Farrier visit

Dale the Farrier comes up about every 6 weeks to trim the horses feet. Here he is working on Morgan in the barn. He had already finished doing Spirit's feet, Spirit was back in the pasture, Morgan and Spirit missed each other and were neighing loudly!

Kilmarnock house

After mass we went to look at the house in Kilmarnock built by my grandfather Robert Christopher, this is the house where Mamaw grew up, it is 6 houses down the road from the Catholic church, the street is appropriately named Church street. I like this house because it has a steep roof pitch, the roof is silver tin metal, it has a whole house attic fan, two real chimneys, nice wood floors, double hung tall windows, nice front and rear porch. This house was built before air conditioning was available. Up the road next to the Catholic church is the old Catholic church, Palmer Hall, built in 1885, it's also got a silver metal roof, steep roof pitch, white exterior, tall windows/ceiling.

John meets Fr. Bruse, shares Perrier!

While at White Stone we went to mass at St. Francis Catholic church, Papa was scheduled to be a lector for the mass. I also used to be a lector at that church on occasion. Before mass Papa, John, and myself went in the back and said hi to Fr. Bruse. Fr. Bruse likes to come to Gatlinburg, TN. I explained to John that Fr. Bruse is the priest who married Debby and me twelve years ago and that we were married in that church. After a bit John asked if there was a water fountain and Fr. Bruse offered him some sparkling Perrier water.

architecture

I drove the kids to Mamaw and Papa's home in White Stone, VA in June for a visit and for summer camp. On the way we stopped at a McDonalds of course, I took this picture because I liked the tin metal roof, the white paint, the porch, the cupola.

Butterfly, pasture

We've had a lot of butterflies visit the farm lately, along with lightning bugs, etc. Picture of a butterfly, Mary in the pasture.

Daisies

We have lot's of nice wildflowers. These daisies were growing next to the driveway. Debby loves daisies so we picked a dozen for her.

Fishing hole fun

Caleb stayed with us for a couple of days lately. Here's a picture of John, Mary, and Caleb playing down at our fishing hole.

Farragut library/park outing

Our kids love to go to the library, we recently went to the library in Farragut, the town has a little park next to the library so we took a little walk.

Chore girl, buckets

Mary helping to feed the horses. The horses get some sweet feed/grain once a day. We use lot's of buckets on the farm.

Rainbow

We had a good bit of rain in June, Mary spotted this rainbow.

Fun at the pond

John and Mary had friends (Gideon and Sarah) come stay with us for a weekend recently. John, Gideon, and Sarah spent some time at our upper pond. Lot's of fun until we went home and John discovered that he had a little aquatic leech attached to his foot. He pulled the leech off and then he bled for a little while. I read up about leeches on the internet, found that they are still used today in medicine, and by people like Demi Moore (do a search).

Garden Tilling

We have a garden this year. I used my tractor and box blade to rip up the ground for the garden and did a good job. However, the soil was still in fairly large clumps. I don't yet have a plow or tiller attachment for my tractor. I saw an ad on craigslist for a local guy who would till gardens. The picture shows the guy with his tractor and tiller, our cost was $50. The tiller breaks up the the soil nicely however it does not go very deep.

Dancing, horse show

Mary has been taking dance classes this last year and she enjoys it very much. This spring they had a big dance recital/production. A week or two later they did a performance at Roane State for the Relay for Life cancer benefit. Following the performance we noticed that a horse show was underway at the expo center so we went to take a look. They were doing a Tennessee Walking Horse show, we stayed a little while and enjoyed the show.

Chicks in pen

Here's another picture of the chicks in their pen with Mary.

Tractor bucket, moving stuff

The tractor front-end loader bucket is very useful to move stuff. Here we moved a bunch of pigeon supplies (50 lb bags).

Baby chicks

A couple of months ago we bought 10 baby golden comet chicks. Here's a picture when they were little and we set up a little outdoor pen for them. They were still staying inside under a heat lamp most of the time.