The Twelve Days of Christmas

When one thinks of the Twelve Days of Christmas, one usually thinks of the song that relates twelve days of gift-giving, starting with a partridge in a pear tree.  (Personally, I like the version sung by Straight, No Chaser.)  However, in most of the Western Churches, the twelve days of Christmas refer to the twelve days following Christmas, leading up to the beginning of Epiphany (January 6th).  Epiphany is traditionally  celebrated as the time when the Wise Men or Magi arrived bearing gifts for the baby Jesus.

This year, Beth, one of my TLT yahoo group friends, mentioned a fun idea where one's family plays the part of a secret Santa, dropping off small gifts on the porch of a friend's house each of twelve nights until the last night when the Santa Family reveals themselves.  Usually, it's done for the benefit of children; however, I thought this would be a marvelous idea for an elderly neighbor of ours who lives alone.  I got many ideas and poems from this website, but decided I needed to modify it a bit to fit our older friend.   I thought I'd share my ideas in case the reader would like to do something similar next year. :)

The very first thing I would suggest doing is creating a note to go with the first night's gift.  Elderly neighbors tend to freak out when tall 12-year old boys bundled up...and unrecognizable...for cold weather appear on their porch unexpectedly, just as the neighbor looks out her window!  (We set that straight in a hurry with a phone call from a mutual friend so the game wasn't given away right in the beginning.)

Here's the poem to be left on the first night: 

This glad Christmas season is so full of fun,
We're happy to share this with you, then run.
How grateful we are that you're playing our game,
You'll now find that Christmas won't be the same.

The song that we sing twelve days in a row
Won't get tiresome with treats from friends you know.
But to keep up the mystery and the fun,
You won't know who we are until we're all done!

Each night we'll bring something special for you,
And leave it on your doorstep - Don't catch us too soon!
So please do not watch for us; it'll spoil the fun,
We promise we'll reveal ourselves on the last nightly run!

Next, I printed out some blank tags so I could write my own notes on them as follows.  I bought some Christmas gift bags that look like lunch bags, put the gift inside, folded the top over and punched a hole in it through which I could thread a piece of ribbon to attach the tag with my note.  Usually, we left the parcels late enough that they were found in the morning.  Following are the notes I left.

On the FIRST day of Christmas, your crazy friends gave to you, a partridge in a pear tree...
Sorry, but I couldn't find a partridge so I'm giving you some pears from the tree.    (Leave a can of pears in the bag with the note attached.)

On the SECOND day of Christmas, your crazy friends gave to you, two turtle doves...
Unfortunately, I don't have any turtle doves.  Will a Dove candy bar and some Turtle candy do?  (Tie the Dove candy bar and two Turtle candies together with a ribbon and leave it with the note.)

On the THIRD day of Christmas, your crazy friends gave to you, three French hens...
The French hens were not available, so we're leaving you French fries, courtesy of the French hens.   (Leave a small bag of frozen French fries with the note.)

On the FOURTH day of Christmas, your crazy friends gave to you, four calling birds...
More birds!  How about some thistle and suet so you can call those birds to your house.   (I found  ready-to-hang thistle in a bag and some suet to leave with the note.)

On the FIFTH day of Christmas, your crazy friends gave to you, five golden rings...
Sorry, we can't afford golden rings, but how about some golden pineapple rings?   (Leave a can of pineapple rings with the note.)

On the SIXTH day of Christmas, your crazy friends gave to you, six geese a laying...
You really don't want messy geese all over your yard.  Instead, here are six lovely blue eggs they left behind.  (We have an Araucana hen who lays blue eggs.  You can be creative with this one. Don't forget the note.  By the way, we did a 'ring and run' with this one.  Frozen eggs aren't much good.)

On the SEVENTH day of Christmas, your crazy friends gave to you, seven swans a swimming... The swans have all flown south for the winter, but a Loon swimming on your tree seemed appropriate from crazy friends.  (I found a lovely Loon ornament in our local Maine Made store, which I left with the note.)

