Christmas 2006

Over Christmas we were visited by Grammie and Granddad and the Blums. Here are a few pictures.

Asa and Lily are crazy about each other. They spent a lot of their time with Lily sitting on Asa's lap.

If there is an instrument in sight, Lily must play it.

Josh in the "Future Chair"

Cherie makes a pumpkin pie. Do you see my new KitchenAid mixer? It's pistachio. I adore it.

I made this apple pie. It was as delicious as it looks.

for the birds

Asa is making a cranberry string to feed the birds. He threaded the cranberries onto the red string all by himself. He loves to give food to the birds - and loves all animals.

This was hard to let him do by himself, but he made it through the project without injury.

Great concentration was needed to get the job done. Good work Asa!

Christmas Tree Hunting

We are lucky enough to have a Christmas Tree Farm right in our neighborhood. We just hop across the creek to Wayne and Irene's place and trudge up the steep hill to find the perfect tree for Christmas. It didn't take us very long to find it. In the background, to the very left of the tree, you can see our house and mill.

The boys wanted to take it down in their own way, but John felt that it would take a lot less time to do it his way.

Asa encouraged John while he sawed away. Last year we brought our new chain saw with us; that turned out to be a disaster - and luckily a passer-by took pity on John and lent him his handsaw. This year, no question - the handsaw was the tool of the day.

While John and Asa worked on taking down the tree; Jake enjoyed the beauty of the valley from up in the sky.

Kitties in a box

Cream and Millie enjoying the simple pleasure of an empty box.

Codorus Creek overflows its banks

The storm system that blew through here on Thursday was a doosey! It rained hard all day long and then suddenly at about 4:30 in the afternoon - it just disappeared! Gray clouds blew away revealing beautiful blue skies and a beautiful clear rainbow above the valley hills. When the boys got home from school, we went to check out the damage at the creek. The water was really high. This little side pool is not usually there. That is typically dry area where the goats play. You can see the remnants of their haystack and the wood pallet they walk on.

At one point we saw a metal barrel floating downstream.
It got caught up at the bridge until a gigantic tree branch dragged it through the bridge along with it.

Millie joined us on our walk to see what was so interesting about the creek.

My First Ricotta Cheese

John and I spent the day on Saturday in a cheesemaking class taught by Ricki Carroll, aka: The Cheese Queen. We learned to make mozzarella, ricotta, farmhouse cheddar, and queso blanco. It was a great fun, and so interesting too. There were probably 60 people from age 13 to somewhere in their 70's attending this class, which was held in State College, PA; a three-hour drive for us. I've wanted to take a class from Ricki for well over a decade, so this was a really nice 40th birthday present for me!

This photo is a ricotta cheese that I made this afternoon, and I just made a chevre this evening; tomorrow I will drain it for 6-12 hours, then it'll be ready to eat!

Chicken Boy

Asa with his favorite chicken: "Ketchup"

Getting Ready for a Yard Sale

Jake finds something he hasn't seen for a long time!

Autographed Boog Powell Orioles hat! Priceless.

I've been working hard just about every day to go through all of our boxes and piles and bags of stuff. When we moved in over a year ago, we put a lot of stuff in the mill and just left it there. Most has been forgotten about. It is fun going through and rediscovering thing that bring back fond memories and other things that will be quite useful in the house now. But mostly - what we are finding is going to be sold!