Trail Ride

What a beautiful day for a trail ride! This is my absolute favorite trail ride in the state. I have either ridden or volunteered on this ride for the last 8 years. Without a riding horse of my own this year I didn't think I'd be able to go. My friend Suzie called up and wanted a buddy! Yea! This is her beautiful mare Emily who I got to ride through 11 miles of the most beautiful scenery in fall foliage.
My friend was on her other horse Wind Dancer under this canopy of color.

We had so many beautiful spots to stop and take some photos. It was wonderful to meet up with friends out on the trail and back at the lunch. I feel so very thankful to have had such an incredible opportunity this fall.

Thanks Suzie! Thanks to Peggy Sue who puts on the best trail ride in NH too!

~Rachel

More Summer Activities - Yea!

This summer has been full of neat, fun things so far. We bought a used 4-wheeler and the kids have been having a blast with it in the field. All three of them are light enough to ride it and it gives them some more balance and driving practice (and is a blast to ride). Ben's been using it to drag branches out of the woods (with a rope tied to the back handle) and to the brush pile. Every once in a while we get a chance to get both 4-wheelers out and play follow the leader (in a slow pace way).



Another first for the area is our semi-large Trebucet (about 7 1/2 feet high from the deck to the axle of the throwing arm). We built it to throw pumpkins this fall and had a great time building it and throwing 1 gallon water jugs into the field. We also gave a class to 4 home school families to teach physics principles associated with this type of catapult (force, moment arms, inertia, radial velocity). It was very exciting and we had a great day with it. We loaded up the weight basket with 300 lbs, then 400 lbs and finially 500 lbs of rocks and threw the jug of water 67 yards - what a great splash when it landed! At the end of the day with our final shot, the bottom of the weight basket finially fell out (great timing) which was our "school bell" to release the class.



We've also gotten involved with the local soccer groups this summer. The recreation teams are great and we have a great forum for the kids to learn how to play without a lot of stress. They've all increased their talents wonderfully over the short 4-week timeframe. Benjamin is playing for the first time (it's great to see him progress) and Andrew is continuing his annual fun. Rachel and I are helping to coach Andrew's team and it's plenty of fun for all (we both get a chance to work with the kids).



Well, I have to go to work now. The leaves are turning beautiful around us now and we get a chance to experience another beautiful fall, and my commute becomes a treat for the eyes. More pictures and text on that later. Love to all.

Visiting Friends

What a wonderful weekend we had. We spent time relaxing (maybe not the right word) with friends in the Berkshires. We squished 2 huge suppers, 2 large breakfasts, a campfire, several geocaching expeditions, an ATV ride, a pontoon boat ride plus swimming, a horseback ride, a long stroll around Hancock Shaker Village and cave exploring all into about 42 hours...between thunderstorms!

WOW!

It was relaxing. We were keeping up our usual pace with friends who understand fun.
The first shot is of one of our long conversations on the back porch. The second is to capture a "first" in geocaching. We had 2 GPS units to work with and ours was clearly the lesser of them! This cache was tricky, it's near "Balance Rock and what a beautiful spot.




Night boating between thunderstorms had us a lake to ourselves! The pontoon boat was a highlight for the boys. Our captain, with a little chiming in from the first mate, anchored us over a really cool sand bar. The water was just 2 feet deep over the bar and the kids hopped off to swim and play until the storm started to light up the sky. Then off we headed for the dock with the first fat raindrops hitting just as we tied it up and headed for the cars.



This is a cave with one of the many Hidden Brooks in our friend's neighborhood. The boys are not much on spelunking but they were amazed at the rock formations and seeing the brooks disappear into underground places.


Hancock Shaker Village, the city of peace, was a wonderful field trip. We learned a ton and found it to be a city of peace. We watched their hydro powered mill work and toured many of the buildings. We watched a fabulous thunderstorm move across in the distance with clear strikes seen behind that round barn. Stunning. The gardens were remarkable and we all enjoyed our time at the village.