On the EIGHTH day of Christmas, your crazy friends gave to you, eight maids a milking...
I didn't think you really wanted a cow...or a goat... but how about some garlic herbed cheese and crackers?  (We have goats, so I make goat cheese.  We left that with a nice box of crackers and the note.  You can certainly find a nice cheese in the grocery store.)

On the NINTH day of Christmas, your crazy friends gave to you, nine ladies dancing...
Here are some socks the ladies would have loved to have for their cold, tired feet.   (My daughter whipped up a wonderful pair of wool socks, which we left with the note.)

On the TENTH day of Christmas, your crazy friends gave to you, ten lords a leaping...

That's a lot of guys leaping around your house.  Perhaps you would prefer to watch the leaping flame of a Christmas candle instead.  (I found a lovely small Christmasy tea light candle surrounded by berries at Pier 1 to put in with the note.)

On the ELEVENTH day of Christmas, your crazy friends gave to you, eleven pipers piping...

How about eleven pipes of chocolate instead of all that noise?  (I left a can of Pirouline cookies with the note.  I considered a Christmas cd, but didn't know if she had a cd player, so I nixed that.)

On the TWELFTH day of Christmas, your crazy friends gave to you, twelve drummers drumming... No drummers, we promise. :)  We thought you'd like a special treat to enjoy the quiet of this night.  "For unto us, a child is born..."   (I found a lovely Christmas mug and some hot chocolate which we delivered with the note.)

Realizing that the twelve days of Christmas traditionally are counted starting on Christmas evening, we chose, instead, to start this twelve days before Christmas, culminating on Christmas eve.  This way, we could take the last gift with us when we went Christmas caroling on Christmas Eve, and thus reveal ourselves to our neighbor and wish her a very Merry Christmas.

I have heard from another neighbor that this friend enjoyed the secret Santa immensely, and looked forward to it each day.  I know we were just as blessed in sharing the joy with her as she was in receiving it.

We plan to find another victim to bless next year.  It was just too much fun.

Christmas

I think that this was probably one of the most blessed Christmases we've had in a long time.  TBear and I decided to play Secret Santa to a lovely elderly neighbor of ours, "J."   She has lived alone since her husband passed away a few years ago, and her children seem to live far away.  I think she is often lonely too.  We are surrounded by other terrific neighbors, with one in particular who makes a point of visiting "J" frequently.  At any rate, for the 12 days leading up to Christmas eve, we left little packages and notes on her porch.  (I will share more about the 12 Days in another post.)  Then on Christmas eve, other fabulous friends who live a few miles down the road from us, joined our family to go caroling at "J's" house and finally reveal who has been leaving parcels for her.  It was crisp and clear and cold, and the stars twinkled.  We had a wonderful time!

After caroling, we gathered up TBear's violin and piled into our car to head down to our Caroling Friends' house on the lake for a Christmas eve service.  After the service, we gathered around a bonfire by the lake, watched the stars twinkle, and sang more Christmas carols.  It was a perfect ending to a beautiful evening.  Riss and GrandSunny met us at home shortly after we returned.  We enjoyed a cup of cheer and some hors d'oeuvres.  The children hung their stockings by the chimney with care and went to bed to dream of... I don't know what... a whiter Christmas, perhaps?

On Christmas morning, I woke up at 5:30am.  Amazingly, I was the only one awake then.  I spent the next hour listening to what I thought was Riss's phone alarm going off every few minutes.  (Which was strange; I couldn't understand why she would set her alarm since she didn't have to be anywhere but here.)  The smell of the coffee brewing finally drove me to the kitchen, which is when I discovered the musical alarm was actually coming from OUR room, not Riss's!   I discovered TBear had set the alarm on the to-be-used-for-emergency-only cell phone that was buried in the bottom drawer of my night table.  He hadn't shut the power off when he was done playing with the settings.

TBear's thoughtful Christmas gift to his dad was to roll out of bed early to do the barn chores by himself, so Dad could enjoy his coffee in the quiet of Christmas morning.  Sunny didn't even wake up until TBear was back in from doing chores!

