Lockwood Woods

2011-02-28T22:37:00.003-05:00

Philip took some videos of the big final. He missed the 1AC and the 1NC and they're not complete but you get the idea.

Boy Scouts

2010-03-25T20:12:00.002-04:00

Yes I have joined the Boy Scouts of America or BSA for short. One day our friends the Woods asked me if I would like to join their new boy scout troop. So I said why not. It is a new troop so I did not miss many meetings. It is an all Christian, homeschool group which was a key factor for me signing up because all of the boys are very nice. The first time I went was when the whole troop went skeet shooting to earn their shotgun shooting merit badge :-D . Dad and I went there early in the morning. They had everything set up on top of a hill. And when we got there they taught us all about gun safety. After that they had lined us up from most experienced to the least experienced, I was at the end :( . So to earn the shotgun shooting merit badge you had to get at least fifteen skeet out of twenty five. There were two rounds for each boy to shoot. I prayed that I would not embarrass myself and be able to hit at least one. They had different types of shotguns they had 20 gauge single barrel shotguns, a 12 gauge semi automatic shotgun, and a 20 gauge pump action shotgun. For my first round I used the 20 gauge pump action shotgun. They let you test fire it before so you know what it feels like. And surprisingly there was not as much kick then I thought there would be. And when I finally hit my first one and saw it obliterate into hundreds of pieces I was so happy. After the first round I hit about 20 or so(I don't remember the specific number) skeet out of 25. And that was my very first time shooting a shotgun! For my second round I tried the single barrel shotgun. It was scary because when you open the barrel to eject the shell you have to point it away from your face because it flies out. And I also wanted to try the 12 gauge semi-auto but it was for right handers. So if I tried to shoot it the shells would have hit my arm when they were ejected. So all in all I got another 20 out of 25 and I earned my first merit badge :) !!!

A couple weeks after that I went to a merit badge weekend at Camp T. Brady Saunders. A merit badge weekend is where you go for a weekend(go figure) and take merit badge classes that allow you to earn them a lot quicker then if you did it on your own. So to make a long story short we got there Friday night, we slept in wooden tepees, we almost froze to death, we went to our classes and earned merit badges, we ate, we played, and we slept. Unfortunately I had all of my basic essentials: toothbrush, pocket knife, etc but I forgot to bring my camera so that is why I don't have any pictures :( .There were about four or five hundred scouts there and the staff had to feed us all. The food was mediocre, it was not great and it was not horrible. But that is probably as good as cafeteria food can get. At one of the meals I ran into Thomas' debate partner's brother and dad. The merit badges I took were fire safety, finger printing, and safety. For fire safety it was held at the Goochland fire department. The (volunteer!) firemen/women were very nice. They let us use their fire extinguisher simulator that was very cool. There was a screen they'd turn on and you took a fake fire extinguisher and shoot it at the sensors at the bottom of the screen. At the end of the class they gave of a tour of the fire truck hanger. They were very patient and answered all of our questions. I found out that those fire trucks cost from 1 MILLION to 1.5 MILLION dollars. Saturday night my troop played cops and robbers(basically tag) in the dark at these cool tunnels they had on the camp. So that was very fun. All of the "cops" had their flashlight(except for the smart ones) on and all of the "robbers" had to sneak around so they would get caught and get sent to "jail". On Sunday night we compiled our money and bought pizza. Then we all watched Up in the dining hall. We came home Monday morning.

A more recent event is that I got my public speaking merit badge finished. this past Monday I had to say a 3-5 minute speech introducing myself, a 3-5 minute speech with visual aids, and a 8-10 minute speech on any topic of your choice. For my 8-10 minute speech I just said my apologetics speech.

Tomorrow I am going to another merit badge weekend. It will only be for Saturday so I should be able to still go to church. If everything works out the way it should I will be doing the first aid merit badge. And instead of sleeping in tepees and cabins it is a campout. so we have to provide our own food and water.

Sadly since baseball is starting up I will not be able to go on as much camping trips because the games and practices will be on Saturdays which is when we would normally do stuff :( .

--Philip

Tracks

2010-03-23T18:58:00.007-04:00

When there was still snow on the ground I found tons of tracks by our pond. So here are some pictures.Deer tracks.

Up close deer track.

Turkey tracks (gobble gobble) .

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Our snowman.
In case you were wondering his eyes are spray paint caps.

It was starting to get warmer and he was beginning to melt so I decided to have some fun and shoot him with my bow and arrow.

For those of you who have seen Narnia: Prince Caspian in one of the scenes Susan throws an arrow into a guy. Now this is actually possible as I tried it with my human substitute being my snowman. But I am pretty sure it would not kill somebody especially if they had armor on like in the movie. So like most stuff in movies that part is not true.

I also used my Boy Scout (another post) skills and lashed two sticks together. Then I put the really hard to pack snow on it and shot it with my pellet gun.

The evil snowman(Grrr).

(BOOM!!) In one shot I blew half of his face off.
When I was done there was hardly anything left.

Then more recently I filled up a water balloon and shot it.

--Philip :)

Fayetteville

2010-03-16T18:07:00.010-04:00

So I know I haven’t blogged in roughly forever, but I’m here now so I won’t make any excuses about school or debate or facebook. But school has been crazy, we just got back from our 2nd debate tournament, and facebook can occupy a great deal of your creative energy.

I guess I’ll talk about the NC tournament we just got back from on sunday. We started speech and debate last September and to tell the truth mom forced me into it. I begged I think I even cried, I mean the prospect of giving speeches in front a crowd terrified me, but I’ve learned to enjoy it so much that I’ve decided to join the club and return next year. One reason I love it so much is because of the kids involved. They are all God fearing, super smart, hilarious people with amazing speaking abilities. I’ve learned lots about water pollution, our topic for this year, and how it affects people and the environment. I know it sounds boring but there really is a lot to it. I’ve learned to prepare a 5 minute speech on a random quote in just 2 minutes.
Thursday afternoon we dropped off the incubator at a friends house, picked up Thomas’ partner Joe, and Joe’s dad, then we were off to NC. We also brought Lily along because she’s got a ruptured disk in her back and the kennel would've been way too stressful for her. On the way there was a bit of really bad traffic where we just turned the car off and snacked on Oreo's for about an hour and a half. Because mom is still inactive reserve we got to stay at Pope Air-Force Base. We didn’t get through all the security and checked in till about 1ish which was unfortunate because we had to get up again in about 5 hours. Philip didn't have any events the first day so he watched a few debate rounds

The tournament itself was awesome, there were seven 1.5 hour long rounds and 3 individual event rounds over 2 days. Waiting around for the postings on the next round

There was a lot of down time between rounds, but we filled this with intense card games. At the end of the 2nd day we all watched the Final debate round and had awards. Thomas and Joe

Thomas won his individual event round with his 8 minute memorized speech on the perils of HID headlights. Philip is in a separate age group and he won both his impromptu round and his prepared speech event. Considering the other 60 or so kids that were there, these were pretty big accomplishments. Me and my partner Nadia
Little ole me didn’t win anything but the satisfaction of beating an experienced team.The Richmond "RADIX" club
I’m still really tired from the weekend, because three nights in a row none of us got much more than 5 hours of sleep. Because it’s Thomas’ last year we’ll probably end up going to the last tournament in Charlotte NC where we’ll go through the whole thing again.
Just a little side note I got an incubator as an early B-day present and this is day 14 for 31 duck eggs cooking away inside. They’re scheduled to hatch March 30.See the veins?
Another note is that the disc in Lily’s back has pressed up against her spine and now she drags her back legs. =’( This has happened before but a dose of steroids has always snapped her out of it, only this time they’re not working. We don’t know if she’ll pull through or not.
~Anna

Highlights from the Richmond debate tournament

2010-03-10T17:29:00.022-05:00

Thomas and his partner, Joe, came in 3rd place in the debate rounds.

