May

Here are 2 officers from William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. What a performance they had this year! The play takes up most of our time during the end of April and then the shows April 30-May4. All 5 shows went off very well and we celebrated another good year in the Young People's Stage Company.


Here is King having his "close up". He is a freckled guy...it's called a flea bitten grey. We're doing really well and I've been out riding now that the ground is ready. Very happy. We are very happy with him!


Here is a promise of berries to come. A wild bee working away at the wild blueberry bushes in our yard. Won't it be yummy!
My daily walking partner out on our jaunt. Tide is still my constant companion--a shadow really.
Another sure sign of spring's full return is this frog, sunning himself on a rock near our stone bridge. Ahhh. Spring!

~Rachel

Portsmouth caching

Hey! Kids! Wait up. You would think that they had never seen bare ground before. Okay. Well, they had not seen bare ground for 4 1/2 months. Portsmouth did not get the snow load that we did. Several of their storms were rain instead of snow. John would drive off to work each day in this springtime bliss and come home to the snowbanks and winter weather we were stuck in. We had had it! Into the cars with the kids and out to find a cache along this "exercise" trail.

Do you like the new look? I think he's handsome. He's a keeper for sure.



And there are 3 more handsome guys too. What a fun family day.

~Rachel

April

Okay, so you know what it's like when you have put something off for so long that you feel like it's just to hard to get going again. Yeah.

Sort of like this blog.

Well...

I'm just going to get started and see what happens!

I don't remember much about April anymore. It seems that we started with feet of snow and lots of ice chopping and outdoor work. But some interesting things were going on inside too. Here is Ben knitting and Brian's Ukranian Egg for Easter.

Okay. So, I've started. Maybe I've got another one to do today too.

~Rachel

Got Snow?

This is our horse fence. It is about 4 feet high. I took this photo before our last storm and now the fence has disappeared. It's a good thing that the horse does not want to walk through 4 feet of snow!



The next one is of Tide by our tent garage out in the back field We did move the snow off it as we were worried about losing that structure. There are lots of buildings caving in around NH this year. Through January we were able to plow over our stone bridge and into the back field. (We store hay in that tent.) Now we're limited to a path we make with the snowblower. The bridge became too narrow and icy to get safely across. It seemed to want to push our truck into the brook!

John was so good to plow the driveway Saturday morning for the latest storm March 1. He did end up using the snowblower as well as our driveway is getting really, really narrow.

This is what our parking area looks like.



















Here is Andrew packing up his guitar. What snowpiles!!


This is my view of the barn. I really can't see much from the windows anymore. Just a winter wonderland! The news is saying that Concord, NH may break the record for the snowiest winter recorded (past 200 or so years.) We're within 12 inches of that record now. I think there's been 109 inches or something like that, for the season. I love driving along the roads here as they remind me of what the roads looked like when I was growing up. In our old town they had done lots of tree clearing on the edge of the road so we didn't have the overhanging branches. Here we do. We also have the frequent power outages which go with the overhanging tree limbs...but at this point we like those too.



Happy March!



~Rachel

Winter Events and Fun

What a wonderful time we had through December and January. We had a chance to visit with the folks in Milton, VT and spend time with many of our family members. It's amazing how gray I've gotten and how much Dad and Mom haven't changed (what's with that??). The time spent was short, but fun. We are very thankful for the chance to say hello to many, and sad we didn't get a chance to spend time with everyone.




The snow this year has been a lot of fun for all. It really has made up for the minimal conditions we've had over the last two winters, and the boys have had a blast with it. The snow plow on the truck and the snowblower (when I haven't loaned it out to a friend) have been very busy. From the look on the kids faces it's obvious they enjoy the experience of a good New England winter.






One of the neat things about having a snow plow is the great snow banks you can create. The kids were having fun making snow tunnels and forts in the banks. I seem to remember times when Matt and I did much the same growing up. As it stayed in my mind, I'm sure our boys will remember the neat tunnels and snow-related times they've had this year.






In addition to the neat outdoor times in January, we had a good family get together for Ben's Birthday. He sure has grown and matured over this last year. He's been learning to read and doing great on the school front. All three boys are doing well in home school and are settling into our new home and community.
So ends our post of this day. Happy 2008 to all of you.


Our lives contine to grow
by the love and kindness we sow
by touching the hearts of our friends
we know that all bad times will end

We realize each day we are blessed
by family and friends that are best
for in our hearts we hold true
that at the end of the day "we love you"

December

Even though it's Groundhog Day...we thought it time to post! December had some completed knitting projects. Here are the "retro rib" socks which were given to my mom and 3 "honeycomb" hats in different fibers each. The shiny one is Silk/Mohair. Nice.

We purchased a used piano for our 4th year student. He has had a small keyboard for practicing and was in need of a real instrument. This spinet is a 1940 "Winter". Here is our student with his Grandmother enjoying music together. She is an organist and is delighted with our new instrument.

The Christmas Day was spent here at home with an afternoon meal for 12. What a nice day we had. Even the dog is enjoying his present in background! Army men, tools, books and good food. What a wonderful day.



~Rachel

New Horse

This handsome grey gelding is the newest addition to our farm. We let Lady pass and save her from further arthritis pain. 1-22-08

This new horse really likes the neighbors. Here he is playing "face" with Sugar next door. He has twice escaped from our fence and ended up in the neighbor's fence until we could round him up and fix the damage. Thankfully none of the damage was to him! He appears to be a good jumper! We ended up going higher with our fence by attaching it to their wooden posts until we can drive new posts in the spring.

Time for a snow bath! He's a funny one when he rolls. First one side and then the other. His bath is nice...but it doesn't remove the brown spots! We'd need some soap for that job!
John really is my groom. Grin. He really likes King. It's a personality thing, and King is a very likeable horse. He's an 8 year old Egyptian Arabian with the registered name Mufassa SS. A friend of mine told me Mufasa is translated as King so that is what we've decided to call him.
John and I took a nice walk with our dog around the back field this morning in our icy winter wonderland. At one point the ice even supported my weight to my relief after a trudge through crust atop a base of at least a foot of snow. Then John could walk on it in one spot too. Too much ice to plow off the 2 inches of snowy ice mix we got from last night's storm. As we were returning we caught the horses in committee. Not sure what big plans we were interrupting...but a cute photo for sure.

I'm really looking forward to riding this year!
~Rachel