Finally, coffee or tea in hand, we gathered in our living room by the fire, and Christmas tree, to read the last chapter of "Bartholomew's Passage," an advent story we started just after Thanksgiving.  At last, we opened stockings and gifts.  What a wonderful time of sharing we had.   I was so happy to just sit and be with this family I love so much!  Especially since Riss works late hours and I don't get to see her much, and Nutmeg will soon be leaving to embark on a new journey to Oklahoma.  She has accepted a teaching job there, so it will be some time before we get to see her again.

My narration wouldn't feel complete without some updated pictures of our family, so I will share those now.   This is the wonderful Chore Boy Who Gave His Dad A Break On Christmas Morning, TBear, just in from doing the milking.

 
About a week before Christmas, Riss's boyfriend Jacob got a pair of absolutely darling hound puppies to help him hunting.  Their names are Savage and Zoe...guess who named which puppy?

Nutmeg knit a beautiful blue sweater for Sunny for Christmas.

Here is Nutmeg the talented Sock and Sweater Knitter, enjoying the journal her grandmother sent back to us this Christmas.  We got the idea for this last year here.

Nutmeg taught me to knit this summer.  Grandmas knit, right?  I wanted to make socks and mittens for grandchildren, so in August I took lessons from Nutmeg.  After tinking  (that would be knitting backwards, or un-knitting) and starting a mitten over again six times, I finally got the hang of it.  I was so delighted with the outcome that I ventured to sign up for a class at my local yarn shop to make a sweater.  (MyJane told me I skipped some steps in the learning process there, but scarves are boring. :)

This is the Icelandic sweater I made the Farmer for Christmas.  (And, hallelujah, it fit!)

 

The day after Christmas, we gave sled rides to some friends with family up from Virginia.  Pat and Scooby are still very good boys, and they love their jingle bells.  (I do too!)

Unfortunately, we're expecting rain tomorrow, which will quite possibly wash away all our snow.  This is truly weird weather for Maine this year, but January is here soon.  Hopefully, the weather will return to its normal snowiness.  (Yes, that's a word...now. :)

Horse-Drawn Snow Roller

At the turn of the 20th century, when farmers needed to go somewhere, they generally still traveled by horse-drawn wagon.  When it snowed, well, they'd just hunker down for a few days waiting for the roads to be cleared.  This didn't phase them in the least; after all, they had all the food, firewood, and fodder stored up that they needed for the winter.   However, there were times that it was necessary to get to town to do business, so a team of oxen or draft horses would be hitched up to a huge snow roller to pack the snow down on the road from one farm to the next, and on into town to make it easier to travel by sleigh.  Interestingly, snow rollers seemed to have been peculiar to New England and New York.
 
Thanks to Henry Ford and his mass-produced Model-T (starting around 1908), cars eventually became more numerous than horse-drawn wagons, roads were paved, and snow plows took over the job of making travel easier by scraping the snow off the roads.

We find much to learn from history though.  Recently, MacGyver, who reads and researches stuff like this all the time, reinvented a snow roller to be pulled behind one of our horses.  Taking an old cable spool, he nailed boards around the perimeter, did a little welding, set the whole thing on a frame with a seat, and voila!  (I make it sound so easy, don't I? :)  It's not nearly as big as the ones drawn by a team of oxen, but it suited the purpose of packing a trail through the woods, hopefully making it easier for our horses to pull a sled.  (The weather is supposed to deteriorate into slop, so it may be a few days before we can go for a sled ride.)

Here is the reinvented snow roller.  Whit is going to make a test run around the yard.  (That turned out to be a good plan. :)

 

We discuss a few modifications that need to be made.

 

Now that we've seen that the roller will work, we're ready to go for the test run through the woods.  Having the two of us riding on it made it less tender, and easier to balance.

  

 It really did work very well.  One pass down the path and one back made it wide enough for the two horses to pull the sled.

Now, I would just like a little more snow.