The first day the teams debated in 5 rounds and 1 speech round. By round 5 they were dead on their feet. Day 2 brought 2 more debate rounds and 2 speech rounds. Thomas and Joe were in the hidden semi finals. Though they lost, it was still exciting and they finished third.

Thomas came in 3rd in impromptu.

Each individual speech was given three different times over the 2 days before a total of 9 judges. Thomas gave his memorized 8 minute long advocacy speech on why HID headlights should be banned. Anna spoke about the evils of the chemical Roundup on crops. Both gave impromptu speeches on the following topics:
1. one candle can light another without losing any of its own light
2. you can tell someone's true character by the way he treats those who can offer him nothing
3. you can learn more from a bad harvest than from a good harvest.

2 minutes of prep time is taken prior to the alloted 5 minutes speech. Usually they would give 3 examples to prove their position such as a literature, a historical, or current event example. Anna found that Pride and Prejudice examples are quite useful and can be applied to almost any topic. As a novice (first year debater), Anna did very well and has caught the debate "bug".

Thomas also spoke in the apologetics impromptu speeches and addressed such questions as:
1. how can you believe the Bible is true if it contains so many inaccuracies?
2. how can you believe the Bible is the Word of God if it is written by men?
3. is the Bible a mystical fairy tale or historically accurate?

1st place in advocacy speech

The Richmond debate club (RADIX)

Philip participated in the JV/Junior speech events for ages 12 and under. He memorized an apologetics speech, 7 minutes long on the topic, what makes Christianity different from other religions. He also spoke three times in the impromptu event (3 min prep time/3 minute speech) on such topics as: what are the most important things your grandparents have taught you, who's the most successful person you know, what would you do if you were invisible for a day?

In between events, time was spent playing games

Waiting in the hallway for the next person to go in.

2nd place apologetics

1st place impromptu

A fun time was had by all. So much so that we went to the Fayetteville, NC tournament in March. Debate/speech has been life changing. It's a subject that integrates so many aspects of school (language, history, government, research, Bible, science) and makes school more meaningful and interesting besides the obvious benefits of learning to articulate their faith. I don't have to tell Thomas to work on debate. Rather I am often heard saying "no more debate til calculus is done!"

---Jean

The Garage

2010-02-23T18:43:00.011-05:00

One the most recent things that has been going on here is that we are getting an attached, single story, three car garage built.

I will show you some pictures of it in different stages of being built.

This is our house before they started the construction.Then they laid down the foundation. They had to take out some of our sidewalk because it was hanging out too far(notice the pieces of cement in the picture).

After that they laid down the bricks.
Then it snowed. So they had to shovel all of it out (phew).

The first walls.

The beginning of the roof.

Then they put the particle wood on.
The inside.

Then came the shingles.And finally the siding.

Now our house looks much longer :) .

When it snowed I took some pictures of these ginormous icicles that were under our deck.

A ruler for scale :O .

I measured it and it came to a little over two feet.

--Philip :)

Texas

2010-02-07T12:59:00.026-05:00

On Sunday January 24^thmy grandfather on my Dad’s side died from a heart attack.

So Tuesday the 26^th we flew to Amarillo, Texas for the funeral. They had it the next day. Almost all of our relatives on my Dad’s side were there except for my uncle and two of my cousin’s. We haven’t seen them in five years so it was a very bittersweet experience because we were happy to see everybody but not under the circumstances. We stayed in our grandmother’s house while we were there. I had a cold while we were there so I could not eat any sweets. My poor grandma.

Grandma Carolyn's dog, Dudley.

(Lol) I love the pig's eyes.

Face off. :D

Food?

At meal times he comes and begs for food. Grandma said that they did not teach him, that he did it when they first got him.

It started snowing Thursday. At first it was sleet, then it turned into snow.

Very long icicles.

When it stopped snowing there was ten inches of snow on the ground. The storm moved across the entire country to the east coast so a lot of people got snow. In the afternoon we went to my great-grandma’s house with our cousins and played in the snow. We had a snowball fight that was very fun. I threw a snowball so hard that I accidentally gave one of my cousins a big bruise (oops). Then we made a snowman.

My cousin Gracy.

"It's cold".

That's better.

The snowman that they built.

. My great-grandma likes to paint and do needle-point.

One needle-point.

One of the paintings.

From the left to right: my dad's sister April, my dad, and my dad's brother Jimmy (he wasn't there).

After that we went to my great-uncle’s house with my cousins.

My Great Aunt- Dana and my Great-Uncle Billy Krause. Uncle Billy has his own buisness. He does landscape installation(pools, trees) and landscape maintenance. He also LOVES the color red. Here is evidence.

The Krause family.

Back row left to right: Cousin Casey (wasn't there), Cousin William (he was there I just don't have any pictures of him for some reason), Uncle Billy, Aunt Dana, and Cousin Katherine. Cousin Katherine, William, and Casey are actually my dad's cousins because Uncle Billy is my dad's uncle. So I think that makes them my second cousin but I am not positively sure.

They have three yorkis total. This one is Kat's.

This is a scale of how big they are compared to my hand. 8-O

From left to right: Aunt April, Cousin Lesli, and Cousin Katherine (we call her Kat).

I love this picture :) .

Gracy (notice her improvised belt made out of ribbon).

Cousin Lesli is Aunt April's daughter, Gracy is Cousin Lesli's daughter. She was so sweet. She was shy the first night but after that she would always give you lots of hugs :) .

Anna and Thomas playing Mario Kart on the Krause's Wii.

If you noticed that little girl by Aunt Dana, she was her niece.

All of the us in red. Uncle Billy gave us all Krause hoodies. And he gave everybody red shoes. He has a TON of red shoes. If they see a pair of red shoes he buys them. He has such a big collection of red shoes that he has been in the newspaper before.

One day there was geese on a partially frozen pond that was close by. So we went and got some bread so we could feed them. Two came over, then the rest came but the first two were very fierce and chased them off. Here is a video.

We were supposed to fly out of Texas Friday but it kept getting delayed because of all the snow so we ended up flying out on Monday. But all of the activities that we were supposed to go to at home got canceled anyway. I was not upset when our flight got canceled because that meant we got to spend more time with our family. On Sunday we decided to go to a church that dad used to go to. It was really big. The sermon was good to hear after not going to church for awhile. Sunday night we went to eat dinner at the Big Texan home of the free 72oz steak. The catch is you have to eat it all in an hour. They had a store at the front with all sorts of stuff from cowboy hats to rattle snake wallets. In the back they had a live rattle snake with all sort of rattle snake accessories like pocket knife sheaths, wallets, belts, heads, and whole baby rattle snakes (dead).The pocket knife sheaths.Wallets (expensive 8-0 )
Key chain heads. If you look closely you can see the venom on their fangs (shudder, "creepy").The live one.They had all sorts of animals: moose, deer, and bears.

For dinner I ordered one of my favorite foods: ribs (yum yum:) ). They were very good, they were swimming in barbecue sauce which was not necessary because when you would pick one up your hand would get covered in sauce. After dinner we got in a giant chair that they had in the back.

Since our departure time kept getting delayed we said goodbye quite a few times thinking we were leaving the next day. But we finally flew out Monday. We flew from Amarillo to Dallas in a little under an hour. Then from Dallas to Norfolk in about four hours. But in took roughly an hour to drive from Norfolk to our house.

Here are some pictures of the clouds that I took when we were in the airplane. During take off and landings you are not allowed to use any electronics because the frequency messes up the navigational instruments. But you can use them ounce you are at cruising altitude so I took some pictures.

I think it is pretty cool because it was very dark and overcast below but when we got above the clouds it was sunny.Here is a picture that I took where I used the sunset mode that gives the picture warm colors.

Before we went home we picked up the dogs from the kennel.

--In memory of grandpa.

