Stop Motion Animation

Check out Reed's first Stop Motion Animation film, he made all by himself.  Extra points for having to ward off a curious toddler during the making of the project.

Harvesting the Sweet Potatoes

The cold nights and chilly days have signaled the definite end to Summer.  For the gardens it means to get Summer goodies all out of the ground and get Fall plants started.  Due to my general laziness this year and pre-occupation keeping up with a toddler, we only put in garlic and kale.  B did get in about 200 garlic plants, and I added about 50 more of a couple different varieties - yum!

Remember those sweet potato slips I started in my kitchen last Spring?  They went nuts when I planted them in the garden.  I had to prune them back out of the walkways weekly!  The leaves finally started to get brittle from the cold, so time to pull them up!

The harvest needs to cure for a minute in the shade before they are brought indoors for storage.

ZB wasn't quite ready to finish working, though...

When I finished the harvest and went in to make lunch, B surprised me with the very last garden-ripe tomato of the season - we savored it!  Oh, I'm going to miss those!  The wimpy greenhouse ones in the grocery store lack nearly any flavor, so I pretty much go without buying fresh tomatoes all Winter... boo.

I thought I'd add some other photos that were on my camera today.  This is one of the best ways I know to keep the girl still (at least long enough to change a diaper).  If I've got my camera handy, she'll grab it and turn it on, so I make sure to snap some photos of her so she'll have something to look at, and get excited saying, "Baby! Baby! Ma!"  Here ya go - cute baby very patiently waiting for me to hand the camera over to her :)

A Random Assortment of Halloweeness

The kids and I woke up bright and early today to help out at our Homeschool Co-op's annual Halloween Festival.  Clay helped in the Haunted House by constructing a spooky haunted forest out of an old EZ-Up, cardboard tubing and tree branches with some friends.  I made a donut-on-a-string game (no hands allowed!) which was delightfully sticky and messy, as well as an icky feely table with holes cut in cardboard boxes to feel dried up tongue (dry apricots), maggots (oily cooked rice), witches fingers (baby pickles) and more grossness.  I kept hearing shrieks of, "EWWW!" so I think it was a hit!

The boys went trick-or-trating with friends tonoght, but before they left, I did make sure to snap some photos.  Reed made his own mime costume again (boy, did our kitchen smell like permanent marker for days on end).  Clay went steampunk (google it if you don't know what this is :) this year and created a really cool costume out of lots of odds-and-ends, leather clothing from the thrift store and bronze spray paint.  And little ZB became a sweet a little forest gnome in her mama-made costume.

Mime and Gnome:

 So Gnome-y (and would not stand still!)

 Steampunk (this took about a month of planning - very cool!) :

The idea for ZB's little toadstool skirt of her gnome costume is from this cute blog I found - The Life of a Cheap Chickadee - Thank you!
Happy Halloween everyone!  I think I need to go clean off the floor in the boys room in anticipation for it soon to be covered in candy!

Arthur Morgan School Fall Festival

Our day at the beautiful campus of the Arthur Morgan School in Celo, NC for their annual Fall Festival:

Reed carding wool:

ZB with a bit of face paint flair:

Clay (in blue hoodie) learning blacksmithing (one of the favorite activities of the day!)

Afterwards, we stopped in at a nearby goat farm to visit the creatures and let the kids run through the lavendar labyrinth:

Beach Trip!

We finally took the beach vacation I've been wanting to do for years!  Our destination was Hunting Island, South Carolina. It was a nice, 5 hour drive to warm sunny weather, palm trees and desolate, undevoloped beaches.

Reed's thoughts from the beach:
- The mosquitos found out that Reed's blood is very very tasty.  Now everyone else does not have to worry about vampire attacks because they will go for Reed's tasty blood first.
- Raccoons are CRAZY!!!!!
- Always have bug spray handy
- I saw dolphins (a dolphin was 12 feet away from me!), and a bunch of crabs, and a giant horseshoe crab.
- I touched a shark.

Clay's thoughts from the beach:
- Boogie Boarding was fun and apparently Reed's blood tastes good
- There are way too many mosquitos
- Biking on the beach and all the roads was really fun.
- There was a really cool place on the beach where it was forest, but all the trees were dead.  When the tide came in, it looked like all the trees were coming out of the water.
- I wanted to see ghost crabs there, and I did and they were smaller than I thought
- The End

Blossom's thoughts from the beach (translated by mama):
- Who knew bike riding was so fun?
- When you camp at the beach, it means lots of naked time for baby
- Bug spray tastes terrible
- I sometimes thought I was a mermaid and tried to swim underwater, but mama wouldn't let me.

Mama's thoughts from the beach:
- I am so grateful for all the fabulous people at the Asheville Bike ReCYCLEry -they helped us get our dusty bikes road-worthy for FREE!
- I can't believe how much stuff I crammed in my little car!  Bikes, tents, bedding, backpacks, cloth diapers, food, water cooler, boogie boards, sand pail, cooking gear ... whew!  It was comical really, how loaded down our car was.  Why did I sell that minivan anyway?
- Raccoons that have been hand-fed by other campers are no fun for people who do not enjoy hanging out with them around the campfire.
- The South Carolina mosquitoes just laughed at our natural bug repellents.  I broke down and bought DEET.
- Loved camping with good friends!

Early morning shell finding:

Turtle nesting area:

Reed is taking some great photos lately with his iPod.  Here's a video he shot and some of his pics from the trip:

Lighthouse:

Turtle skeleton in State Park Nature Center:

A Handful of Goodness

These chilly nights are sneaking up on us!  For our little farm, this means harvesting the last of the Summer produce and planting the Fall gardens.  This was my first year growing sweet potatoes and they surprised me with how huge they are!

The regular potatoes are here as well - there are plenty to dig for dinner each night, and they'll be fine to stay underground until the weather gets pretty cold.

Reed's job each day is to do a lot of chicken tending.  He feeds them each morning and collects their eggs through the day.  We're starting to get quite the bounty of eggs as all of the hens are laying now!  The duck doesn't seem to be laying yet... not sure when that will start.

Of course I can't resist to add some photos of the youngins - I do love the nice hot Summer, but something about snuggling up in a sweater is a great feeling, too!  Here's ZB wearing the first sweater of the season...

I'll leave you with a shot of Reed goofing it up for the camera - he always like to be featured on the blog!  Happy Fall everyone!

From ZB to her adoring fans

I am so busy lately, and I apologize for not keeping up with the blog!!  Our homeschool co-op starts this week and I have taken on so much responsibility in it this year, I am feeling a little stressed.  I was already the membership coordinator, and then decided to also be the chair of our governing council.  Not a huge deal, but on top of that I am teaching 2 classes!  One is archery for 6-8 year olds and the other is a Hunger Games class (based on the book series) for teens.  Clay will be in the Hunger Games class, and unfortunately I won't be in a class with Reed this semester.  Of course, ZB will be having a great time in the nursery with her baby pals.
In my busy-ness, I was lucky to grab the camera in time to catch the after-dinner performance in the kitchen - or at least the tail end of it ... Enjoy!