O Christmas Tree

This entry is for my family, who is always amused by our Christmas tree.  For the past five years, Whit has refused to purchase a Christmas tree from a tree farm.  After all, we have a lot of trees in our woods to choose from, and many of them are actually balsam firs...the kind you find on Christmas tree lots.  Of course, they haven't been trimmed, and they're about 25 feet tall, but those are minor details.  I keep ragging on my Botanist and the Farmer to plant a few small ones in our field to be pruned and groomed for our living room, but that hasn't happened yet.

For the past few years we've had some good snow.  This year has been rather disappointing, although we did get enough for a white Christmas.  Usually we harness ol' Scooby to the sled and have him drag the tree home.  It's always quite a process to wade through the deep snow, cut the tree and get it home.  Not this year though.  We had barely six inches of snow, and I wasn't able to be here.  So the Farmer, the Botanist, and the Boy all went to the woods to cut the aforementioned tannenbaum and drag it home, sans Scooby. 

When I arrived home, the tree was standing in its place of honor, with the lights already rigged up on it by the Botanist.  All I had to do was help decorate.  It was a lot better than getting run over by the sled with the tree on it again this year.  :) 

Without further ado, here is the picture of our Christmas tree this year (minus the bottom 19 feet or so.)  I always have to laugh.  Every year someone stands back and says, "That's the best tree we've had yet."  I'm sure it is.  We're getting good at that pruning thing.

Studying Minerals in General Science

TBear was working on a module about geology in his science this week.  One of the assignments was to study what a mineral looks like in its natural state.  Alum is an easily obtained, pure mineral that you can buy at the grocery store; however, it's sold as a smashed-up powder in a little can.  So, the experiment, then, was to dissolve it in water and let it reform into its natural crystalline structure in order to take a look at it with a magnifying glass to see what it looks like in its natural form. 

First, he dissolved the alum in boiling water, then he poured it into a mason jar.  There was a string with a nut tied to the end of it for the mineral to crystallize on so it could easily be lifted out of the jar.

More alum crystals formed on the bottom of the jar than on the nut, but it was still easy enough to get the crystals off the bottom.

 

After picking a few crystals out of the jar, TBear took a closer look with a magnifying glass.  Rocks are composed of many minerals; because of the mix, they don't look like any particular crystalline form.  The pebbles in the background were to compare what a mix of minerals looks like (a rock) as opposed to a pure mineral (the alum crystal.)

 

He was so fascinated by the cool geometric pattern of the crystals that I pulled out the microscope for him to take an even closer look.

The microscope proved so fascinating that other things were found to look at...such as the wing of a fly that had the misfortune of being swatted on the window.  I never knew there were tiny hairs on a fly's wing.

Muddled Monday

Today was one of those days.  I don't know how or why days like this happen.  You get up in the morning, everything seems to be going according to plan, but then you look at the clock and suddenly discover that it's lunchtime and all you've accomplished with your student is a lot of history reading!  (Said student thinks it's been a fabulous morning. :)  Well, okay, and the chores, and violin practice, and breakfast got done, and he did bring his laundry down to get started...plus I mixed up a batch of bread to rise.

TBear made macaroni and cheese for lunch (Home Ec) while I compiled a list of turkey orders for this weekend.  (The Thanksgiving turkeys will be going to the butcher on Saturday morning, bright and early.)  After a post-lunch 15-minute recess, we were back at the books again.  Math, Latin, Writing...suddenly it was time for chores!  Well, okay, so TBear's sister stopped in for a visit, and I had some cheese customers, but how did the time get away from me?!   I didn't fill TBear's workboxes for this morning, and I think that made a tremendous difference in what got done, not that anyone could accuse us of sitting around watching soaps and eating bon-bons all day.  Not by a long shot.   Still, I had additional ideas of what I wanted to accomplish today.

I also forgot about the laundry I'd hung on the line at lunchtime.  I was trying to take advantage of one of our last beautiful, breezy, sunshiny days.  I wound up wearing my headlamp out just to find the laundry at 5pm!  (It gets dark early here at this time of year!  It was actually dark around 4:15...I missed that by a mile.)  I also forgot about that bread I had rising in the oven!  It's finally baking now. 