--Philip

Christmas

2009-12-23T13:55:00.004-05:00

Tomorrow we are leaving for New Jersey to spend Christmas with our relatives. We will be leaving Thursday morning after loading up the car and taking Neo to the kennel and will be returning Tuesday. We are taking Lily to New Jersey with us and my Aunt is bringing her dog whose name is Lily also. My aunt is also bringing her Wii and we are bringing our Xbox so we are going to have some competitions at setting new records. This year when we went to the beach she brought the Wii and we were trying to break each others records.
All three of us kids have finished our speeches for speech class. So on the three to four hour drive to New Jersey we are going to start memorizing our speeches.

So till Tuesday,
--Philip

A Series Of Unfortunate Events

2009-12-23T12:40:00.008-05:00

The Thursday before this past one (the 10th I think) Peanut our gerbil died. We have had her for about three years. Anna buried her somewhere in the woods. Now we only have one gerbil left. But I am pretty sure we are not going to get another one because we have 46 chicken and ducks to take care of.

This Friday, the same day it started snowing we lost two of our younger chicks. One was a chick that our hen hatched and the other was a Welsummer rooster.She was a Speckled Sussex (brown with speckles) mixed with a Buff Orpington (golden).

The rooster on the right with the smaller comb is the one who was eaten. But since we had 10 roosters which is way too many for us we were going to eat him anyway.

After dark dad and Anna went to lock up the coop when they discovered that two of the chickens were missing. After looking around for a while our dog Neo found the carcasses. The heads were missing on both of them and some of the guts were eaten on one. We think either a raccoon or a possum got both of them. But next time if I see something is eating our flock then I shall proceed to shoot it with my air rifles.

--Philip

A movie and snow!

2009-12-23T12:02:00.003-05:00

This past Friday (the 18th) we went and saw Avatar in the theater. The reason we went is because dad got free movie tickets from his work place. So Dad, Anna, and I went and saw the new movie Avatar (Thomas did not feel like going). We chose to watch it in 3D which was pretty cool. The movie itself was pretty good and the graphics were absolutely stunning. It took a while for me to realize that everything except for the human parts was done on a computer.
After the movie we brought home some pizza. But at about four or five o'clock it started to snow. And it kept on snowing all day Saturday also. The snow built up to about a foot high everywhere: on the deck, on the cars, on the coop, and even in the woods it was a foot high. It built up so much on the coop sombody would have to go out there every couple of hours to knock off the snow because we were afraid that the coop roof would collapse since it is only made of PVC pipe.

The cars

Lily had to "swim" in the snow.

The snow was up to your knees and was very tiring to walk in.

Sadly the snow was too powdery to make snowmen or have snowball fights :( . But my dad and I still were able to have a snowball fight, but technically it was a shovel fight. We were shoveling the steps when we started heaving shovel fulls of snow at each other :p .

Well that is all for now,
--Philip

Summary

2009-12-02T16:21:00.017-05:00

A lot of things have happened in the past couple months and we've been pretty busy so I am trying to put everything in a nutshell in this post. Every Tuesday I have science class. The teacher used to teach physics but now he is teaching me and two other kids science. He give us quite a bit of homework on top of my regular schoolwork so that keeps me busy. Another thing that keeps all three of us kids busy is debate/speech class. We posted about it last year when Thomas was doing it but now Anna is also doing it. This year's topic is on water pollution. I shall once again try to "summarize" debate the best I can. In debate there are two teams: an Affirmative and a Negative. The Affirmative team basically tries convince the judge that the status quo(way things are now) needs to be changed. And the Negative team tries to convince the judge that the status quo does not need to be changed. There are many more details but this is basically what debate is.

I am not in the same class as Anna and Thomas. I am in the junior varsity class with kids twelve years of age and under. The junior varsity class does not debate. Instead I am participating in Impromptu and apologetic speeches. Impromptu is basically a improvised speech where you get a quote or topic, two minutes to organize your thoughts, and five minutes to give your speech. Apologetics is a speech defending the christian faith. It is almost the complete opposite from Impromptu time-wise. It is a prepared speech instead of an improvised one. There are four or five different topics to chose from. I chose "what makes Christianity different from other religions". The whole speech can be eight minutes long. After I finish writing my speech I then have to memorize all of it(yikes! 8-O). I almost forgot to say this but Anna and Thomas' class does all of the other events too. So as you can see we have a lot of stuff to do.

Alright now I shall try and catch you up on the happenings at Lockwood Woods. First off the same week we got our stumps removed mom had her birthday and we got a wood burning stove. Now I could tell you all about mom's birthday but this post is called "Summary" so I am just going to "summarize" it. We went out to eat, opened presents, and ate cake and ice cream (yum yum).
Now a wood burning stove has always been on our to do list so we finally got it. And it is wonderful we are enjoying heating our home without having to use our expensive propane. Okay moving along. I do not know if I am going in order but we planted grass in our clearing now that we got the stumps out. BeforeAfter

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Sunshine

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We found this praying mantis on our door one day. For the past two or three years we have hatched praying mantis egg sacs. We would buy two or three egg sacs off of Ebay (go figure) each containing hundreds of babies. We would release them outside hoping that they would grow up and eat all the pesky bugs that munched on our garden. We would keep ten or so for ourselves inside. But this year we didn't want to have to take care of them so we just put the egg sacs outside and hoped for the best. So I guess this proves that they hatched. The above picture is an adult Asian mantis.
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On November 7 we went hiking on the Appalachian trail with our friends the Middletons from church.
I will post pictures from our trip some other time but for now here is one picture of a waterfall.(click on so it will "blow up")
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On November 13 Thomas turned 18! He was just recovering from being sick though. That day we had debate and speech class. So after debate we ate dinner at Chipotle. They have really big buritos that are as my uncle put it "like eating footballs". We were starving after eating a light lunch so we were able to scarf down the whole thing. After dinner we went home and opened presents, we did not however eat cake right away after eating those big burritos.

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The ducks and chickens are doing fine. The chickens are slowing down a little bit in production since it is getting cold. We only get nine or ten chicken eggs per day. But the ducks are still going strong at five or six a day. A chicken egg on the left and a duck egg on the right(notice the huge difference).

We sell our eggs at dad's work place and Lavender Fields Farm. We are just keeping up with the demand between dad's work and Lavender Fields.
Here are the Welsummers and the Americana getting bigger.Here are the Light Brahmas. They are going to be bigger then all the others in our menagerie of chickens.

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One day Thomas came into the house with a turtle that he had found somewhere in the yard. After showing everybody he put it back outside.

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For Thanksgiving we just stayed home. We cooked a turkey, made mashed potatoes, yams, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. After we gorged ourselves we laid back and watched the Dallas Cowboys play.
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On December 1st Dad had his birthday. For dinner he chose the restaurant at Bass Pro Shops. It was really neat because as you were eating you could watch fish swimming around. The food was pretty good, we ordered calamari(squid) as an appetizer and dad got some Alligator that we all tried. It was good except that it was really spicy. After dinner we did the usual cake, ice cream, and presents.

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A couple of weeks ago we bought a buggy. We saw one for sale one day driving to church. So on the way back we stopped by and the nice lady told us about it and let Dad drive it while I sat in the passenger seat. Long story short, we have a buggy and we love driving it on our dirt road and drive way. Now instead of riding my bike I can just take the buggy.
It's top speed is 38 mph.

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A couple of weeks ago we got some two or three inches of snow that lasted two days. But yesterday(18th) we got a foot of snow! I will get some pictures later.

--Philip :)

Victory!

2009-11-12T17:51:00.005-05:00

After countless hours of building, and years of collecting sets and parts I have finally gotten something back.

The datacard

The contest was to create a new vehicle set in the HALO universe.

Proof it fits a minifig (a requirement for the contest), the nose is similar to one of my previous projects.

I hadn't built much leading up to the contest and was experiencing symptoms of what we call "builders block." However after seeing the prize for first place I found it much easier to build-incentive is a powerful thing.

The bottom of the craft, with the missile bay closed

Third place received some very well made decals, and some custom made weapons from brickarms (THE place to go for accurate lego weapons).

The bay doors open and the missiles rotate inside the missile bay

Second place got the same decals already applied on a minifig, and some more brickarms.

