The Lay of the Land

An internet friend of mine asked what our land layout is like so here it is....

I took this picture standing in the SW corner of the property looking north. You can't see the other end as it slopes downhill.

Same SW Corner looking East. You can see the side of the house and some misc. tractor things...

Same said SW Corner looking towards the SE corner. Future machine shed... hence the exposed rather unsightly farm equipment. The beehives are towards the right.

This is taken from about the East side in about the middle of the property looking SE.

This is about in the middle of the land looking north.

North side.

Stream on the north side.

This is the field on the NE corner of the property.

A grassy patch on the East side.

A look down the road, we are on the right side and our neighbors have land on the left side.

Eastside field.

This is the neighbor's land across the road, it was too pretty to leave out.

Looking up the driveway, which is near the SE corner.

This is looking up to the SE corner from the bottom of the driveway.

This is from the front porch. The children's little play house is in there and a swingset in the making as well as a large collection of bicycles and toy trucks, buckets and shovels!

Midsummer Night's Dream

Now here is a performance not to be missed! 9 homeschooling families make us proud of their talents! Check out Tales from the Bonny Blue House and Cottage Blessings, more here, and then performed publically as well! A definite standing ovation!

May Birthday

Samwise turns 11. Weighing in at 89 pounds and ___ feet ___ inches tall (to be announced!)

Sam's siblings and I made a fishie cake and a bucket of dirt cake (note to self: never bury the gummy worms in the dirt cake, laying them across the top layer is just as effective)

Sam enjoyed the day fishing with Grandpa, Daddy and 3 of his uncles on board Sea Dog Sportfishing Boat.

The gulls flying behind the boat.

The first catch

Brown Trout

Sam enjoying the remote control boat from Aragorn's Family.

Our Freecycle Chicks

We were able to pick up these chicks after seeing an ad on Freecycle. The woman had something like 30 chicks *in* her tiny house but wanted to give these ones away. We're tickled! They are Buckeyes about 1 month old.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to our mothers and grandmother as well as to all of the other wonderful mothers in our life!

Mushrooms!

"Hobbits have a passion for mushrooms, surpassing even the greediest likings of Big People. A fact which partly explains young Frodo's long expeditions to the renownd fields of the marish, and the wrath of the injured Maggot."

Morel Mushrooms are ready! Sam (of course!) is our mushroom hunter and has been peeping around for them since the beginning of April, even though he knows they come in May! We've enjoyed about 5 pounds of mushrooms so far this year... we jokingly talk about our most expensive meal of the year (since we get them only for the pickins' but they go for $20 and more per pound!)

Gently sauteed in butter, Morel Mushrooms are the best addition to our May meals!

However, we are considering changing Trinity Acres to Bamfurlong in the Marish. Samwise went out to gather the Mushrooms for this evening's meal and he found many stumps. Some mysterious hobbit has been stealing our mushrooms! Or maybe we just need some more dogs!

"Shamefaced [Frodo Baggins] laugh[ed], 'I am terrified of him and his dogs. I have avoided his farm for years and years. He caught me several times trespassing after musrooms, when I was a youngster at Brandy Hall.'"

Brick Sidewalk

There is still much work to do at Trinity Acres as far as finishing projects, maybe we'll be done in 5 years! The most recent project is putting down a sidewalk. We've only had stones til now.

The tricky part was making the angles.

We *made* the angles, now we still have to fill them in. Our Mary Garden is planted... well for this year's additions. Other than several various annuals, we added 4 different bush-rose bushes and a darling dwarf lilac. It's too cute for words. It got it's very first teensy lilic flower today so I expect this week it will bloom out full. There are flowers all over it.

Class is Dismissed!

Class is dismissed for a Sand Day. When a big truck comes with a big pile of sand, there are important things to do....

...like being buried alive.

Pippin loves sand, I just wish he'd stop throwing it in his eyes!

Planting Season

Aragon raises all his own feed for the animals. I'm not sure exactly how many acres he does but my 11 year old mentioned 10 acres of soy beans (must check for accuracy!) and then there is alot of corn and hay.

More Nature Explorations

Mama Robin in her nest

Mourning Dove in her nest

We happened to catch the baby mourning doves while the mama was away!

Eleanor, a bit blurry

Aren't Cardinals the most beautiful birds?

Geese in the field

Guess I scared them away.

Bittersweet Moment

One of the bittersweet moments of motherhood with young children is the day you move your toddler out of your room into the big boys' room and the toddler is delighted.

"When Worlds Collide" Blogging

It never ceases to amaze me the comments people will rudely make regarding the size of our family. A good internet friend at Our Magnum Opus, has a terrific post on just this topic. Enjoy!

Field Trip to Jelly Belly Land

(picture from Jelly Belly Site)
If you want to do something fun go on a field trip to the Jelly Belly Factory! I must have bonked my camera as it wouldn't work when we got there! Talk about a bloggers nightmare! Thanks to my SIL, I have some pics to share the funsies! The above picture shows the train we rode on, on the left are the warehouse shelves and those jelly beans dangling from the ceiling are something like 6 feet long!

This is our little group in front of a little white beetle-bug VW that was painted with jelly beans all over the bottom portion of it (Too cute! I could just envision my friend Nissa riding around in it!). There were 12 children under 11 and they all behaved beautifully. 8 of the children were mine and then 4 of my neices and nephews, 2 SILS and MIL came along. It was grand fun.

Donning the mandatory Jelly Belly hats, the girls were ready to ride on the Jelly Belly Express. The driver gave a fun and interesting guided tour through the factory (well, not the real factory, that was shown on videos along the way). You wouldn't believe the amount of sugar they use in a year's time!

There were huge pictures made with jelly beans of various famous people.

Here are 3 of our cute neices and nephews.
Be sure to check out the Jelly Belly Website and take the free virtual tour!