We all agreed that we needed to stay for at least a week to do all that we really wanted to do. Thanks again to our fabulous hosts. They run the best ever bed and breakfast in the Berkshires!


~Rachel

Caching in the Berkshires

You want me to go up where? We did a couple of caches out here on this road in the Berkshires. The first one was "One for the Boys" and it was easily found right along the side of the road. Our boys were enchanted with the idea of climbing up this big hill from the moment they set eyes on it.

I was a little less excited about that idea.


We parked the trusty Subaru at the bottom and started to check the GPS. Only 300 feet from the car! We're close. The GPS wanted us to go a little right of the easy trail and a little left of the big hill. Which way to go. While I'm deciding the kids have already moved on. And UP!
John held my hand while we ascended this hill. My sandals were not the right choice for today! But what a view from the top! Maybe even worth it.
At the cache we found the typical fare of items, signed the log and headed back down the "easy" trail. The cache was named "Jeepin' cache" and it is obvious why!
Great fun.

~Rachel

Bird

Okay, so monday is Nature Journaling at our homeschool. We had a fun one last week where we went out to the back field for a sort of "picnic" and then were joined by a very curious horse! We had to cut that one short and head back to some land on "our side" of the fence. Sheesh. She found our animal crackers to be delightfully yummy. (personal note: don't feed the wildlife...especially when you don't want a 900 lb visitor on your picnic blanket.)

Today, it was wildlife of the bird kind.
The boys had been outside after lunch for a little while now. (long enough for me to move the laundry, check the e-mail and prepare a NetFlix for sending.) Tide and I finally are getting out the door and we find this Phoebe flapping around the front porch. It lands on a nearby bucket. Tide goes over to investigate and it doesn't even move. After a quick "no" and "lie down" to Tide, which he does follow in an obiedient way...good dog, I called the kids to come over quickly and quietly. Not quite as obediently they arrive to find this Pheobe. It certainly was a bit stunned. We decided that it could see us and the boys offered it a finger to rest on so that we could place it "up" out of the reach of cats.
Okay, that spot was hard to find. We did a little searching around and then settled for a spot on our big rocks. While there we fed a few bugs to it. (Need I refer to the note of last week? The Phoebe decided to stay for a bit.)

After searching around for a good branch to shift it to we decided to give it a moment on the birdbath. The boys hurried into the house to grab their nature journals to catch the event on paper. We began to record and the bird flew onto us. Time and again. Once on a shoulder. Another time on the paper. Again to an arm
Even to land on the dog! Stay still Tide, there's a good dog.
Phoebe did decide to fly away to a tree after we returned it's little weightless body to the birdbath for at least the 6th time.

What fun! I'm certain that not all of our nature journals will involve such active and willing participants!

~Rachel

Busy Fun Weekend

We had back-to-back events this weekend. On Saturday we were at the Moose Mountain Regional Greenways "Trail Day" event. A good time was had by all. I went ahead of the rest of the family as I was volunteering for 1/2 of the day. This first photo is of the boys down at the estuary learning about the wildlife that lives on and in the river. There are fish in that case. It was a neat hayride down to the river too. The boys also saw a wildlife demonstration by Squam Lakes Science Center and went on a tree identification walk too. I was not on those as I was by then in a 2 1/2 hour GPS workshop. I know more about our GPS than I thought I ever would! Very informative.
There was even a little "cookie cutting" going on. The kids activity of painting a tree cookie also involved cutting some too.

The next day had as at the NH Farm Museum for their "Olde Time Farm Days" event. We made little sheep, hammered tin for candles to shine through, husked corn etc. Another good time was had by all. We were out on another hayride here to see the trails and cider mill. We were certainly enjoying the local events this weekend. Back at home we got some more work put in on a few projects. It was a pleasure to be outside in the beautiful fall-like air.

Here's hoping your weekends were as good!

~Rachel

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