3-point thrust vectoring allows maneuvering in space

And first place received the same customized minifig as second place, even more brickarms, and finally the new HALO videogame.
Suffice it to say I did some extensive research, before I started building (I like to keep it as real as possible) and eventually settled on building a jet for reasons explained in the backstory farther down. I got some excellent input from many people and finally ended up with the winning entry out of 48 other vehicles.
After hearing the many reports of pelicans crashing and getting shot down, the UNSC employed a new fighter to fulfill the role of escort.
This fighter was cheaper and smaller than the Longsword fighter bomber, and took some of the work load off the over-worked Longswords and allowed them to focus more on bombing.
A thrust vectoring engine provides the Wasp with excellent maneuverability in vacuum as well as atmosphere.
Designed and armed to be an escort, the Wasp is also capable of performing quick attacks on enemy targets, unleashing salvos of missiles and machine gun fire.

Thomas

Stumps

2009-10-31T17:01:00.007-04:00

Ever since we got an acre of trees cleared there has always been the stumps. We didn’t remove the stumps because the county didn’t allow us to do that many, so instead we just ground them down. But finally we decided to rent a stump grinder because the stumps prohibited us from planting grass and also make for a very bumpy bike ride. So on the 28th of September Dad took the day off so he could operate the machine. Mom let me (Philip) off of school so I could mark the stumps with flags that came with our invisible electric fence for Lily. Without it she would run off chasing some squirrel or something. Dad let me grind a couple of stumps down. When Dad was done with one side of the clearing he let me smooth it out with our little box blade on the end of our tractor. Because when you grind a stump down it makes a hole where the stumps was but leaves a big mound of wood chips next to it. So there were tons of holes and mounds of chips all over the clearing.Some of the mounds
Also notice all of the wood chips covering the ground.

A ground down stump

After thirty minutes or so, the machine would run out of gas, so we would have to go through the whole process of driving to the gas stations and refueling our tanks two or three times. But luckily we discovered a gas station that carried diesel that was much closer to us. But eventually the machine shut down and not because it was out of gas. So we called the rental place and they sent a guy over to see if he could fix it, but it turned out that something had gotten clogged. So they swapped out our machine for one that was slightly smaller.An armie of flags.
(This is the second machine at the top)

Here's a video of the actual grinding part.
When grinding you had to lower the arm a little bit, swing it to the side and lower again and continue "sweeping" the stump until it was to your desired height. But if you lowered it too much it would stall when you would try to sweep it to the side.

We were hoping we could grind all the stumps in one day but it ended up taking two. So the next day we finished the other half of the clearing in the afternoon. We got most of them except for two or three that we missed.

As always I hope that I did not bore you with this post.
--Philip

The cube

2009-10-25T14:47:00.004-04:00

This has been my recent occupation. I had seen several people do it, and determined to learn how to solve the cube. So after a couple weeks of looking at online guides I finally committed the sequences to memory. Once I had done that I started working on speed, with a goal of solving the cube under a minute. Now I need a new goal. :D I will never need a gameboy again (not that I used them much anyway), and take it with me everywhere I go.

Here I solved it in 57 seconds, today on the way home from church I was able to set a personal record of 52 seconds. I have also gotten several people from church into rubik's cubes. Here is the site I used to learn how to solve the rubik's cube.

2009-09-25T19:46:00.007-04:00

I’m really behind on my posting, but I've had a lot of homework and big things just keep happening before I can post about the big thing that happened before that, so settle in for a catcher upper post=) Firstly I started candling Buffy’s eggs with a flashlight almost every day from day 3 of incubation. At first all I could see was a speck, then a spot with gossamer like veins branching from it, then a pulsing blob with veins over most of the egg, then… you get the picture till the entire egg was black. We removed 2 eggs that never developed specks, spots , or blobs, which left 6 potential hatchers. On the evening of the 20^th day we apprehensively called our house-sitter and found that all 6 eggs had hatched. I was very excited, and thankful, because on day 15 Buffy tired of her maternal duty got off her nest, jumped the divider, and mingled with the rest of the flock for an hour or so before I came in and found a motherless moving box full of COLD eggs. Luckily she resumed her maternal duties after I threw her back with her eggs and thankfully all the blobs survived their chilly experience.

They are truly adorable little balls of fluff, now 3 weeks old, and getting big. We let them out to range with the rest of the flock, and enjoy watching momma hen unleash her fury on any hen unfortunate enough to get too close to her brood. This is her fluffed up like a bowling ball warning me to back off, she has since gotten used to me and doesn't mind when I cuddle the chicks.They are a cute mix, 1 speckled Sussex x Buff Orp , 2 Rhode Island Red x Buff Orp and 3 pure Buff Orps.

If you counted the little heads in the above pic you may have noticed that there are in fact 7 little chicks under momma. On the day of our return our neighbor offered me a lone americauna chick from her own flock. How could I say no? The Americauna breed is known for it's tinted eggs, green, blue, pink, or just plain old brown. She is the same age as our own chicks so I thought I could smuggle her in with momma's babies, so I wouldn't have to brood her inside. But the momma bird knew that something was amiss, and chased the poor thing from her own babies. So what do I do, but brood her inside. She was lonely so I gave her a stuffed animal and a mirror to keep her company.

A few days later was the day of the biannual livestock sale. I had been looking forward to this for a while. So I got up early on a Saturday morning, now that is sacrifice, with both my parents to peruse the hundreds of cages full of critters. Chicks, chickens, bantams, ducks, quail, doves, puppies, turkeys, geese, guineas, llamas, donkeys, miniature horseys, sheep, goats, piglets, etc. We did not come home empty handed. I bought 4 light brahmas and 5 welsummers both breeds I've been interested in for a while. These are all in the bathroom, and have been for a whole week. the younger welys have taken over the mirror's job of keeping the americauna company. On a warm afternoon I took them outside to run around and eat some grass and bugsthe big whitish ones are the brahmas, the browny ones are welsummers, and the bluish one is the americaunaIsn't this one adorable.
Unfortunately that is not all that's new. We lost one of our ducks to a predator =( We suspect a fox. It was in the middle of the day, when we heard the roosters sounding the alarm like crazy, we ran outside and the female rouen , mallard looking one, was missing. We never found any trace.
I've been much more carefully about when I let them out now.
--Anna

The Beach

2009-09-15T15:03:00.004-04:00

Last week we went to Delaware for our beach trip. Sunday even though the weather was nice we didn’t go to the beach because it was way too crowded. Monday it was overcast and windy which made the rip currents (when the water pulls you out to the ocean) bad, instead of going to the beach we went to the pool, but throughout the week it was freeeeeeeeezzzzzing. Every time we get together with our relatives we work on a big puzzle, so that kept us busy. Also since our house had a pool and ping pong table my Uncle Bernie organized a double elimination tournament. My dad ended up winning pool and my Uncle Richard ended up beating dad at the ping pong championship. On Tuesday we went to the beach but the sky was again overcast and the waves were rough so dad and I ended up getting pummeled by the big waves which was not a very pleasant experience , yet I was able to body board the rough waves. Wednesday through Friday the weather was bad so we played pool, ping pong, and worked on the puzzle inside and toughing out the swimming pool outside, shiver. Until Saturday we saw, could it be SUNSHINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We then put on our bathing suits jumped in the car and went to the beach and it wasn’t even windy.A jelly fish had washed up on the beach.

When we got there it was cloudy again but every now and then the sun broke through.

When we (Anna, dad, and I) got in the water we got past were the waves were breaking so we could jump over them, when a huge wave broke way deeper then the other ones and right on top of us (that’s how dad and I got pummeled Tuesday) but luckily we were able to dive under it at the last second. After that I wasn’t going to take a chance of reliving Tuesday so I went closer to shore a safe distance away from the pummeling and surprisingly consistent huge waves. Dad and I were still able to however, body board the waves without getting pummeled.

LOL, we just missed that big wave.

After surfing for awhile we took a break and played frisbee on the beach.I got a neat picture of this wave curling. I like this picture because I got the wave breaking in the back.

