And Then There Was a Cool Front

My absolute most favorite season of the year is fall.  It's refreshing, dry and cool.  And after a summer of sweating even in a swimsuit, we've all been ready for a change to hit the air. (Because I totally cannot rock a swimsuit while buying groceries. Or in my own backyard, for that matter.)

Yesterday, a tiny cool front came along and threw us all into a tizzy.  Suddenly, everyone was scrambling to be outside for every activity.

Let me tell you something, fall changes people.  And animals, too.  Noodle and Hopers suddenly acted like alien children who liked each other.  And wanted to be with each other!

Weird.



They did all school work outside.

Sherlock was supremely happy with this idea because it meant he would be spoiled to death every waking moment.

 



And carried around as if he'd permanently lost the ability to walk. Or had suddenly turned into a very hairy infant.



Hopers took this photo.  She likes to steal my camera.  More and more, the photos are not of her thumb. *Sniff* My baby's growing up!

Don't be fooled by her momentary solemn expression. Poppy suddenly becomes "crazy dog" when cool weather appears. She runs around the yard at full-on torpedo speed, clearly overjoyed for some good weather.

The chickens are also really glad for the temperature drop.  They told me so, of course.



...and I thought my butt was fluffy!

I did manage to entice the children inside once in a while for important things like showers and using the bathroom.  Hopers decided to finish her sewing project she's been working on lately. Pajama shorts!  And yes, she wore them for the rest of the day.  And yes, the color combo with that shirt kind of hurts my eyes, also.

And then there's Noodle.

...who is so, so........... well, almost a teenager!  Plus, I think I need a new time machine because mine doesn't seem to be working.

My alien-invaded children set up a tent to sleep under the stars tonight.

You'll notice Seth is conspicuously absent from these photos.  That's because he's in the woods hunting things.  Yes, fall makes otherwise normal, non-rednecked men become camo-wearin', bow-totin' crazy people.


I, of course, am not crazy. At all.

Whatsoever.

 

Happy fall!

Fall Door Hanging

I have to admit, I've been a little jealous of all the cute front door wreaths I've been seeing lately.  The crafty person inside me was quietly dying a painful death over not being able to make a Fall wreath for my house because of this:

 

 

 

* Cue ominous music... *

 

 

 

Ah, the dreaded stained glass front door.  It was there when we bought the house.  The previous owners had it installed as an homage to the family shield.  I kind of like it.  I mostly don't.  Every time the holidays spur that wreath-y feeling in me, I take one look at that bright blue family crest and shlump back inside to knit something instead.

The colors will clash, I whine to myself.  It's too busy looking for anything else up there, I complain internally while browsing solid front doors with adorable bow-topped wreaths on Pinterest.

Eventually, my crafty side shoved my whiny side out of the way like a bully on a playground and came up with an idea.  Cover that baby up!  I zipped to the sewing machine, dug in my fabric scraps, made a trip to the craft store, and by the next day, Fall had found its way to my front door.

Fresh cut leaves and berries front the front yard make great colorful accents, too.

So there you have it.  My take on the front door Fall Wreath. What's yours?



A Very Camp-y Birthday

Camping methods generally end up in two categories.

The first one involves bringing as little stuff as possible.  The stuff you do bring, you find microscopic and less useful versions of it--like freeze-dried pot roast and bivy sacks--and haul it on your back to some (hopefully) remote spot.  There, you'll have involuntary and realistic dreams of ice cream sundaes and being eaten by a large, toothy bear.

The second one, I like to refer to as Party Camping.  You go somewhere with nearly everything you think you might need or own.  You camp right where you park, along with all your new best friends who are camping right where they parked, which is right next to you.  You set up ten-man tents with a ridiculous amount of blankets and sleeping bags and air mattresses, even if there are only three of you in a tent.  You cook major meals three times a day over a fire and a propane stove and another fire (because it takes all that to get everything cooked) and you love every bite.  By the time you finish cooking and cleaning up one meal, it's time for the next one.  You are less worried about bears than you are about squirrels eating the corners off of all your bread if you leave the package out.

You can probably guess which category of camping we subscribed to for Noodle's birthday this year. We went to Torreya State Park, a long-time favorite of ours. In addition to the above activities, we also managed to fit in a few more:



We went hiking and geocaching.




We explored Weeping Ridge (a drippy waterfall-ish spot on our hike).

We brought lots of friends.

Ethan, Jeremy, Noodle, Kendra Miriam, Daniel,
Tabitha, Hopers, Tobianna (Not pictured are Me, Seth, Joey, Elaine, and Micah)

 

 

We played games in tents.

We rode around in the back of a truck.

We hung out.

