Trip to VT

We're on our way. What a fun trip to Vermont! We stuffed 6 people in the truck and drove for 4 hours to visit some of the extended family (about 60 of them) at a family reunion. Cory brought along "Betty" which is her new Garmin device that gives you blow by blow directions on how to get somewhere. We thought we had upset "Betty" several times as we did not take her advice in NH. She wanted us to take a shorter route which we knew to be longer in time. But in her defense, after we took all of those "wrong" turns and she proclaimed "recalculating" then her time estimates were right on track. It's hard to read in this photo, but she's telling us to go another 108 miles on Rte. 89 with an ETA of 12:09. That's before we stopped to do a quick geocache in Milton VT.

This cache was one of the most interesting we've done yet. The cache container is an old Fleetwood Cadillac! It's the Fleetwood Arts Center and the request is to leave a piece of art behind. We left a poem and a drawing. What an interesting find.

After the reunion we stopped by the farm for a short visit with Gramma and Grampa before hitting the road for another 4 hour drive in the truck to get home. It will be a trip to remember! The kids are far too big to stuff into the truck for 8 hours in a day!!

Our month of July just zoomed on by with parties, cookouts, trips and lots of swimming. I don't know where the time went!

~Rachel

Visitors and Summer Pool

We've been blessed with some very special visitors over the last month. We had an excellent visit from Chris & Rosie and Dad & Mom at the end of June. Rachel had a good time showing them the house and land and letting them get out and stretch on their trip through New Hampshire toward home. We're so glad they stopped in for a visit!

Last weekend we had another wonderful couple from Vermont stop by for a visit. John & Annie stopped by Saturday and got a chance to view the home and area. It sure was nice to have them over and we enjoyed their visit. They also got to see us put in the leveling pad for the above-ground swimming pool. Thanks again for the visit!

I thought I'd also include one of the flowers we've put into the "butterfly" garden at the top of our driveway (directly opposit the vegtable/flower garden that seems to finally be growing).

Well I have to go for now and get the kids into bed for the night. Hope everyone is enjoying their summer as much as we are. Love to all.

Higgens Museum

We went to the Higgens Museum in Worcestor, MA yesterday. 2 of the boys are in their renissance shirts which we made at home.
We met up with 2 other families there for an educational treat.

We learned all about the armor and weapons of the middle ages here. The boys enjoyed a program on arms and armor in which 2 of them were called up to volunteer in the show. Here is one pointing out all of the vulnerable spots in field armor.

We especially enjoyed the hands on "discovery" room where we could try on helmets and play chess. "Rook threatens Queen," or something like that. Chess had a whole new dimension here with at times 9 children on the board for pieces. John lost this match to his oldest son who cornered him with 2 of his highly opinionated pieces. Lots of the game sounded like, "rook, move back 3". To which the rook replies, "What? Retreat?" Pawn chimes in, "Can I move now?" while Knight leans in to whisper his/her attack ideas. The good king listened to his pieces and got the game won. We're thinking up how to have a life size chess game at our upcoming birthday celebration in August. Our 13 year old would like a middle ages theme. We'll decorate goblets, challenge each other with staff on a bridge. (staff: styrofoam noodles, bridge: balance beam) There will be crossbows and trebuchets. (Marshmallow flinging devices.) And of course food and swimming in our new backyard pool.

~Rachel

Canada Lily

This is the Canada Lily in bloom. What a spectacular wildflower. We have probably 12 or so plants around the property. They do not grow in a group the way day lilies do. They seem to come back each year in the same spot too, so transplanting might work. This one is over 6 feet tall and growing in one of our larger patches of poison ivy. It will stay put!

I've also found a few plants of clematis vining along our stone bridge and near the wood pile. My father has transplanted these in the past and now has a beautiful and well established vine on his trellis. Spring brought loads of Jack in the Pulpit. Some of those were over 2 feet tall this year! The flowers were about 6 inches in length. What fun to go finding wildflowers.

Summer...yummy

Summer is a yummy time. The little wild bushes are producing the most tasty of snacks.

We are in a race with the wildlife for our share!

Each trip across the bridge starts a chorus of alarm, flapping up to the nearby pines; birds heavy with bellies full of berries.

Last night's walk included our first monarch caterpillar sightings on the milkweed. I think of Nina Towne breathing in the sweet smell of the milkweed in bloom. I'll try to get some photos of the Canada Lily that is in bloom...spectacular. Summer....yummy! ~Rachel

Caching

Look who came to visit!! Cory had a couple of days off in a row from her job as a waitress at The Wentworth and she decided to come play with us. John could not get the time off from work with such short notice on that Thursday and Friday, so we were almost happy to find that her car had a flat tire when she was preparing to leave Friday night. She stayed another night. John got the tire plugged for her in the morning and enjoyed his "bonus" time with her too. We went to the beach on Thursday as well as a short visit with Ken & Louise and another short visit with Laurie, Rob & baby Hannah. Cory proved more daring than I as she did get swimming with her brothers. I only waded out to my belly. It's so much more difficult to get in these days!

On Friday I asked the kids if they'd like to do a "quick" cache on the trails near our house to drop off a Jeep Travel Bug that we had. This 'easy 2 mile walk on level trails' ended up having an unintended bushwhack when we realized we were on the wrong trail. The kids had great fun teasing me about that!! Note: now I'm very thankful for all those bushwhacks through the woods with my dad. I have no fear of doing that, and a very good sense of direction from his teaching it over the years. The boys are now developing this skill.
Andrew found the cache and grinning, carried it to us . We all traded trinkets with the cache and enjoyed this beautiful "beach" spot way out along the branch river. The cache would be very easy to arrive at by canoe or kayak (or correct trail).
Large rocks attract boys, naturally. Cory was "good" on the ground and I took advantage of the photo op. Tide enjoyed wading around in the river. We were very lucky that he did not see the deer cross the trail in front of us on our way in. Cory & I did. Another went crashing through the woods on our way back out, but Tide was on the leash for that one. He thouroughly enjoyed the walk. In case you are noticing in the photo...Benjamin has a granola bar in his mouth. He refused to take it out for the camera.

We are really enjoying caching together (geocaching.com) whenever we can. I'm pleased that we were able to bring Cory along for this one. It really was an easy walk...even if it was more than 2 miles.

~Rachel

Crayfish

The brook has been a fun place to play lately. The boys enjoy netting crayfish. There are little brook trout swimming around too. Yesterday Benjamin was asking for "teatime". This is something we have been doing this year out of our BraveWriter activities. We decided to sit down for a time together and read about crayfish...which lead to thinking about drawing crayfish, and then they boys had to catch a few...









Once we had 2 in a couple of jars on the table we all were able to do some Nature Journaling about them. It's fascinating to see the boys want to do schoolwork during summer vacation. Okay, maybe schoolwork is a harsh word, as with BraveWriter they have not felt so much like they were doing schoolwork: just loving writing activities. I did a nature journal too. Reading aloud from Anna Comstock's book Handbook of Nature Study we learned the names for all of the parts of the crayfish. Andrew was taken with the swimmeretes under the tails. These are missed on first glance...but noticed and drawn when carefully observing. Benjamin was happy to learn that all of the pieces of crayfish which he had been finding were not from dead crayfish, rather from molting ones! He kept a claw and examined it under the magnifying glass. We learned that one of our prisoners was female and one was male, and that the male's missing claw would grow back. We released them along the bank to watch them move awkwardly across the ground on legs and pincers even. Then so gracefully through the water with their swimmerets.

I hope the boys continue to enjoy the natural world their whole lives. What a great way to grow up.

~Rachel