After that we left.

I was sad that we only got one good day at the beach, but grateful at the same time that we did get one day at the beach and that God had a reason for it. So the next day we took our group pictures, said goodbye and were on the road. When we got home me and Anna sprinted out of the car and into the coop and saw our mama hen walking around with six little baby “chickis” :D.

Anna will post about them later.
So that's all for this post.
--Philip

2009-09-04T20:27:00.004-04:00

This year for science I studied about plants and how butterflies and bees pollinate them. So for an experiment I (Philip) planted a butterfly garden. We got our plants from Lavender Fields Herb Farm. We got Parsley, Bee Balm, Hyssop, and Bronze Fennel.Here is a chrysalis on the fennel.A visitor

. We are leaving for the beach (at Delaware) tomorrow YAY :D, we got a house that has a ping pong, and a pool table so we’re going to have a little family tournament ;). So we’re busy packing and taking care of the animals before we go ,but I was able to squeeze this post in, phew.

--Philip

Teen Camp

2009-08-21T17:04:00.019-04:00

Greetings people of the Internet, last week all three of us kids went to our church’s teen camp. This was probably Thomas' last year to go before he would be too old. So we decided we should all go with him. We got there Sunday afternoon and left Saturday morning.

7:00 am was rise and shine then we had our morning devotions.(At the waterfront they had some benches so that's where I did my devotions most of the time)

After devotions we had breakfast which was always delicious.After breakfast we would clean our cabins. Then we would have our first Bible study. After our first Bible study we had an hour of free time to play ping-pong, air hockey, phoos ball, basketball (which I did most of the time), volley ball, soccer, football, or fishing.

(You can click on the picture to enlarge it)

After free time we’d have our second Bible study, then lunch.

After lunch we would go and have activities for about three or four hours. Like a giant swing, Archery, rock wall climbing, kayaking, sailing, and a high ropes course including a tight wire and a big zip line,

Me (Philip) shooting a bow and arrow.

Thomas on the rock wall.

They had two sides, a easy side and a hard side. The hard side (shown here) had a bulge at the top so you had to do a pull up to reach the top.

The giant "V-Swing" they called it because it looks like a V.

People on the ground had to pull you up with a rope. After pulling on the rope all day everybody's hands were red and blistered.

Anna in a harness.

Here is a video of me on the V-Swing.

Me about to step on the high wire thinking "This is crazy."

"This is still crazy" 8-O.

Here is a video of Thomas on the zipline.

After activities we had an hour and a half of more free time then dinner. After dinner we had an hour of swim time. Then our third Bible study, night devotions were we talked about the day and what we learned about it, an hour of free time to get ready for bed then lights out at 11:00 pm. After lights out there was always talking, but the councilors hushed us, so then we came up with the idea to get in bed at 10:30 so we could talk till 11:00 then at lights out we had gotten all of our talking out.

the last couple days it thundered during swim time so we couldn’t swim, instead we played a lot of fun games inside, and lots of great fellowship with one another and making new friends.

It was raining so much that it made these huge puddle you could wade in :D.

I thought this cedar tree looked cool with all it's knots.

Group photo.

--Philip

Broody Buffy

2009-08-21T15:32:00.006-04:00

A lot has happened since our first egg. We're getting over a dozen eggs a day now and having a hard time keeping up with the supply. I bake with them often, and Dad has started selling dozens of them at his work. Something else exciting has happened though, one of our "Buffingtons" has decided she wants to be a mother =) She just made up her little birdy mind to hatch some chicks. Staying in her favorite box even while the others went outside to forage and up to roost for the night. Since our eggs seem to be fertile we're letting her have a go at hatching a clutch of hybrid chicks. She's separated from the others sitting on 8 eggs in an old moving box. She seems very determined and has been sitting for four days straight now sixteen more to go. Because this is everyones first time, chances are high that the eggs will not develop or something will go wrong, like the hen reconsidering her committment to motherhood, getting off the nest, and leaving the eggs to die. Even if everything goes according to plan we are going on vacation the day before the "due date" =( Tonight we're going to candle the eggs, that is shine a bright light through the shell to see if there's development. Here are pics of a few of our male ducks who are now sporting their shiny green feathers.
--Anna

wisdom teeth

2009-07-17T15:57:00.003-04:00

Yes, it had to happen at some point, the final four teeth have been extricated from my mouth, and placed who knows where(they didn't give them to me).
In the lobby I studied physics, since I'm still behind from moving, for maybe ten minutes, that wasn't too bad. Then they took me into my room and I got to sit in the operating chair for another ten minutes, this time without my physics book so I was "forced," to watch Regis Philbin on the 30" HD TV conveniently mounted on the wall in front of me (insurance dollars at work). All the while listening to that little machine beep every two seconds to signify that my heart was in fact beating.
Then they finally came in gave me a bib, set up all the tools I assume they used, and gave me a shot, my last thought was,"Wow I'm not out yet..."and that's the last I remember. I woke up in a black recliner I had never seen before, and somehow walked to the car under my own power. A couple power naps later, and I was pretty much normal except for the ice pack wrapped around my face, and my inability to eat popcorn. Now two days later I'm here still with an ice wrapped around my face, still unable to eat popcorn, and hoping I haven't bored anyone to death with this post.

So I made you read all of that to say, my wisdom teeth are out, and I am fine. :-)
Thomas

First egg!!!

2009-06-26T21:05:00.006-04:00

Today we got our first egg!! It's very small as you can see. After a few months ,hopefully, they will grow into jumbo sized grade A's. I found it stuffed in a corner of their coop this morning. Maybe tomorrow there will be another one or two or three...or four :O ( okay so maybe I'm being a little optimistic =)
God bless
--Anna

RAPTURED

2009-06-22T13:18:00.010-04:00

It is business as usual in the unknown future. On the highway everyone is just driving along, intent on getting to their appointment on time, or just concentrating on staying awake. Suddenly without warning a Hummer swerves out of control straight into a hapless Smart car. Fortunately the driver of the Scion xB behind them was paying attention and managed to skid to a stop without damage.The driver of the Smart car stumbles out holding his head, meanwhile there is no movement inside the Hummer...The Scion driver runs to help those who might be in the overturned Hummer, while the man in the passenger dials 911 as he goes to assist the victim in the Smart car.
To his surprise and horror, only the clothes of what must be assumed to have belonged to the driver, are to be found in the overturned car.
"There... Theres NO DRIVER! Dial 911!!"

"911 what is your emergency?"
"There's been an accident, one of the drivers seems to have a concussion, the.. the other driver is gone.."
"Ok try to relax sir, what do you mean gone?"
"He's just gone! There's no blood.. NOTHING! He's just GONE!"
"Okay sir we will get there as soon as we can..."
"We need help NOW!"
"I understand sir, but we... 'yes Chief it's another one'... sir please understand we are being overwhelmed with similar calls as we speak..."

dun dun dun duum

*BOOM*

So since my temple is finished, I again wanted to build something Biblical, but on a MUCH smaller scale. I decided on the rapture, when Jesus comes back for all the Christians, because I had wanted to make a foray into building an apocalypse type scene, and it might as well be Bible based right? Having watched the Left Behind movies, I did base some of this off a particular car wreck sequence in the first movie, soon after the rapture. I had wanted to put a plane crashing into the trees (the pilot having been raptured), but it proved to difficult. It is just frightening how much destruction will occur in those moments, the countless car wrecks, and all the airliners with Christian pilots, thinking about it makes me VERY glad that I won't be here when it happens.

Jojo and the ducks

2009-06-15T17:56:00.006-04:00

This video shows just how much the ducks have grown. (They’re bigger than the chickens) They love roaming around outside and swimming in their pool, even though it’s not as spacious as it first seemed =(.

(Jojo's fro has grown considerably in the front, but the back is sadly bald from the hens constant plucking, I think they're just jealous ;)

Once a week we empty the pool and use the potent mixture on the chicken garden (corn, pumpkins, and sunflowers) I used to recruit my understandably reluctant brothers to help me form a bucket brigade, but then discovered the miracle of the siphon =). Now I can siphon the whole pool down to the garden without hauling a single bucket.