Dinner is going to be late because that bread was for the toast under the chicken and gravy, which pretty much sums up the way my day has gone.  Oh well, some days are like that.  I'm glad we have Monday's Muddle over with.  Tomorrow is going to be Terrific Tuesday!  I can just feel it in my bones.  :)

A Weekend of Chickens and Hockey

Okay, so we went from snow last week to sixty degrees today.  I'm confused, but then again, this is New England.  It's been a very busy weekend.  Saturday morning our meat chickens went to slaughter, and we had two hockey games to attend that same afternoon, then another three this afternoon.   While Whit took the meat birds to the slaughterer, I went shopping for my Secret Sister at the Maine Craft Fair.  I had a great time with my friends, but got home just in time to head off for the two hockey games Whit was reffing, and we were keeping score for.  The birds had to sit in ice baths until we were done.   The weather wasn't too bad when we went into the rink, but by the time we were done, it had started to pour.  We got the leftovers from Hurricane Ida.  We slogged home, and after a fast dinner of pizza, I got to work cutting up chicken and bagging it for our freezer.  My wonderful friend Brenda came to help; a dozen of the chickens were hers.  It was very late by the time we were done, and I didn't get to bed until even later, after bleaching all my counters, cutting boards, utensils and floor.

Today was another big hockey day.  Today, TBear had a game to play.  I've decided that TBear and I are a great team at the score-keeping job.  I keep the score sheet while he runs the clock.  I don't have to think about what's going on with the electronics, I just write the score and penalties and watch the game.  However, a few minutes after we arrived at the rink for TBear's game, it became apparent that the scorekeeper for his game was a no-show.  I was summoned.  Uh oh... I had never run the clock.  I have nice, legible handwriting; my job is to keep the scoresheet while TBear runs the clock!  Now, I had to do both our jobs for his game.  The learning curve was rather vertical, but I managed.  (Thank goodness for all the mental Mad-Math Minutes TBear and I do! : D )  Nobody threw tomatoes at me, and the coaches cut me some slack... in spite of my not being able to post the penalty times.  Oh well.  I figured out how to enter those half-way through the first period.  Meanwhile I had  scratch paper handy and just told the guys what time they could get back on the ice.  It sounds easy when you're sitting at your computer reading this, but it does get kind of busy, and I don't like making mistakes, so perhaps that makes me more neurotic than most. 

After all the hockey excitement today, I got to come home and finish boiling chicken carcasses down and packaging the remaining meat for the freezer.  I am so thankful for the Food Saver vacuum packer that my mom gave us years ago.   Hopefully, the 20 cut up birds I have in my freezer will carry us through at least until next summer when we will raise more meat birds. 

Meanwhile, it's late again, I'm done for the day, and I think I will turn in soon.   Tomorrow begins our last week before we take a week-long vacation from school for the Thanksgiving  holiday.  I am also really looking forward to spending some time with my daughter, (whom I see infrequently, and who will be home soon,) making good things to eat, perhaps doing some knitting, and just generally enjoying her company.

I'm glad tomorrow is Monday though.   I need a break. : D

Making Cheese

Yesterday the weather was cool but lovely.  After our recent snow, it seemed wise to me to finish pulling up the rest of the carrots  before they were permanently buried under snow for the winter.   TBear helped by pulling them, rinsing off the dirt and leaving them spread out to dry before we put them away.

My garden looks sad now.  The sheep and goats, on the other hand, thought the carrot tops were yummy.

I also made cheese yesterday.  We still have two goats in milk, which are producing about a gallon a day.  That's an awful lot of milk for just the three of us to drink, so I've been making cheese with the extra milk.  Thankfully, I have some friends, whom we see on Thursday afternoons at fiddle class, who like to buy my cheese or we'd be eating an awful lot of stuffed shells, lasagna, enchiladas, and cheese and crackers! 

