Home

Here are a couple pictures to help ya'll visualize where we're at. 

 Home. This is the hill the kids like to roll down. 

The red shed is "The Grainery" or "The Kitty Barn.

To the left of the photograher is the garden, barn, and valley. 

The big tree is a glorious Elm.
It's the only one left in the area. 

The rest were cut down because of Dutch Elm disease years ago. 

 This is the other side of the hill from the first photo. 

Taken from the bottom of the driveway looking up. 

You can see the house and the front porch. 

Love that porch! 

Looking down the driveway from the top at the garage & road 

Yes, scooters are still packed. 

Our two youngest amused the movers 

by riding those furniture dollies down the driveway.

And I watched my baby jump off her bike 

halfway down 

when she realized she didn't know how to break. 

Helmets are now enforced. 

Can you see my granny smith apple tress? 

Happiness is John Deere

He has wanted a tractor since he was 5 years old. 

Rolling!

The novelty of rolling down the hill hasn't worn off. 

The kids are looking forward to sledding down this hill in the winter. 

Love that hill. 

Making Apple Cider

Yesterday afternoon my folks stopped by, "To pick up the older kids to help Grandpa make cider."

They'd picked bushels of apples at our farm on Saturday and Grandpa was ready to press them. He'd even brought along the first gallon on fresh juice for them to sample.

They're aren't any pictures of this event, yet. But it was the first pressing of apples this season. There will be more. The machine on the press is an open fly wheel and the real concern was for that my littles might stick their fingers in it and get hurt. So the littles and I stayed home and unpacked a few more boxes. (I found my warmer clothing!)

They made 12 gallons of cider!

Our hobby farm has several apple trees. The trees aren't a known variety of apples because they are "volunteers." They were planted where animals dropped the seeds.

Warmer, please.

You can tell it's fall. My 4 year old daughter has added to her skimpy, preferred, wardrobe. She now wears panties AND socks! :))

The change of season has caught the rest of us dressed for another time of year. We arrived with summer clothing in our suitcases. The warmer stuff is somewhere packed in a cardboard box either in the garage or on the back porch. Washing out the seven sweatshirts & pairs of blue jeans has become a daily evening job. I'm thankful that the dryer is now installed and works, mostly. The sensor dry feature no longer works. But the timed dry does!

Living in this 50 year old farm house is going to change our sleeping habits. The thermostat may say 66, but it still feels much colder in the bedrooms. Warmer jammies. And I think slippers are actually going to be used.

I'll be checking out the local resale shops for flannel or fleece jammies. Especially for my daughters. Their bedroom is in the former attic which isn't connected to the furnace. There are base board heaters in their room so they won't freeze. The controls to these need to be repaired though so they're experiencing the change of season the most.

Today's unpacking "To Do," Find the winter clothing(!), And put shelving back in the pantry and fill it up with food.

We now have a few of these. 

(Lucky & Simba)

And their job is to do this.

(dead mouse)

Maybe next time they can eat it 

instead of letting it sit by the door. 

Snake!

"Who said, Snake!" I ran out the front door. My 6 year old son was shrieking and running towards me. He was yelling in one of those hoarse voices choked with fear, "Snake! Snake! Snake! Snake!"

I wanted to scoop him up and run into the house but I knew that I needed to know exactly what kind of snake it was for the future. So I walked carefully in the direction he pointed. Sure enough, there was a 3 foot black snake leisurely slithering through the front yard. I kept my eyes on the snake while I directed (screamed) for the older girls to open the garage door & grab the shovel, and to bring me my cell phone. My plan was to bring the edge of the shovel down and sever it's head. Nope, didn't work. Instead I found myself pushing the shovel into the thick grass just holding it in one place. It squirmed and really was quite strong as it attempted to push the shovel off of it.

I punched in the numbers on my cell one handed and called my mother who was just a mile down the road. "SNAKE!" Where she says? Is it rattling? I'll be right there.

Rattling? No, it wasn't but does that mean rattle snakes aren't unlikey? I wanted to faint. But there are 5 (screaming) children to be brave for and protect.

My mother arrives and pronounces the snake, "Beneficial." She scooped it up and put it in the bushes at the end of the driveway. A bull snake she thinks. It will eat mice in the yard.

I shooed all the kids indoors. Enough outdoor adventure for the day. Time for some good old suburban normal. And I flipped on the switch of the portable DVD player and poured myself another cup of coffee.

Where was my husband? He was taking 200 lbs of garbage to the dump. Garbage service in the country isn't what it used to be...