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!

Music in the Country

On Saturday, October 7, we spent the afternoon in Fawn Grove, PA listening to Sandra's orchestra celebrate the 125th year of the town. Cloudy and a bit nippy; we were happy to find that they were selling food; like pie and coffee and chocolate milk and hot dogs and cheese curls! It was a really nice way to spend a Saturday afternoon. After the show, Sandra came to spend the night in the country with us.

This Year's Halloween Costume?

George Washington.

Grammy and Granddad visited us the week of John's birthday. We had lots of fun taking them to some of our favorite places. The boys have been anxiously awaiting their chance to take Grammy to Serenity Station in Seven Valleys, as it has, according to Jake, "Grammy written all over it". We had a snack break there, Grammy picked up a few gifts, and then we walked on the rail trail a bit. We also stopped in at the local winemaker, Four Springs Winery, to sample and buy their delicious wines! It was great to see G&G again, and we hear that they will be by again at Christmastime! 

Sunny Side Up eggs

Asa's favorite breakfast since we got our chickens! Every day he must have his sunny-side-up eggs! A day doesn't go by without them! We have three hens, and we get maybe six or seven eggs per week. Not much, we expected more, but that's how it goes with hens you buy at the auction. Sure, the previous owners say that they're good layers, but you just never know. That's fine with our family though. It's nice having them around, we love the sounds they make. It's good to have somewhere to take all of our kitchen scraps. At least they are being put to good use instead of putting them in the garbage. The cats like to tease them and the goats are sometimes curious about them. They just give our place a nice farm feel. The rooster used to crow at all hours of the day and night for about a week after we brought them home. But I guess that they've really settled in and have gotten comfortable. I haven't heard him crow for over a week. At all.

More fun in the Creek

The boys had a fantastic afternoon in the creek. Asa found a good use for the silty mud on the creek bottom. Body Paint. Jake would have none of that, but he liked dumping buckets of water on Asa to wash it off. The largest crawdaddy I've ever seen was found under a rock. It was freshly dead, and the kids decided they needed to bring it home. This will likely be one of the last days warm enough to play in the creek this summer.

Mud-faced boy showing dad the giant crawdaddy.

John doing another farm job. Doesn't our Dogwood tree look beautiful in late summer?

The gigantic crawdad. Huge!

Room to Paint

Through this door is my brand-new, drenched-in-sun, art studio. John and the boys surprised me today with this wonderful gift. The three of them worked on it this morning while I was mucking out the goat barn. My husband knows that all I need is a little push to get me back to my artwork. I haven't touched the stuff since before Jake was born. Once I became a mother my focus shifted to caring for my child. I completely forgot about all of those things that made me happy, and fulfilled me as a human being. If I could do it all over again, I would not forsake all of my interests to be a mother. I'd try my hardest to make the time to do those things that made me happy; even if only for minutes a day. Keep those things playing some role in my day-to-day life. Anyway, here I am, getting back into my pre-mom interests.

Back in Atlanta, my friend Kimberly, gave me a few oil painting lessons in '95/'96. She is a very talented artist, especially with oils. She was very patient and supportive as a teacher. We had memorable times together painting, listening to great music, and drinking good beer some nights - red wine other nights. Painting, talking, and lots of laughing. Now she's in Ohio and we are in PA. Oh, those were good days!

I've got the basics here to start to draw - to paint. I'm sure this will be a great "before" picture. So neat. So tidy. Just a few things on the table. I can't wait to get in there and make it my place.

Here's my old artbox from college. I studied graphic design - even got my Bachelors Degree (back in 1988)! I can't believe that I still have this old thing. Still has the local band and fanzine stickers that I made on it. Just seeing the charcoal pencils made my eyes widen and my imagination go into high gear. Oh the things I could draw!