The cheese I make is a pretty simple, mild Queso Blanco.  All it requires is the goats' milk and some vinegar.  Whit created a pasteurizer/double boiler for me, which is pretty cool.  I usually do up about 3 gallons of milk at a time, primarily because that's all my pot will hold.

We filter and store the milk in half-gallon mason jars.  I pour them into the pot when I'm ready to make cheese.

 

Whit put an electric heating element in the bottom of a larger pot, which I fill with water.  I have no idea what the element was cannibalized from, but it works fine here.  The top of the milk pot has a hole in it through which I can insert a digital thermometer probe.  The milk needs to be heated to 175-180 degrees, so I set the alarm to go off when the milk reaches about 176 degrees.  (That way I have some leeway for the temperature to rise a little more without scalding the milk.)  Then I unplug the pot and set the timer to let the milk sit for 10 minutes.

After taking the milk pot out of the pasteurizer pot, I slowly stir about 1/4 cup of vinegar per gallon of  milk into the pot to form the cheese curds.

I line a colander with cheesecloth (butter muslin is best) and put the colander over a bowl to catch the whey as I pour the curds into the colander.

Tying the corners of the cheesecloth, I then hang it over the bowl to finish draining.

We like herbed cheese, so I put the curds into the mixer, and add in some olive oil, salt, fresh garlic (not too much, perhaps 2 cloves), oregano and basil.

Finally, using my nifty digital scale, I measure it into 1 pound containers.  I usually get about 5 pounds of cheese for three gallons of milk.  Not that the cheese lasts that long around my house, but it will keep for about 7 to 10 days in the refrigerator.  I've read that you can freeze it, but I haven't had enough left over to try that.  TBear loves to eat it on crackers as a snack.

What happens to the whey?  My chickens love it.  I also use it as the liquid if I'm making a soup or chowder.  It's very nutritious.

Probably Should Have Checked the Weather...

Most of the time I'm pretty aware of what's going on around me.  Most of the time.  Yesterday morning Whit said, "We're supposed to have some snow flurries today."  I know what snow flurries are.  He didn't have to define this for me.  They're fun to watch and they melt when they hit the ground, and that's just what they did for a few hours of false starts and spitting.  By about lunchtime they were finally starting to look a little like real snow rather than just flurries.  Did I check the weather to see if this was going to be an issue?  No, of course not.  It's the first week of November and I don't remember snow being an issue the first week of November here for at least the last five years.  No weather report required.  I'm not a weenie.  Just do what we have to do and be sensible in my driving. 

By about 1:30 it was snowing for real, but it wasn't sticking to the ground... at least, not at my house.  By the time we got to TBear's violin lesson half an hour east of here, it was starting to stick, and I was beginning to think, huh! we might really get an inch or so.  I admired it through the window during his lesson, feeling secure in the knowledge that this wasn't going to be a problem because my car drives great in the snow.  We're good.

However, after I got home I saw the 2-wheel drive pickup truck sitting in the barn with a half dozen bales of hay.  I was reminded that I was supposed to deliver these to TBear's fiddle teacher's house, which was our next appointment.  I started to have a few qualms at this point.  I don't like driving that truck in the snow.  It makes me look like a total idiot...and it's scary.  Still, the snow was melting almost as fast as it hit the ground...at my house.  Because I didn't check the weather, I didn't realize this was a storm from the east - off the ocean.  Our fiddle teacher lives east of us, so the further east I was to drive the more snow I ran into.  And it was sticking and accumulating.