We played on the playground.

We took advantage of adorable photo-ops.

We sat around the fire.  Noodle opened birthday presents.

And of course, what is a birthday without a birthday cake? (I love all those helpful faces in the background.)

I highly recommend Party Camping.  It's more fun than a bowl of freeze-dried pot roast!

Hanging With My Peeps

When I last posted about the chicken situation, we had about 18 (or something like that) of them.  I thought that was a lot...  especially considering that we originally thought we would have only 3 or 4 when we first discussed the idea of keeping chickens.

Well, I'm gonna break the news gently.

They've multiplied!

Not in the traditional birds and bees sense, of course.  More in the sense that we're crazy and we keep collecting them from local places, friends, and family.

Seriously, I'm done now.  I think 26 is a good round number, right?


So, here they all are, named and photographed, and grouped with their respective buddies, for your viewing pleasure...

The Three Musketeers

These are the ones we hatched from eggs.  Uno and Checkers being very rooster-y these days, beginning to crow and have an interest in the ladies.  Uno is top dog, so to speak.  Nugget ought to start popping out the eggs in three weeks or so.  They are almost 4 months old.




The Seven Dwarves

I know Snow White was not a dwarf in the story.  My little girl named her, okay?

These are the bantam (miniature) mixed breed chickens that we started out our flock with.  They are around 8 months old and are laying eggs daily for us.  They are the only chickens we own that are laying eggs right now. Victoria, Snow White, and Helga all lay a blue-green egg.  The others are a light tan color.  Maxine and Francine are practically identical in their looks--I may even have taken a picture of the same chicken twice.  Snow White is the only one that will allow us to touch her.  The others all have a lightning fast ability to escape human contact.  Poor Snow White is probably just slow.



The Brooder Babies

We just got these two little chicks from a friend who hatched them especially for us.  They are 5 week old Ameraucanas.  Turbo is is most likely a rooster because he always stands like that...neck stretched, proud stance...uh huh...I know that look well.  Gretyl is definitely a girl.  She'll be a blue-green egg layer one day.  These two live in the brooder box inside the chicken coop along with Mei Ling the Silkie.  They are still too small to be out with the big chickens  Not to mention, they could easily fit right through the chain link fence that protects two sides of the run, and Poppy the Chicken Eater will be happily waiting for them.


The Babies

We've been raising this crowd from around a week old.  They are now nearly 11 weeks.  Charlotte is a New Hampshire Red.  Miss Comet is a Golden Comet.  Charlee and Violet are Barred Plymouth Rocks.  The only way I can tell them apart is by a tiny extra bit of white around Charlee's eyes, but today I notice it was fading.  I guess they'll have to answer to both names :)  Winnie and Dottie are Gold Laced Wyandottes.  I think Winnie is probably a boy, but we shall see. They both hate being picked up even though we've been doing it from day one.  I've heard people say that Wyandottes are just like that.  Lastly, there are Qi-Qi and Mei Ling, the Silkies.  Qi-Qi is nearly the same size as all her other flock buddies, but Mei Ling...oh Mei Ling....  she is tiny.  She's 11 weeks old but smaller than the the 5 week old Ameracaunas she lives with.  She was very sick for a while with respiratory problems. It was so bad that we even told the kids to not expect her to make it.  But she has managed to rally through and is just now getting her feathers in.  (Hence the weird scraggly look.)


The Newbies

And just to round out our varied collection of chickens, we picked up a few more.  Hey, what's a few more, right?  I wanted two Marans (Marans-es-s? Maransii?) because of their prized dark chocolate colored egg-laying abilites.  Someone in town was moving and selling off their chickens.  We went to pick them up and ended up with five.  I think we need to learn how to count better.  Lucille is a Blue Copper Marans and Octavia is a Black Copper Marans.  Juanita and Shirley are Rhode Island Reds.  Buffy is a Buff Orpington.  We were getting a little lazy in the naming department at that point.  Seth's brother went to Bell, Florida (population 349) to pick up a few new chickens for his flock from a farm there.  He brought us back Belle the Black Australorp.  She's around 3 and a half months old, whereas the rest of this group is around 5 months.


So there you have it.  26 chickens, 11 different breeds, but no partridges in pear trees.  I never realized we would have so much fun with the whole chicken thing.  I meet perfectly (seemingly) normal people all the time who have begun keeping chickens and say, "Would you have ever believed it was like this??" They guesture at the chicken sitting in their lap, or the chairs set out for their daily "chicken TV" time.  We shake our heads and smile knowingly.

You'll have to excuse me now though.  I put an egg in my pocket this morning and forgot it was there.  Time to do some laundry!

