last warm days for a spell. The baby went down for a nap, and I found myself with free hands! A novelty for me :-) I figured it had been long enough in the 'no picture taking' department for myself, and ran inside to grab my camera. I still had two boys in particular who kept asking to go here, or there, taking my attention away from what I was hoping to do. But, to have two hands to actually take a picture? Pure bliss I tell you.
Below are some of the pictures I took outside, and a couple of what caught my eye inside.
A lone rock on top of one of our fence/gate posts. It seems that maybe one of the girls put it up there to keep out of the reach of the boys.
The view from our driveway, into the goat area. I love the fall golden sunshine. All of the shadows are long, despite being close to noon.
Jonah and Aubrey taking their bikes up the hill to ride down. It is cute to hear Jonah coming down the hill. He repeats a little mantra, "Peddle, peddle, peddle, brake....peddle, peddle, peddle, break..." He is afraid of going too fast down the hill ( a very reasonable fear I might add!) so he keeps himself on track by following that pattern.
Our peach tree has really taken off! We have one apple tree that is doing very well, like the above peach tree. The other trees, however, are much smaller. Not sure if it is due to the type of trees they are, or if we have some sort of deficiency in our soil.
Jonah, our newest training wheel-less bike rider. A very happy boy.
Our rabbits! I think I wrote about them already. If not, meet our newest members to the homestead....meat rabbits. They are American Chinchillas. We have added a book on rabbits to our 'everybody together' schooling. We are clueless as to how to properly care for them. We better figure it out sooner rather than later!
The boys enjoy helping to feed the animals. I am sure that they will be able to take over some of the animal feeding soon enough.
This may be an odd picture. A bunch of acorns...and other stuff. This is a wonderful sight to my eyes. Last year we had NO acorns. None. Neither did the whole Eastern USA. It is usual for either the Red Oak, or the White Oak to not give acorns in different years, but last year neither of them did. On top of that there were a few other trees (hickory, walnut) that did not give nuts. No one could figure it out. It was quite disturbing to hear. So, it was music to our ears to hear the acorns 'raining' down around us. They make a particularly loud bang on the metal roof of the 'shed'.
I don't remember if we have the White, or Red oak, but we have the one where you have to do more processing to the nuts if you want to use them for cooking. You can tell by their caps. All of our acorns are found without their caps on. If you have those, you have the harder to process acorns. The acorns with their caps on are easier to process.
While I was on the road yesterday the two older boys had a project to do to keep them busy. I bought them at the Dollar Tree for $1. They came in a package with the shapes cut out, and instructions on how to glue them together to make the above helicopter, or in Jed's case, an airplane. Jonah was SO excited to put this together. He kept asking me every 15 minutes if I was leaving! Ha, ha!
Showing off his helicopter. Aubrey showing off a leaf? Aubrey kept photo bombing our pictures. The little ham.
It is hard to see here, but this is our fast growing apple tree. Behind, off to the left, you can see a glimpse of the white painted trunks of two other apple trees. Notice the huge difference between them and the large apple tree. Sigh.
Our pathetic garden. Leftover tomato plants. At least they produced tomatoes this year! We are always so late in pulling things up.
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The mess of an herb garden. All of our nicely placed rocks have been overturned by boys looking for bugs. We have some serious garden work to do around here this fall/winter.
This is a 'wall' that our neighbor built on the side of our road. He knocked down a ton of trees, and there has been some wash out on the road due to that. This is a wall to keep the dirt and rocks on the road, and not in the gullies on his land.
Looking up at the sky.
We don't have a lot of red this fall. Lots of yellow, no orange, and a teeny tiny bit of red here and there.
The land across the street from us. This used to be ALL woods. They cleared the front few acres worth this past spring. The brush really grew over the summer. It is probably a good 6 feet high.
A little more red. I got an email this afternoon from a friend who asked if they could come over for some play time. Totally last minute, which agrees with how we do things around here. The kids had a blast. She is from Michigan and was saying how she really misses the vibrant fall leaves that the North has.
Some lemon rinds soaking in vinegar, to become a cleaning solution. I dehydrated the lemons. I love to have fresh lemon in my Immune-T, and I can never keep them on hand when I need them. Dehydrating solves that problem!
Our kombucha, which really needs to be strained and fed new tea. It always seems to be the last thing I get to on my to-do list.
We have a busy weekend ahead of us. Hoping it goes as 'planned'.
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