But back at home, I didn't know that.  I figured, what the heck, I can do anything I set my mind to.  Just ask my mom.  She's told me that my whole life.  So I set my mind to getting TBear, and that load of hay, to his fiddle lesson.  We did well until we got to his teacher's road, which went uphill, and hadn't been plowed or sanded or anything.  My momentum carried me up the hill part way, but not quite to the top.  We slowly slid sideways toward the ditch as we struggled to make forward progress.  I stopped, not wanting to have to be pulled out of the ditch, and called Whit.  He wasn't happy about it, but he was prepared to jump in my car and come rescue me.  However, after hanging up, I decided I wasn't going to be beaten by this weenie truck, drat it!  So I put it in gear again and got it going.  We skated kind of sideways up the hill.  I called Whit and told him never mind, I'd managed it.   We unloaded the hay, TBear went to his lesson, and then we skated home again.  At least the unplowed scary part was downhill.  :)

Later, over dinner, Whit informed me that my struggles were probably greater than usual because the tires are bald.  Sigh.  I really think we need to get new tires before real winter weather sets in, especially since this is the only vehicle we have that will pull the horse trailer.

We went to bed wondering if it was going to keep snowing all night, which it did until at least midnight.  This morning I was up taking pictures of the "dusting" at 6:30.  TBear went out with the ruler and measured 4 inches on the grill and arms of the Adirondack chairs (which, ahem, it might be time to put away for the winter.)  The ground was warm enough that it only accumulated about 2 inches.  I took a few pictures to share.  So silly.

 The Farmall C.

 

 Magnum and Pat patiently waiting for breakfast. :)

 

It was a real winter wonderland for a few hours.  Actually, most of it is still on the ground.  It didn't get warm enough today to melt it.   It also made me really appreciate the fires in the woodstoves, and the hearty soup I had made the day before.  Tonight it's already below freezing.  I don't think it's going to melt soon.  On the other hand, I haven't checked the weather report lately.

Hanging Around

I was going through the pictures I took last month, and thought you might like these.  Grandson Sonny spent the night with us about a week ago.  TBear is good about practicing his violin daily, and Sonny loves to sit and listen...or play something too.  Usually he accompanies TBear on the piano, but this time he discovered the banjo.  Oh, man, was that a treat!  He fell in love with it, but it was too big to hold so TBear set him up on the chair with the banjo across his lap and the two of them practiced fiddle tunes together.  :)

 Marissa and Jake came to pick Sonny up the next day.  After hanging around with us for a little while, they got into the big, red truck and left. 

 

However, Sonny is coming to visit again tomorrow, and I can't wait! :)

Don't Tell Me You're Not Tired of This Yet...

If you're tired of reading about Whit and the horses, or seeing pictures of them too, then just flip to another page now.  I don't know if that's really the most interesting thing that went on here in October since I last posted, but that's what I have pictures of.  Whit and the horses.  I'll look some more and see what else I might have photo-documented.

Anyway, last weekend Whit and friend Jake had a job doing some low-impact, selective clearing of a few trees on a piece of property down near the pond.  They chose to do the job on a very rainy Saturday...as opposed to sunny Sunday afternoon.  I don't remember what else was going on that weekend, but it made sense to them to do it in the rain.  It was cold and windy too.  It was not my idea of a good time, but I took them some lunch and brought my camera.  I stood under the porch to take the following pictures.  TBear stayed and helped.

 You can sort of see the pond in the background behind the trees.  It really was a good job for the horses.

 

The scenery was beautiful, even if the weather wasn't.  The gold of the autumn leaves gave the whole woods an apparently cheerful, if wet, golden glow.

 

Reality check: 1-2 inches of rain that day.   (Yeah, I'd have picked that day to work too.  Not. :)

 

I'm sure it's a guy thing.  Even the horses didn't look that miserable.  They all came home still happy.  (And happy to be done.)

A Walk in the Fall Sunshine

Monday was a beautiful day here.  The trees are starting to change to their fall colors of red and yellow.  The weather is turning cool and crisp, and it's hard to stay inside on a day like this.  Grandson Sunny spent the night with us on Sunday night, so we decided to spend Monday morning enjoying a walk to get fresh air and collect leaves.  You can call it phys. ed. or a nature walk, or both. :) 

There's a field next to our house, which we investigated this day.

I think they were looking at a bird across the field.

Running back down towards the entrance to the field.

It's fun to have TBear help jump over rocks in the path.

A caterpillar we spotted on our walk.  I have no idea what kind of moth it will turn into, but probably ought to look it up out of curiosity.

