Training for Old Rag, Fall Foliage

Next Saturday we plan to hike Old Rag Mountain in the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to celebrate Mamaw's 75th birthday. Today I successfully hiked from the house down to the mailbox and back as a training exercise. The fall foliage is beautiful right now.

Horse Update

Yesterday we took Peanut back to his former owner, Lexi, in Bulls Gap, TN. A while ago we realized that Peanut was not the right horse for us, or conversely we were not the right owners for him at this time. I had a nice visit with Lexi, today she called Debby and said that Peanut was doing very well. I dropped off a dozen bales of hay yesterday with Peanut, Lexi wants to buy one or two hundred more bales from us. We really did enjoy Peanut and learned a lot and are glad that things have worked out the way that they did.

Yesterday Rene visited with her family to check on Spirit and I snapped a photo of Rene with Spirit, compare it to the picture I took of them at the end of August. Spirit is really growing fast!

Rain!

It's raining. Yay! Finally. It has been extremely dry here since the early summer. Our county was declared an emergency area for farmers. The ground here has been hard, dry, and dusty. It looks like we will get a good soaking rain.

Last month Mamaw and Papa and uncle Mark visited and one of their outings was a trip to the Lost Sea, a local cave with a large underground lake. The level of the lake had dropped 20+ feet due to the drought.

Our three pigeon lofts are well protected and are nice and dry. Debby and I put a new roof on the barn a few months ago so our hay will stay nice and dry too.

Catholic Church Tour

Last week at Blessed Sacrament church Father Sweeney invited interested members of the congregation to come to the church on Wednesday evening for a tour and explanation of a Catholic church.

Last night we went to the church for the tour and met some friends. Father Sweeney gives the tour each year as part of the RCIA program. Father did a wonderful job explaining the Catholic church and answering questions. We learned several interesting things about the church and it's appointments as well as some additional history about the church and how it relates to incarnation and the corporeal world (holy water, what's a narthex, a nave, a sanctuary, choir loft, stations of the cross, sacramentals, what's a cathedra, why use candles, history of the altar, stained glass windows, why priests wear black, lectionary, book of gospels, etc). The tour was followed by refreshments and socializing.

Frosty Morning

Turned on the heat this morning at home, it was 37 degrees outside. Light frost on the grass, I had to scrape the windshield of my car.

Fridge repair, walnuts

Our icemaker stopped working almost a month ago. When you get used to having an ice cube/crushed ice/water dispenser in the refrigerator door it's hard to do without. It took several weeks to get a replacement part from GE, see right of picture. Debby bought ice trays and we made ice the old way.

Also shown are some walnuts. We've got a bunch of them. Want some?

Farm happenings

Mary asked if she could water the grass. Uh, sure go right ahead my little farmgirl. It's been very dry here, we need some rain. The horses tore up some of the pasture (converted nice grass to dirt) near the entrance to the pasture. We moved the electric fence line back and changed the gate location because we plan to do some work on some of the grass/pasture. We bought some horse pasture seed mix. We've been working to remove some of the wooden fence posts, we managed to get 38 removed, holes filled, posts stacked nicely in the woods. Also got four more sections of fence boards removed and cut in half, ready for the dump. We're getting ready to remove the line of wooden fence posts that go from near the barn to the well house. After we've got this done we will be able to easily mow and care for that area. I also removed extra fence posts in the fence line we are using which makes it easier to weedeat. We are planning to apply nitrogen, potassium, and lime (according to results of our soil test) to as large an area that we can manage and also to aerate and seed. But right now the ground is too hard and dry.

The electric fence is working great, solar charger, heavy duty 6 foot metal T posts, multi wire white polytape fencing, white plastic post top protectors, white plastic polytape post clips. It might not be the most beautiful thing in the world to look at but it's beautiful from my perspective. Relatively inexpensive, quick to put up, quick to take down, easy to move, no post holes to dig/fill or for horses to step in.

John had his friend Caleb visit for a couple of days, the kids all made some wooden swords and daggers to play with. The kids found some juicy purple berries that they used to stain/paint their weapons to look like blood. Ahh, kids.