The big ducks have since been combined with the chickens and get along about as good as can be expected. After the first few days of annoyed squawks and quawks they seemed to have agreed to disagree. We are expecting eggs from the chickens in a few more weeks, hopefully by the end of June, and are mulling ( I like that word =) over the design and whereabouts of the nesting boxes.

Here’s a pic of Daphne the duck and the 3 little tractor supply ducklings in the pool before we emptied it. I know the water looks gross but it takes a long time to fill and the ducks don’t seem to mind:/

Baseball

2009-06-15T16:39:00.004-04:00

The regular baseball season ended a couple of days ago. I got to play first base, center field, and pitcher. One game I threw a one hitter with eight strikeouts. I also hit an inside the park home run and my first ever over the fence home run while the bases were loaded which makes it a grand slam :D! My dad had just bought me a new bat for my birthday that he had researched a lot on. At my next game I said a little prayer that the Lord would give me the strength to get a good hit or get on base and He did! On the very first pitch, I hit it over the center field fence. At the end of the season they had a mini tournament (the reason I say “mini” is because there where only three teams). We got into the championship and won it by the slaughter rule. The next day the coach called me and said that I had made not one but two all star teams! I made a 10-11 year old team that start playing the 26th of this month and, an 11-12 year old team that play sometime in August. I am so excited because I get to play more baseball.

--Philip

Hummingbirds

2009-06-08T18:53:00.012-04:00

Since the invention of airplanes and the ability to strap an ever increasing array of weaponry wherever possible, there has been what is known as the dogfight. However I think calling it a hummingbirdfight instead of a dogfight would be more appropriate.
click to view video.
In contrast to the blistering speed and intensity of the hummingbirdfight featured in the above video, two of the adversaries were eventually able to agree on a (very) temporary truce, and were content to sit on opposite sides of the feeder at the same time!! :o Eventually the dinner rush ended and the feeder was left alone for the night.

By holding the button part way down I found I was better able to snap pictures of them as they were buzzing around. Hummingbirds have got to be on the top ten for worst posers. >:-(

This is either a female, or an adolescent male... my guess is a female. Here is a good view of the "ruby" throat.
We used to name the hummingbirds ( red neck, red beard, red baron, spot, etc.) but I can't tell the difference anymore.So if I hadn't been taking the pictures, I wouldn't be able to tell this bird...and this bird are the same.

The Guardian.

This a perch just above the feeder, giving whichever hummingbird is currently king of the feeder, the perfect ambush position.

Well as always I hope I haven't bored you, I also thank and applaud that you have taken the time and brain cells to read this never ending post full of half-intelligent jokes and attempts at humor, ramblings and so forth.

-Thomas

Duckie Cuteness

2009-05-16T17:46:00.014-04:00

The 10 duckies are 4 weeks old now and learning to Quack. There’s a lot of catching up to do so bear with me. Within the first week we knew just a plain old cardboard box with woodshavings was no where near capable of absorbing all the water flung around by those little balls of fluff. We needed a better brooder. So after 3 or 4 tries we landed on a cardboard box with a screen for a bottom so the water just drained right out. Once they were a week old we let them swim in the bathtub

( just pretend that little mess on the tub isn't even there ;)

as you can tell they hated every minute of it =) After two weeks they outgrew their fancy setup and made the move outside.( about time they were incredibly stinky and messy ) Now they have the entire back half of the manor. They got acquainted with the chicks through the wire and go outside to range almost everyday together now. Eating lots of grass cuts down on the feed bill right? It’s free money and they do all the work =) Their favorite treats are bananas and peas ( who woulda thought ) and will follow us around the yard looking for them. Today we got them a spacious new kiddie pool to paddle around in. Talk about cheap entertainment ;)

They love it, although they haven’t quite mastered the ramp and kind of fall out when they’ve had enough =/ Well that was the summary of the first four weeks of duckling life hopefully with many years ahead. Hope it wasn’t boring, although how could it be with such cute videos and pictures =)

God bless

---Anna

A very cute post

2009-05-07T16:36:00.004-04:00

we have 7 more babies!!! 3 duckies and 4 more meat birds;) Wednesday we went into Tractor Supply "just to look" at their chickies and duckies. As they had told us they didn't even get the kind we were interest in, which were Cayugas since we're short one now:( but the first thing we see is a big ole tub of tiny lil assorted ducks =O long story short we walked out of there with 2 cayugas (solid black ones) 1 blue swedish (just in case the name wasn't clear enough its blue)

and 4 meat birds. The meaties are cute now but in about 6 weeks they'll look like this

A Tragic Accident

2009-05-05T19:08:00.005-04:00

I had meant this post to be very happy and bubbly full of stories and videos about their first swims and walks outside, but sadly this is not the case those things will have to wait (stay tuned for a more light hearted and bubbly post). One of our dear Cayuga ducklings (a solid black one) now rests forevermore beneath a holly tree in the woods. We had two Cayugas and they became one of my favorites because of how friendly they were, and how pretty they were going to be. These past few days have been extremely wet and rainy the ducks area was in desperate need of more bedding, a.k.a. leaves,( They live in the chicken house now ) but because everything outside was soaked we decided to rake up the stray leaves in the back of the chicken house where we keep feed bags both empty and full, as well as other assorted junk. It was getting dark so we (me and my dad) just raked them in. The next morning everything was fine I spent too much of my morning in with them instead of doing school feeding them clover and cuddling both Cayuga’s as well as the others. I didn’t notice any of the long white strings that you pull off when opening a bag of feed. If I see any of the aforesaid strings I usually jump to remove them, but this piece must have been covered up. That afternoon when I went into their little area to take them for their daily swim they all came peeping up to me except for one. I was stunned to say the least I ran out and called Dad and Philip who were outside practicing baseball. She had tried to swallow a string about a yard long and got most of it down before it got tied around her little bill. I felt really bad knowing that I could have been prevented it so easily, but as Dad says these things happen. Needless to say the chicken house has been scoured for any bits and pieces of trash. In honor of the sweet little thing I give you this extremely cute picture with all 11 duckies on their first excursion outside. ( it is now the desktop back ground for several of our monitors)

Differant Kinds of Chicks

2009-04-18T18:51:00.007-04:00

I have realized that since we got chicks I have not showed you the different types that we have. So here they are.

This is a Speckled Sussex. Which as the name implies is speckled. These are the friendliest of the chicks.

This is a Partridge Rock.

This is a Rhode Island Red which are my favorite.Here is a Buff Orpington who are also very friendly.

This is a Cornish Roaster ;). They are huge compared to the other layers.

And last but not least the one and only White Crested Black Polish A.K.A Jo Jo. Like Joseph who had a coat of many colors and was held above the others because he was special :).
--Philip

Duckies

2009-04-16T15:50:00.011-04:00

The duckies are here!!!!!!

All 11 of them arrived yesterday morning, we only ordered 10 but the hatchery once again showed its generosity and gave us yet another mouth to feed, but you don't hear me complaining;)

They’re addicted to water, which wouldn’t be a problem except their sloppy drinkers, and all the bedding within 1 foot of the water is always soaking wet. to try to help keep the mess down I put an old tray covered with newspapers and old wash rags under the water to help contain and absorb the cups of liquid they fling out. Also when I first put them on the wood shavings the silly little babies started choking down pieces of wood!! Luckily I had done my research on the common problem, and knew the best way to stop them from possibly dying from constipation is to cover all the shavings with paper towels for a few days till they get old enough to recognize their food from a chopped up tree. The 11 duckies are more work than the 27 chickies, but boy are they cute.
I’m trying to get them used to my hand, because they are quite skittish. They squirm their little hearts out if you try picking them up unless their very tired like this little guy was.
Taking the soaked bedding out of from around the water sends them all into the opposite corner where they huddle on top of each other till my hand is withdrawn before mobbing the water as if they were dying of thirst.

