Confirmation, new Bishop

On Wednesday evening we went to Blessed Sacrament church for the confirmation ceremony of 12 young adults, one of whom is a family friend. The mass/confirmation was performed by Bishop Stika, he was named as the new Bishop for the Knoxville diocese one month ago and this was his first visit to Blessed Sacrament church. The Bishop's main message was "to be the face of Jesus" to the world. He also quoted St. Francis when he said "preach the gospel every day. And sometimes use words".

Fencing Class, who knew?

Debby took the kids today to Knoxville to sign up for a home school co-op that starts this fall. They informed me that John was signed up for a fencing class. I responded "That's great, I really need some help with fencing chores on the farm". They were not amused at Dad's humor (as is often the case).

Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope released

Catchy title eh? The latest version of the ubuntu linux computer desktop operating system was released today. Codename is the jaunty jackalope, official release name is ubuntu 9.04. You need to be running this on your computer. Check it out here.

Ice on windshield today

This morning when I woke up it was 34 degrees outside, the forecast had been for a low of 39. Spirit and Morgan were both laying under a big cedar tree. When I left for work I had a thin layer of ice on my windshield. I thought we were all done with that! Beautiful morning regardless.

Dollywood

We surprised the kids and went to Dollywood on Saturday and had a wonderful day. We have season passes and hope to go quite a bit. You should see us on the tea cup ride, we all pile in and we get the tea cup spinning incredibly fast, super fun! We all got very wet on the River Rampage. Of course we also went for a ride on the coal fired steam locomotive engine #192 powered train. Great fun, good food.

Yummy Yum!

Debby has been whipping up some home made goodies. Super pizza, personal cheese stuff crust pizza, blueberry muffins, raspberry bars, ...

Easter morning

The Easter Bunny left a nice surprise.

Friends

Last Saturday John and Mary each had a friend come over for a visit.

Easter Egg Hunt

Last Thursday at home school co-op the kids had an Easter Egg Hunt.

Puppy Care

John and Mary, our junior vets, took care of Pup-pup's paw a few days ago.

Deer and Dogwoods

We've had a bunch of deer lately on the farm, we see them day and night. That's a good thing, one of our goals is to manage for wildlife. The dogwoods are starting to bloom and are very pretty now. Pictures coming soon.

Cleanup on aisle six

The tractor/front-end loader sure is a handy piece of equipment. Over the weekend I worked on increasing the size of the horse pasture by fencing in an adjacent area with a lot of tall grass. We had an old round bale laying on the ground in the area, Debby said "let's clean it up". So I got the tractor, Mary went and got the pitchfork, and the girls went to work. John was supervising apparently. Final picture shows Debby driving the tractor for the first time.

Rock Dove sale

About two weeks ago I posted on craigslist about some homing/racing pigeons I had for sale. Today I sold five birds to a man from Morristown, he has had homing pigeons for thirty years and wanted to introduce some good new blood into his loft. I have another customer who wants four pigeons next week. I transferred several pigeons last month to a local fancier who used to race with the Oneida club.

It's always good to sell/transfer a few birds, there are less to feed, less crowding and healthier conditions in the loft, and I'm able to select out various characteristics and hopefully improve my loft.

Wacky weather week

This has been a very wild week for weather here in East Tn. We had several cold mornings with heavy frosts. We had wind. We had snow. We had thunderstorms. We had a tornado warning. We had sun and 70 degrees. Just about everything.

Yesterday morning our emergency weather radio alarm went off at about 6am with a severe thunderstorm warning. Later in the day we had a tornado watch and then a tornado warning. Thankfully there were no tornados anywhere near us.

Snow? Freezing temps? Again?

Last night we had snow flurries, the temperature was below freezing this morning, we had a dusting of snow. It's supposed to be below freezing again tonight.

We saw our friend Farmer Fox on the news last night, he operates the Fruit and Berry Patch Farm in Halls, every time there is a late freeze they interview him for the news. He said all of his peach trees were in bloom and were vulnerable to the freeze.

Papa's Birthday Old Rag Hike

On Saturday April 4 we climbed Old Rag mountain to celebrate Papa's 77th birthday! Mary Claire joined us for the first time and she did awesome! Mamaw and Papa got to hike with all four grand kids. We had a lot of wind, probably the most wind ever for the hike, so we limited our time at the summit. There was a nice fire going in the Birds Nest shelter, we spent some time there. The day began with breakfast at McDonalds in Warrenton. Papa won our game where we guess the number of cars we will find in the Berry Hollow parking lot when we arrive (7). We climbed the mountain, ate lunch together, met a lot of nice people, had a wonderful time. After hiking back down the mountain a few of us refreshed our feet in the freezing cold mountain stream. We then headed back to Vienna where we had a wonderful Swiss Fondue dinner (thanks to Greg and Mark) followed by birthday cake (Mamaw's famous carrot cake).

Debby's Birthday!

We celebrated Debby's Birthday on March 31, and of course also a few days before and after and also with relatives in Virginia on April 4. Birthdays are becoming week long celebrations! In this picture Debby is modeling her new Tilley Hat, model T4, Khaki with Olive under brim. Definitely a must for the farm and all of our outdoor activities.

Magic Tree House field trip

We have read and enjoyed the Magic Tree House book series for kids. Debby, John, and Mary went on a field trip to see the Magic Tree House play at the historic Tennessee Theatre in Knoxville about 10 days ago. They had a wonderful time.