Violins and Fiddles

I've frequently been asked what's the difference between a violin and a fiddle.  The answer is nothing, actually.  Fiddle music is played on a violin...or a fiddle...same instrument, different names.  It's all in who you're hanging out and playing with at the time.  :)

We've been busy the past few weekends attending fairs.  The Common Ground Country Fair is a fun one, sponsored by MOFGA.  The Maine Suzuki Association was asked to play on Sunday afternoon.

Sunday turned out to be a rainy day, but we put our muck boots on and slogged around the fairground in the rain after TBear was done playing.  There was lots to see, but it was all under tents, and the crowd was minimal, which we thought was great.  We really enjoyed watching the sheepdog demonstrations too.  There are a lot of days when I wish we had a good Border Collie to help us herd our animals.


Today, TBear's fiddle group, the Pineland Fiddlers, was invited to play at the Pettingill Farm Historic Fair down in Freeport.  The farm is a museum dating to sometime in the 1800's.  It was pretty low key, but the kids had a good time playing, and I always enjoy listening!  We got there early to tune and warm up.

They had a good time, I think.  Besides, lunch was free for us.  Good music and food...you can't beat that!

 

Twitching Wood

Now that the haying is done, it's time to do some other jobs.  This past weekend, Whit and our friend Jacob took the horses on a job twitching wood.  That's what they call hauling logs up out of the woods...twitching, because a twitching chain is used to skid the logs out.  A twitching chain simply has hooks on either end.  One end is wrapped around the log, then hooked back over the chain, while the hook on the other end is used to fasten the log to the double-tree behind the horses.

Generally, when someone wants to clear some land they can just pay someone to bring in a skidder and do it.  This job, however, was to selectively clear some trees that were blocking the owner's view of the lake without cutting a lot of extra trees or roughing up their property, plus their woods are on a pretty steep hill.  So Whit took Pat and Scooby to haul the logs up a relatively narrow path, wending their way between the trees.

Whit and Jake worked all morning bringing up some smaller logs.  I arrived with lunch and my camera.  Here, lunch break is over.  Whit is walking the boys back down the drive from the trailer where Pat and Scooby had their lunch, and across the yard to the top of the path leading down into the woods.

Jacob is carrying the double-tree in the foreground.

You can get an idea of the view the owners are trying to preserve.  (The house is off to the left here.)

 

 The horses prefer to watch what's going on while Jake wraps the chain around the log in preparation for hauling.

Hitching them up to haul.

And off they go.

Everything is pulled up to the driveway where they can be loaded onto a trailer.

Headed back down the hill again for a big log this time.

 

This is a pretty big log.  Whit had created a hoist to lift it up off the ground, but it needs some modifications to get around the rocks and trees.

It is kind of a donkey path with a really annoying rock in the way.  The front end of the log didn't miss it this time.

The cable snapped!  Back to using the chain.  But first they have to get around the rock.

Using a peavy, they roll the log sideways enough to get around the rock and tell the horses to giddup.

Unfortunately, the next obstacle was this annoying tree.  Hauling logs behind horses is a little like trying to play crack the whip while attempting to get up the path...around the obstacles.  Jake has his trusty peavy.  (Never leave home without it.)

They finally made it up the hill.  Because the horses had to pull pretty hard to get the log up over the top of the hill, Whit didn't want to stop them.  Notice the little two-step Whit does between the log and that rock on the right to keep the log from running over his toes.

That was a good haul.  The horses need a  break, so Jake is going to fetch his chainsaw and take care of that annoying tree in the trail.

The troublesome tree is on the right.  Jake is contemplating which direction he wants it to fall before he starts sawing.  (Well, okay, he's also wondering why I'm taking so many stupid pictures. :)

 No more tiresome tree in the trail.

Whit and the horses are watching Jacob finish the tree job.  Then they'll head  back down  into the woods and haul up another log.

They're all good boys.  They did a good day's work, but it's not nearly done.  They'll be back again next weekend.