Making Wood

 

These are the pics from our wood hauling days this past week.

Friday and Saturday were devoted to some serious cutting and

transporting of our winter heat source.

 

 

Dan cut the trees down.

 

 

Joseph cut them up.

 

 

The rest of us hauled it out of the pasture.

 

Timothy drove the 6-wheeler (like a madman).

 

We filled that trailer six times!

 

 

Timothy cut a little while Dan was dropping a load at home.

 

 

I caught this guy working harder than everyone else.

 

 

We borrowed a dump trailer from another homeschool family.

 

It makes unloading the highlight of the day.

 

 Not bad for a couple of days' work!



Produce!

 

Here's us making a mad dash to keep up with produce this summer...

 

We tried cucumber bread.

(Think zucchini bread but I didn't add chocolate

chips... probably a mistake with this group of eaters.)

 

We did can one batch of salsa.

The rest of the tomatoes took up residence in the freezer,

to be cooked up later this fall and winter when the house

needs warming.

 



Lots of chopping and dicing and seeding kept everyone

busy and made this old favorite...

Cucumber salsa!

(I think I'm already missing summer.)

Apple Picking Afternoon

On Thursday, we took a trek to Joseph and Timothy's

newest residence.

 

They weren't home so Franny checked out their deck.

 



Then we located what we had really come for...

 

while we dodged a few showers...

 

(This is the view from their front yard.)

 

we picked lots of gorgeous, sweet apples.

 

They always look better after they're in the box to go home!

 

Some people offered advice...

 

while others tasted the fresh picked produce...

 

but one guy really knows how to get the job done.

Aspen

 Aspen is the newest kitty at our house.

Not sure why but one of Clare's friends thought

a cat would make a great birthday present.

 

 

This particular cat has since become Marianna's baby.

They go on adventures together (all the way out to the shed)

and Aspen has even been known to hide from her affectionate mama

(imagine that?!)

Marianna recently asked why the kitty doesn't talk to her.

She only purrs.  What a bummer!

 



I'm including one very cute Franny pic
just because I couldn't resist this adorable face.

(And, yes, Johnny photo bombed EVERY photo in this post!)

Which of these eggs is not like the other?

The evidence that our new chicks are laying.

Here's Looking at the New School Schedule...

In a word....ugh!

FranMan at 2 and One Half

I tried for a photo shoot part way through the summer.

 

Then I remembered why I don't bother with trying to set

up photos...

What's with the squinty eyes?

This one really captures his personality,

so I guess that's as good as it gets.

Back to reality!

(I think those snazzy slippers came from

Auntie Tammie's house, if I'm not mistaken.)

 

Rock on, Little Man, rock on!

 

Favorite hobbie: licking whatever's been in the mixer lately

and eating inedibles.

He's tried Carmex, Chapstick and Blistex recently (much to his sister's chagrin).

 

Do you see the trend here?

We also had one bubble consuming incident which led

to repeated gagging in the backyard.

He made a quick recovery, though and has returned

to his favorite lip balm.

No worries, right?

 

He's also really into hats.

 

Classic picture... squinty eyes AND a hat!

That's our boy!

 

Up, Up and Away

Dan needed to rent some fancy machinery for a recent job,

so that evening we all got to go for a ride...

 

First some of the kids tried it out...

 

Up,

 



up,

 



and up some more.

 



Is there a panic button?

 



Interesting facial expressions!

Then I decided to try it out, too.

The view at the highest height.

Dan in his glory!

And a pretty cool view of our garden boxes, too.

(And the outdoor biffy, which is gone now,

much to Gabriel's disappointment.)