Mailbox violence, history lesson

On Saturday morning we had a neighbor of ours, Paul Mathis, drive up to let us know that our mailbox was down by the bridge. Apparently the kids around these parts think it's great fun to vandalize mailboxes, especially on a Friday or Saturday night.

It was actually a good thing because we got to chat with Mr. Mathis and learn some history about our property, he told us how he used to farm corn at our place, where there was once a steam powered sawmill, where a log cabin once stood, where there was a den of wildcats, an old road, etc.

I repaired the mailbox, it's #542. Don't know how long it will last though.

Tennis anyone?

John and Mary recently attended a tennis class.

Tooth Fairy Visits one more time!

Wow. Mary has an amazing smile right now. She lost her upper front left tooth, finally, yesterday. The tooth fairy came last night. Mary now is missing her top two front teeth. She has her bottom two front teeth, but is missing a tooth on either side. Quite a lovely smile. She's got one more loose tooth, it appears the tooth fairly will be returning soon.

Arrrrgh!!!!!

Avast! Arrrrgh, me maties!! Ye best be enjoy'n this fine fall day, if not you'll soon be walking th' plank!! Arrggh!

Today is Talk Like a Pirate day.

Google is in on it here, look closely at the page.

Tractor Work

Last week I responded to a post on craigslist for tractor work. Today Steve Rhule and son Nick showed up at our place with their Kubota L3940 HST tractor and worked for 10 hours. The tractor has a front-end loader with bucket and solid adjustable pallet forks, as well as a 6 foot Rhino bush-hog and a 6 foot tiller.

Most of the day was spent using the front-end loader with forks to pick up and move logs and wood that was piled up behind the house. This wood was left there by the folks we bought the place from, we just never had a way to move it and it was too close to the house to burn so we hired out the job.

Pallet forks are quite versatile, you can dig with them, pick up rocks, logs, etc.

We also had some trenching holes remaining near the well house where the folks we bought from had planned to build a barn. Steve took care of that as well.

Finally, Steve bush hogged the Peanut Paradise pasture and a couple of acres of field out near the well house. Peanut and Spirit seem to really enjoy the freshly cut pasture, they are trotting and running through the pasture, rolling in the cut grass, just looking like a couple of happy horses.

Home Schoolin' Y'all

John and Mary have just started the new school year and have completed three days. They are both doing the Abeka program, Mary is in first grade and John is in fourth grade. Pictures of the super kids this morning doing their home schooling. Mary is using a portable DVD player that was a present from Nanny. Debby is running the show and doing an excellent job, building upon last years experience.

Piller Family visit

Mamaw, Papa, and Uncle Mark Piller visited for a few days this week. Uncle Mark is allergic to cats, we have a cat and a bunny in the house, so Mark spent a good bit of time outside. Here's a picture of him relaxing with super pup and Papa. Mark also made friends with Peanut.

They stayed in South Harriman at the Holiday Inn Express and enjoyed the accomodations, indoor pool, 7 miles from our farm, right next to a Cracker Barrel, McDonalds, etc.

The visit began with the annual outdoor homecoming mass and picnic at Blessed Sacrament church. Father Sweeney guaranteed excellent weather and he delivered on that promise. We had a Bonfire one evening at the farm, swimming at the hotel, a quilting and sewing outing, a trip to the Lost Sea Cavern, a trip to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, hike up to Clingman's Dome (highest point in Tennessee, elevation 6600+ ft), a trip to Cherokee NC for some serious gem mining (several emeralds, rubies, sapphires, etc), some good meals and just hanging out together at the farm (you should see Mamaw and Papa playing dodge ball!). The time passed much too quickly!

My Little Ballerina

Mary has started musical theatre and dance class. She loves it! Not shown in this picture, she now has special dance shoes with heels!

Whoopie Pie Factory

Debby setup a little Whoopie Pie factory in our kitchen. Whoopie pies are little chocolate cakes with a creamy filling. Yumm. Some of the whoopie pies made it to the top of Clingman's Dome elevation 6600 ft with Mamaw and Papa on September 10, 2008.