After several sessions of hand feeding a paste ( their food dissolved in water) they have become much less fearfull of the hand and a few will even step up and try to eat my watch In a few more days we will try letting them swim for the first time. I can’t wait!
--Anna

The Pen, The Snake, And The Ducks

2009-04-14T21:28:00.008-04:00

Hello everybody. Friday we started making a pen for the chicks, even though they are going to free range we still wanted something to keep them in when we are gone so they can still go outside when they want to. So we dug some holes and used some of our own logs for the posts. Then Saturday we put the wire and some spare shade cloth on it so there is a covering on top of it.

And voila there it is. We are letting the chicks out now and they like to forage and look for bugs. When they first came out they were a little skittish…. okay they were very skittish but the Buff Orpingtons or Buffingtons as dad calls them were the bravest. And one of the male “Buffingtons” that we call Freebie (because the hatchery gave him to us for free) was the bravest of the Buffs and was always out there. But today (Tuesday) when I went out there this morning and opened the door almost all of them came running out. Monday mom found a snake in the future garden area and we decided to feed it to the chickens.

I did not see it today so they must have eaten it. We ordered ten ducks for Anna’s birthday. They are supposed to come tomorrow (Wednesday) or Thursday so Anna and I are going to put together the box tonight and hopefully they will come tomorrow morning :D.
--Philip

Zipline

2009-04-07T17:00:00.008-04:00

For Anna’s birthday (March 24th’) she got a zip line. A zip line has always been on our list of something we want to do in the country. So Sunday after church we came home and decided where to hang the cable. After a lot of difficulty trying to tighten it dad told me to get the tractor.

By tying the cable to the tractor we were able to hold it taut while dad tightened the screws. Now that the cable was unyielding to our weight it was smooth sailing. Instead of hanging from the
bars we used an old hammock to make a comfortable sling.

We now spend our free time taking turns zipping down and towing each other back up. Here is a video from my perspective.

P.S It is a BLAST if I have not yet made that clear.

--Philip

moving the chicks outside

2009-04-07T14:01:00.005-04:00

We finally got the chicks outside where they belong. The Chicken manor took 3 consecutive weekends and one of dad’s sick days (he was sneezing doesn’t that count) to complete. Mom, Philip, and I moved them in, the next day while Thomas stayed inside doing important school stuff. Moving them took four trips. At first it was tricky because as fast as Philip and I put them in they jumped back out, it really was like some crazy video game. Once we figured out that this method would not work we used an old “doggy” towel to keep everyone inside while we caught the stragglers. They love to dust bathe and peck the dirt (it helps their digestion:), as well as hunt for and eat dozens of worms. Unfortunately the move did have casualties. Two roasters (whenever anyone is hurt it’s always one of these tubbies) are ill, one has a gimpy leg, and the other has a gash on his side. Gimpy just limps between the food and water at first I hand fed him because he was so pathetic, but he seems to be doing better. The one with the laceration has been quarantined and hopefully he too will heal up. -- Anna

Recap

2009-03-24T13:52:00.008-04:00

I am sorry I haven’t been able to write on the blog lately because we have been really busy, I am going to try tell what has been going on this past week or two. Today is Tuesday March the 24^th last Monday not yesterday the Monday before that, we went to a surprise birthday for the Longs. We have known the Longs for a long time. They have four kids. Two boys, one I played baseball with the other Thomas played with. And also two girls. They live across from Prestley farm and rent out a different dairy farm that is close to their house. They are very busy and have to milk the cows at 4 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon. They showed us around their farm, here are some pictures taken by Anna.

A calf.

This is where they milk them.

Another shot.

Here is the huge hay loft that we played in.

It is cool how you can see the water droplets on the lens.

We started building the chicken coop the Friday before this past one. It had been raining for a couple of days so we had to start building it in the shed because it was all muddy outside. Then we worked on it Saturday and Sunday. And in the week we have been doing lots of school. And then Thursday we went skating and after that we went to this herb farm that people from our church own, so we volunteer there. Then Thomas had home school baseball practice because he is not little enough for little league anymore. Then Friday we worked on the coop some more and I had baseball practice. The sad thing is now that we moved to Beaverdam I can not play for Mechanicsville instead I am going to play for Ashland. They are a much smaller group there are only three teams instead of like fifteen or more. And Mechanicsville also had the nicest fields. But I am kind of excited to make new friends because back at Mechanicsville I used to know almost everybody because this year will be my eighth year playing baseball, so here at Ashland I am like the new kid. Saturday I also had practice and we worked on the coop some more now it is almost done. Monday we went to a place called Eden Farm to buy berry bushes and also to look at ducklings. Yes even though we have chickens already we want to get ducks. So we looked at ducks but we did not get any because they were straight run (which means they didn’t know if they were male or female). But we got a lot of berry bushes. We got Blueberry, Blackberry, Raspberry, Cherry, (yes there is such a thing as a cherry bush) and a grape vine. I think we are just going to order ducks from a hatchery. So today is Tuesday the twenty fourth of March and today is Anna’s birthday, and I think we are going to get the coop done today.

--Philip

Building the chicken coop

2009-03-22T00:29:00.005-04:00

Here is the back part of the coop

Here is the door frame

Here is the whole frame

Putting the pvc roof on

Doesn't it look like a chapel?

--Philip

Snow photos from March 2

2009-03-22T00:15:00.003-04:00

Chicks are 4 weeks old - March 21

2009-03-21T22:53:00.007-04:00

The Chickies are four weeks old today and growing like…like…..little chickies I guess. They are almost completely covered in feathers, and their baby fluff falls off everytime they flap their wings, and has created a sort of film over everything in our mudroom. The dust and the smell really grosses mom out, but I’ve assured her that as soon as the chicken house is built I will clean it all. Originally they were leaving their box at 3 weeks but unfortunately their house didn’t exist anywhere but in my head and on a piece of notebook paper, so their introduction to the outside world was postponed indefinitely. The roasters are huge, and boss everyone around when it comes to food. Two of the buff Orpingtons (the yellow ones) are roosters, I am aware that they will not be the best of buds when they grow up. Aware of this fact, we ordered only 1 rooster but the hatchery munificently (it means very generously I looked it up in the thesaurus:) gave us another. There may be room for only one father of the flock, but I have resolved to cross that bridge when it comes. We picked our 4 breeds for their personality, and so far have not been disappointed, they love to jump on my back when I lean over to fill their feeders and sit on my shoulder when I add more bedding to their box.

The chicken “manor” is under construction and the back half is sitting out back. The design of the chicken coop is based on a greenhouse,it has wooden framing for the sides with pvc pipe covered with recycled plastic for the roof. There aren’t many plans for these floating around the internet so I just combined several things I’d seen and ran it by my parents who made some adjustments here and there, before buying all the lumber. It is going to be huge, 10x16 feet. --Anna

Chopping wood

2009-03-10T18:42:00.007-04:00

A little while after we moved in our new house we had two acres cleared.

We have mostly pine trees (I guess that is why our neighborhood is called Pine Springs) and only a few hard woods, but it still took longer then expected to clear it all.

So dad went out one day and cut one of the few big oaks up with his chain saw. After school I loaded the tractor up with the wood and stacked it between two trees. After dad finished cutting the tree he showed me how to split wood. For a while we thought we were going to have to buy a splitter but then we decided you don’t need one, that’s what kids are for. For some reason I like to split wood, I don’t know I just like pounding in a wedge or every now and then splitting a piece in one swing. I just can’t wait till we can burn it but it is not really cold anymore; I guess it will be seasoned in a year though.

