Puppy Love

Carter is getting more and more affectionate towards the dogs every day. Sometimes she'll spend 15 minutes just laying there, patting them. And they are tolerant of her now. The other night, while watching the 'good night show', Carter spent 10 minutes putting Sadie's ear between each pair of her toes in turn, over and over. And Sadie didn't bat an eye. This is the same dog that we used to worry about having to give away because she seemed so touchy around the kids. What a difference!

Lathe Project – Weed Pots

Recently, I've been making these little 'weed pots' on the lathe. There just little vase-shaped turnings for dried flowers or weeds. They're really fun to do, I can usually do one start-to-finish in a single session, and they're great for learning new tools and techniques on the lathe. I've done four so far (only three are shown here), but I've got enough blanks cut to make many more.

Walk in the Woods

Last weekend we took a walk in the woods in back of the house. I've been out there plenty of times to explore out lot, and see what there is to see. But last Sunday I suddenly realized that I have actually never taken the kids out there just to explore. So Lori, the kids and I all headed out for an 'adventure'. Sean kept hiding in the ferns and asking if we could still see him - he's been very interested in the concept of 'camouflage' lately. Carter was interested in all of the different trees, but needed to be carried every time we came to any dense brush. For here, all those pointy plants and thorns were eye-high!

Lathe Project – Plate

A couple of weeks ago, I made both a plate and a bowl from blanks cut from a downed tree in the backyard. I forgot to take a picture of the bowl before I brought it to work to put candy in - I'll have to bring my camera to work some day soon to snag a photo. But here's the plate I made. I love all the spalting in that wood!

Cider Hill Farm

Last weekend we went to Cider Hill Farm, more or less on a whim. The kids alternated between extreme bouts of whininess, and actual happiness. Sean loved the hayride, and Carter always enjoys the horse swings. They hadn't put the hay maze up yet this year, though. We'll have to try again in a month or so.

The Kids’ Drawings

On the left is a drawing that Sean did recently. I've annotated it with indentifying tags for each element. He walked me through it, and told me what everything was. On the right is a drawing Carter did - both figures are supposed to be me. She drew the arms and legs all fuzzy because she said I have hairy arms and legs. Heh.

First Week of Kindergarten!

Last week was Sean's first week of public school! We were so nervous, but it's been going great. The night before his first day, he started talking about how scared and nervous he was, and how he didn't want to go. He started saying that he was going to miss the bus on purpose. We were really worried that when the bus pulled up, he was just going to flat-out refuse to get on it. But then, that morning after breakfast, he shocked us by getting super-excited and happy. He was practically dancing at the end of the driveway while we waited for the bus. Once it got here, he got right on and sat right down. That first day when we picked him up, he couldn't stop talking about how much he enjoyed his new school!

Haircut

The kids sometimes like to set either Lori or I up in a chair so they can pretend to style or cut our hair. This particular time, they got pretty serious about it. Once I got tired of sitting on the floor, they moved on to cutting the bear's hair.

Carter’s Turn

Carter finally got her turn to drive the mower the other day. Look at the grin on her little face! She nearly crashed into just about every obstacle in the yard, but she had a blast. She loved to head straight for Mom, who would pretend to dodge and run away.

Garden – Typical Haul

This is a shot what is a 'typical' weekly haul from the garden. It's been consistently this much every week for about the last five or six weeks. As you can imagine, I am drowning in produce - especially hot peppers. My freezer is full almost to overflowing with bags and bags of hot peppers. I need to decide what I am going to do with all of them. Going to pickle some, make some salsa with others, make a chile, and after that, I may have to get creative. Any ideas?