Suwannee River Kids Music Camp

If you know us, you know we're always up for a camping trip. What? A weekend in the woods?  Yes please. A retreat by the river? Count us in. So when our new friends, the Boggs, asked us if we would like to go camping with them at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park for a kids music camp, it didn't take much convincing.

They'd already been helping to inject some much needed musical fun in our lives--giving fiddle lessons to Noodle (and even me) and inspiring Hopers to want to try out the banjo. We've been really blessed by these "special persons" always willing to offer help, drop by to play, lend an instrument, share a meal, or just chat with.

So, when I say we were excited about a weekend of camping and music and hanging out with some new special persons in our lives, I'm saying EXCITED with a capital E.  And a capital X. And C...and you get the idea.

We arrived Friday afternoon to set up camp, spray on a two-inch thick layer of bug spray, and go to the instrument expo.  The kids listened to the instructors talk about and demonstrate each instrument before deciding what they wanted to learn to play for the weekend.  There were classes for guitar, fiddle, banjo, ukulele, mandolin, harmonica, drums, and voice.

Noodle and Amelia already knew they wanted to be in the fiddle class.  They brought their fiddles with them and were geared up to learn some new songs.

Hopers and George Wilder knew they wanted to play banjo, but Hopers didn't have a banjo.  No instrument? No problem!  The camp provides instruments for the kids to use.  Did I mention this camp was completely free?  It blew my mind.  The banjo teacher mentioned one of her instruments that had been named Frankie because it was put together from other banjo parts like a "Frankenstein".  Frankie was also her loudest banjo.  Hopers looked at me during the demonstration with wide eyes and said, "I really wanna play Frankie!"

Hopers and Frankie

The next day, lessons began at 10 am.  Each group met at a different stage or area of the music park.  I'd never been to the Suwannee Music Park and didn't realize how huge it was.  It's like its own town, with cottages and stores and a chapel... not to mention camping, multiple music stages, and a river.  Hippie paradise.

Amelia and Noodle were in a small group of kids who had already picked up a fiddle once or twice.  They had lessons at a ring of stump chairs.  The beginner group of 20 or 30 fiddler kids met in a barn nearby.

Hopers' and George Wilder's group met in a music hall behind a restaurant.  They had about 8 kids in their group.  The first lesson lasted about 2 hours and the kids were enthralled for every second of it.  We had to peel them off their banjos with promises of food and swimming.

After a short break and some lunch, we took off in search of a place to get in the water.  Being May in Florida, it was hotter than two cats fightin' in a wool sock.  Sadly, the swimming access in the park was closed because of high water.  We didn't let that stop us though.  Five minutes across the street from the park was another Suwannee River swimming hole.

We were in hillbilly heaven.

Canoers, Kayakers, and Boaters paddled by

Great fun was had for hours tossing small people into the air

The river is tea-colored from the tannins in the leaves of the trees surrounding its banks.

The camp then fed us all an awesome (and again, free!) barbecue chicken dinner prepared completely by volunteers.  Wow. 

And soon it was time for more music lessons.

What did the adults do while the kids were becoming little music geniuses, you might ask?

We relaxed.  Elisha and I had a great time sitting in rocking chairs and chatting.

We entertained ourselves with the unique art around the camp.

I took lots of pictures of the ever adorable William.  Isn't he scrumptious?


By Sunday morning the kids were a little tired but still jumping for joy to get to their lessons.  We swam some more in the afternoon and then prepared for their final concert.  We gave the kiddos the option to cut out early and head home if they were too tired.  They looked at us as if we'd suddenly sprouted green tentacles from our heads and asked them to get on our spaceship.

So, concert we did.

Amelia and Noodle at rehearsal

George Wilder strummin' a G chord

Hopers crankin' out a chord on Frankie

These are some serious musicians.  By 2:30, Hopers and George Wilder could barely keep their eyes open, but they were determined to play their songs.



Amelia and Noodle, center.  Our friend, George, on the left bravely helped with lessons when their instructor, Kayla (right, purple shirt) couldn't be there.  Both teachers were AMAZING!  Noodle and Amelia were AMAZING too!

The groups played songs they learned and also several songs as one big band together.  Parents cheered and felt proud (I know I did).  Children were proud of their accomplishment, too. We left the Suwannee River Music Camp that day feeling glad we went and talking about the next one.

The next one is in August, but unless there's some freak cold snap happening that weekend, we won't be back 'til November. 

Meanwhile, we are all incredibly inspired by our adventure in music with our new friends.  Noodle, Hopers and I jam on the banjo and fiddles every afternoon.  Even Seth is learning to play the egg shaker.  He's very, very good on that egg.