We put the whole logs on the right and the split logs on the left. The stack on the right used to be as tall as the one on the left. -Philip

Debate

2009-03-10T18:13:00.004-04:00

Thomas has been taking a Debate class since the fall and it culminated in a tournament this weekend. It was a two-day 10 hour/day event and he spoke a total of 11 times. Amazingly he enjoyed it and wants to continue on their debate team http://www.ccofse.com/. The topic this year is "Should the embargo on Cuba be lifted?" Exciting huh? He debated 7 times and won 5 times. He also participated in 4 impromptu speeches in which the judge hands him a written quote, he has 2 minutes to organize his thoughts and then he has 5 minutes to defend his position. His goal was to be able to last 5 minutes which he managed to do 3 of the 4 times. The quotes he addressed were ... A merry heart doeth good like medicine Pr 17:22, an investment in knowledge always pays the best interest-Ben Franklin, If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small-Pr 24:10, and finally Greatness is not just talents and skills standing alone but is when a person of skill and talent meets a moment in time and prevails (our less than perfect recollection of the quote) -Douglas Wilson

--Jean

New Brooder

2009-03-10T17:37:00.005-04:00

The chicks have been getting bigger and their box has been getting crowded. So Anna and I (Philip) cut four boxes up and duct taped them together to make a bigger brooder. We then transported the chicks into their new environment and during the process I got pooed on twice.--Philip

Abandoned puppy

2009-03-10T15:48:00.006-04:00

Saturday evening when mom and Thomas were driving home from Thomas’ debate tournament they stopped at our mailboxes. Sitting in the middle of the road was a little abandoned PUPPY!!!! They brought her home. At first she was very scared and yelped whenever we tried to touch her, but after a while she warmed up to us, sleeping on our laps while we watched a movie. Mom dug an old dog crate out of the attic for her to spend the night in. The plan was for her to sleep in my room, and that plan held till about 1:00 in the morning when she decided to wake the dead with her cries and howls. She was banished to the bathroom on the far side of the house. The next day was Sunday, animal control was closed, and we had to go to church. She stayed in her crate all morning while we were gone locked in a bedroom away from the 2 curious permanent canine residents. We are pretty sure she was abandoned rather than lost. There are only two houses within several hundred feet from where we found her and 7 week old puppies don’t just wander off. Knowing that we weren’t keeping her we didn’t name her and make the parting more difficult, we just called her Puppy which evolved into Poopy based on the fact that she did just that so frequently. I dreaded letting her go, but my request for a 3^rd dog had been turned down with such certainty there was no hope of either parent changing their mind. So I decided, to play, cuddle, and be merry for tomorrow she gets picked up by animal control. We were certain she’d find a good home being such an adorable little sweet thing. Sure enough mom called the white truck in the morning and he came and picked her up. He said she was a shepherd mix. At first I wasn’t too sad, but later that afternoon I started missing her wondering where she was, but I’ll get over it after all I do have a Neo dog , a Lily dog, 2 gerbils, and 27 chickies. --Anna

One week old chicks

2009-03-10T15:39:00.006-04:00

The chicks are one week old today (Feb 28th), They were born or “hatched”, and shipped on the 20th ,but we didn’t get them till the 23rd . I started decreasing the temperature a few days ago, and it’s been tricky getting a consistent temperature. Keeping the 27 chicks from freezing or baking to death is a full time job, along with cleaning and refilling the waterer and feeder, adding clean wood chips to the soiled ones, and wiping off poo encrusted hineys. If it isn’t wiped off, the bird can become constipated, and die. It’s true I read it on the internet. Their feathers are getting larger, and the Cornish roasters are already twice as heavy as the layer chicks. I just hope they all survive to adult hood since we didn’t have them vaccinated or feed them medicated feed, or pour an antibiotic called teramycim into their water, something a Tractor Supply co. employee said was necessary for their survival. She put $30 worth of it into our cart, which we removed after she left. -- Anna

Chicks!

2009-02-23T10:02:00.003-05:00

The chicks are here! A few weeks ago we ordered twenty-five chicks from an online hatchery. Late last night I was still awake setting up their brooder (heat lamp and cardboard box in the bathtub) I know kind of last minute, but my entire weekend was very busy, well not really but Saturday we spent all morning and afternoon moving things out of the shed because it’s in the way of our future garage and needed to be moved, I was so tired after that, I didn’t feel like doing anything constructive. Sunday we had company all day but afterward I managed to slap 3 cardboard boxes together, hang the lamp from a spare curtain rod and dog chain (cheap but effective), and wash out the borrowed feeder and waterer before collapsing into bed after 11:00. At 6:50 this morning the phone call from the post office woke me up, very soon after that we were on the road. The lady at the post office handed us two peeping boxes, we had already gotten in the car when we realized the 2^nd box did not belong to us. Triumphantly we marched our noisy little box into the 3^rd bathroom, I mean brooder facility, and released the chicks into their new home. The hatchery had sent us two little freebies, one of which we have since found out to be a White Crested Black Polish a comical little fellow with a yellow cottonball on top of his head. At first he didn’t look so good laying around and not eating, but he soon perked up after feeding him some mash-- just their food dissolved in warm water with a spoonful of yogurt. It’s been very difficult to do any school today because we often go “check” on the chicks instead of slaving over geometry. --- Anna

Mailboxes, spray paint, and the police

2009-02-23T09:37:00.000-05:00

One of our more interesting experiences happened just a few days after we moved into our new house. Since our new mailbox had the name of the old owner painted on it, mom sent my brother and I with a can of black spray paint to paint over it. After enjoying the half mile hike we arrived at the row of ten mailboxes. While we stood in front of the long line of mailboxes shaking a can of black spray paint, a police car turned in. I was afraid of how this looked, but Philip and I both mustered up a smile and waved cheerfully, trying hard not to look like a pair of vandals. After all we had nothing to hide, right? Luckily he completely ignored us driving by a little faster than the 20 mph speed limit. My brother and I looked at each other and laughed, not the “wow that was cool” laugh, but “wow that was close” laugh. To keep from spraying over the house number while we sprayed over the previous owners' name we made do with 2 large leaves and a hunk of cement we found beside the road. After finishing our appointed task, we had begun our trek home when the policeman passed again this time he too smiled and waved. We had an interesting story to tell mom when we reached home. ---Anna

New house

2009-02-23T09:28:00.001-05:00

We just moved to our new house in Beaverdam, Virginia in December 2008. It has fifteen acres of mostly woods and we just cleared 1.5 acres. A creek runs through it and into a pond that is on the edge of our property. One of our neighbors across the street has chickens and ducks who free range in their yard. Another neighbor to our right has chickens and sheep. Sometimes the sheep escape and wander into our yard. Did you know sheep can run? The sheep wandered into our front yard one day and my mom walked out to get a better look at them. She must have spooked them because they took off, I mean they were flying. I seriously didn't know that sheep could run that fast. In our last house it was my job to get the mail every day which was not that hard you just walk down the driveway and the mailbox was right there. Now it is .5 miles away :( But it is really not bad; it's a nice pleasant walk or bike ride. ---Philip

Exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask...

2009-02-23T09:01:00.000-05:00

"Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen." Ephesians 3:20

We have wanted more land for some time and over the last year the Lord led us to prepare our house to sell though the market wasn’t promising. In September we put our house on the market and it sold in 40 days almost to the day.

Needing to move quickly, our buyers asked for an end of October closing. A friend from church rented us his dad’s house till we could find a house of our own. His father had recently passed away and they planned to sell it. Over the next two months we made an offer on a house that was turned down (the counter was we want the same price but we’ll move when you want us to) and an offer on a second house where the wife signed but the husband refused at the very last minute. A bizarre situation but one that was totally God. According to Anna “the Lord was herding us to the right place”. Cautiously moving ahead, the Lord faithfully prodded us along and gave us the boot when the time was right.

We saw many “nice” houses but as one of the kids said “they weren't exceedingly abundantly above what God could do”. When the house we were renting sold suddenly we knew that the Lord’s plan for us was to make a decision on a house we had already seen. The house we finally bought was one we had liked immediately but weren’t sure about the longer drives to work for John (from 20 to 40min) and church (from 6 to 35min). Since we have been here though we have adjusted to the drive and we think country living makes it worthwhile. We are grateful for God’s leading and care and for the many prayers made on our behalf. --- Jean