Halloween Witch

I'll get you my pretty!

And your little dog too!

But if you give me some candy,

 then I won't turn you into a toad!

Savannah's scary witch costume and William's frog costume for Halloween. Savannah filled her cauldron with Halloween treats despite the initial downpour.

Fall glimpses

William is five months old and busy breaking his mother's heart with his babyness. He loves his toes, his thumb, and his big sister. His first word may very well be "hungry", which we hear almost everyday, but I'm waiting to be sure he knows what he's saying (he appears to!) I hoping I'll hear "mama" soon!

He adores the baby chicks and watches the brooder with interest a few feet away on the safety of his blanky. He doesn't get good traction when on a blanky so he tends to spin in circles rather than inch his way forward, as he sometimes does.

Savannah is busy with her home school year well underway. Music lessons, private art lessons, story times, nature hikes, play dates and the chance to choose two of the four topics we learn about every month. She enjoyed her first spelling test so much, she asked for another one! Topics covered so far: apples, caterpillars, farms. Upcoming topics: fire and fire safety, bats, pumpkins. Each week she also has a cooking day where she gets to do most, if not all, of the work. I'm trying to teach her basic scarf knitting as well but these fine motor skills are still  a challenge. For her craft this week she made a haunted forest with a haunted house and decorated our house for Halloween. She also taught herself multiplication by 10s and 1s last week, "by just thinking about it".

Making apple crisp "by hand" from the apples we picked.

Baby Golden Sebright Bantams

We have three new family members today - baby golden sebright bantams. They are so tiny and so beautiful, even as chicks.

They grow to about 3 pounds and their feathers are outlined in black. These chicks are siblings from a neighbor's farm. After just one day of caring for them, it seems they're already family members. Guess who loves them already?

It's quite appropriate that we're caring for baby chicks now because our homeschool unit is about farms right now.

Solar laundry

Our photovoltaic system has been up and running for just over two weeks now. It's working very well and it's fun to read amount of energy in kilowatts we've generated each day, usually about 36 kW. The system also tells us (for fun!) how many pounds of carbon dioxide we've saved.

Now that we check the amount of energy we're producing every day, we think more about the energy we are spending everyday. So, finally, Kevin installed the clothesline he purchased many months ago. Really, its installation was a joint venture with everyone pitching in something - digging holes, mixing cement, stringing the line, etc.

My helper

According to DOE EIA statistics, 5.8% of a household's electric use goes towards dryer use. I'm not sure what percentage of our electric bill goes towards that since we have an energy efficient dryer and a washing machine that gets rid of more water during the spin cycle than non-front loaders. Anyway, hanging laundry is fun and it's one more chore that gets us outside.

One cute baby sock blows in the wind like a Tibetan prayer flag.

This interesting website (Project Laundry List) claims that if every American line dried their clothing, it would be enough to close several power plants. Imagine that! We are looking forward to the energy savings so our solar system will make a bigger impact.

Garden treasures

We still have bushes full of basil, sweet bell peppers, black beauty zucchini, early fortune cucumbers, and tomatoes. Some little creature discovered how to get through the garden fence and systematically ate all the carrot tops off. When we pulled them out of the garden, they were mostly too small for eating. I hope our melons ripen soon.

Savannah's giant pumpkins are amazing! The first viable fruit steals all the plant's resources by sending out a chemical that kills off all the others on the vine. As they wither and rot, the big pumpkin hoards all the food for itself. This is the small one about 12 inches in diameter.

This one is so large, I'm not sure how we are going to get it out of the garden at the end of October. Savannah can ride on it like a St. Bernard. We'll have to roll it up a plank into the cart so we can haul it up to the front of the house with the tractor. There's no way I could fit this one in the wheelbarrow. It sure will be fun to see it in front of the house this fall.

Everyone pitches in on a farm

Savannah and Dearest mow the front lawn after dinner as the sun sets. Savannah has had enough "experience" on the John Deere that she is sometimes permitted to steer it herself. She always wears her ear protection.

Wood in

Last winter we had an energy efficient soapstone woodstove installed. It provides wonderful warmth and heat to two floors of our house. Instead of ordering wood this year, Kevin has been bringing it in himself every weekend in the woods behind our house. He goes out with his chainsaw and removes the dead hardwoods that fell in the ice storm, hauls them back behind the barn and chops them into woodstove-size logs. He also removes the pines and anything else that has fallen on the hiking and snowshoeing trails behind our house.

Today I went into the barn to see the progress. Here are two rows 16-18 feet long stacked 7-8 feet high.


And another short row.

And behind the barn two more enormous stacks of wood.

Someone has been very busy this season preparing for winter. Last winter we thought the weather was fine but everyone told us it was a long hard winter for the area. I think we'll be more than prepared for the upcoming winter and I'm looking forward to the family snuggles we'll share while keeping cozy and warm in front of the woodstove as the snow falls.


The girls love to keep Kevin company when he's chopping wood. The bark falls off and the girls go crazy for the bugs beneath. Long after he's stopped chopping, they continue to eat the buggies.

Four months old

Hi! My name is William and I am four months old today.

I like to roll on my tummy and suck on my fingers.

And I like to practice crawling. (It's great fun to see the worried expression on Mommy's face!)

Look! I can do them both at the same time!

Also, I like to practice yoga.

Yup, in my diaper.

I am quite the guy!

Scarlet's new roost

I had been warned that chickens not only do not care what their housing looks like but that they often prefer something other than what their humans give them. Scarlet is one of those chickens.


She prefers the Saab roof rack to her own accomodations,


which explains the bird poop on the garaged car, as well as the tracks up and down the trunk.

Nature's Bounty

We've been enjoying our first real yields from the garden. Must be the sunshine! When I finally got out to pick zucchini for the first time, they were nearly the size of baby William. We've been grating them into baked goods and fritters with grated onion and potato, sauteing them and slicing them into lasagnas and ratatouilles, etc. The zucchini are Black Beauty heirlooms.


The cucumbers are also delicious! We pick them and take a bite right out of them. They are Early Fortune heirlooms. In between salads, I've been slicing some up and placing them in a container in the fridge overnight with some vinegar and sugar for a little treat in the heat.


The squash, pumpkins and two varieties of melons are all doing well. So are the sweet peas but we eat them all right out of the garden so they never even make it up to the house.



Our blueberries have been slow and steady but we are enjoying them now for breakfasts on the weekends or for a quick "whenever" snack. Yum!