April Fools

March 31st.

April 1st.

Drawing

Here is a picture drawn by our middle boy.

February

February has been rolling right along and is now nearly gone. We have spent plenty of time playing in the snow and shoveling the snow, and plowing the snow, and roof raking....

Here we are taking in the sights at the Higgins Armory Museum. Not our first trip and certainly not our last. The boys have been making lots of (chain) maille lately between that and their interests in Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying brought us back to the museum again. These kids "study" even when they are hanging out and relaxing!

My artist son spent some of his visit sketching rapiers into his books. I've got to find a way to upload some of his drawings, and music too. His advanced guitar ensemble class is going to be doing a bunch of gigs this semester. We're looking forward to watching them play.

Here is another shot taken at the museum.

We got another foot of snow between the storm on Friday and Sunday. The fence is about to disappear under the snow and our chicken run is quite under the snowbanks too. Tomorrow we may get some rain on top of sleet & ice. I do believe the melting will begin soon. The horse is shedding like crazy and the daylight is feeling so much warmer now. Spring is around the corner! We may have over 3 feet of white stuff on the ground, but it won't last forever. I think I'll go skiing again this afternoon. :)

In the evening, watching TV we find that we are the furniture for our cats. We have been enjoying a little more TV now with our netflix streaming movies right over the internet. We have been watching old TV series; lately "Monarch of the Glen". We've still been reading aloud to the kids in the evening. Lately it's been Harry Potter to our youngest. The older boys still laugh at the funny bits even though they haven't read the books in years. We love to read aloud even though all of the boys (of course) could read these stories on their own. There's just something special about reading aloud. Hope your homes are cozy and warm too.

~Rachel

Winter Chores and Sledding

What is going on in this picture? Winter chores. Our manure pile and hay storage are over the bridge and out in the back field. It makes for an awful lot of plowing...but sometimes it creates a bit of fun too. We could use the truck to move things around, but an ATV is so much more fun on a warm day. This day was 20 degrees with sun and no wind. That's an outdoor day in my book! Out back with the manure, back up with the empty bucket and hay. Repeat. And again. But what do you do with the workforce while schlepping? Why, you drag them along on a toboggan! Of course. And you take one fun run up and down the driveway per trip.

This silliness didn't last long. The teens fell off and had to run. :) Sometimes they were standing up as they went by. Other times I'd see a pig pile of boys. Sometimes 3 of them all sitting....

I enjoyed doing the mucking up at the barn and "supervising" as the men did the rest of the work. The kittens were exploring the new hay in the barn and my dog was hanging out with me, patiently waiting for his turn to chase the ATV. As soon as I drive it he is in high gear. I have to be careful not to run him over as he herds the ATV and I need to go very fast to keep ahead of him. Even at his ripe old age of 10 he stills runs at about 25-28 MPH. I have to do 30 to get away from him. !!

Here is my first attempt at a video on the blog. Our new camera seems to have a smoother uploading process. This is the sledding hill behind our house. The boys have made some interesting trails this winter. Enjoy!

~Rachel

Some days we wake up to a winter wonderland. The ice is so pretty.

Other days it's a winter wonderland in another way! We enjoyed a snow day on Wednesday. The last few predicted storms amounted to nothing here and we were wondering if we'd ever get sledding or skiing again in our yard. The white concrete on the ground is not fun.

The sledding hill has been very active with the new snow and John & I enjoyed breaking trail yesterday with our skis. We'll go around again today and it will be easier.

Yesterday was the pinewood derby for our Cub Scout. What fun!

I've been busy knitting and teaching the kids and keeping up with the plowing. John gets to snowblow! I don't do that. It's been pleasant keeping the fires burning and watching the world from our toasty warm home.

Hope your winter is going as well as ours.

~Rachel

New Year

First Night Wolfeboro was a lot of fun! We saw a play, a planetarium show, this artist making an ice sculpture, musical acts, a traveling zoo, and of course fireworks! Okay we didn't all stick together so that's what we took in collectively!

What gorgeous weather we had. Well, the ice sculpture works better if it stays below 32 and it was above that for a long time so his ice was dripping.

We spent time at home resting and relaxing during our vacation week. I managed to truck the horse to an indoor to ride 3 times! Great fun for me. John took his daughter and our oldest boy to Vermont to visit family there. Those two were not part of the November trip as they each had work keeping them in New Hampshire. They had a nice trip (except for the driving up in a blizzard part.) The "kids" saw their grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins.

Our family Christmas present to us was a wildlife camera this year. Here is the first "wildlife" photo we captured. The other photos have been of us trekking manure to the pile out in the back field. Us cross-country skiing. The dog and I (and kittens following us) on our daily walks. So I was pleasantly surprised to see this photo on the disk! Also surprised because I brought it in to see who it was that left tracks in the snow. (Fox) Somehow the fox managed to outsmart the camera. I'll have to reset the camera and attempt to outfox our little grey fox next time! We have had a dusting of snow fall several days in a row so I've been watching for the best wildlife "roads" to monitor. I still think our stone bridge is the most active spot. The coyote in this photo is looking right toward the house and or chicken coop. Hmmm. It looks smaller than many of the ones we were seeing this fall. But she does look healthy and young. I bet she was mousing out around our hay tent or manure pile.

Happy New Year to you!

~Rachel

Activities!

It seems the year has just flown by! I suppose that's because 70 of the days I spent riding....

This is a shot my dear friend Paula snapped while we were out on what turned out to be my last good ride with his shoes on. The weather was nice and we managed to sneak through some woods trails even though it was hunting season. I love that this horse is always happy to go down the trail with both ears forward. We had a great time!

Each weekend from Thanksgiving to New Year's was filled to the brim with activities. On this Sunday we really enjoyed seeing the Holy Family. Do they look familiar? My sister, her husband and their angel and baby. Sooo cute that little angel was, singing away with the rest of the children in the pageant. That sweet baby slept through the whole time.

The NH Farm Museum had a wonderful special event for Christmas. The Jones Farm was all decorated for the season. See the dried flowers in the windowsill? We ate chestnuts roasted on an open fire and they were delicious. We searched the barn for goodies and had a wonderful tour and wagon ride.

At home we decorated and prepared and celebrated. Caroling in the village here at a friend's party on a beautiful and thankfully not too cold evening. The cub scouts had a party and a caroling at a nursing home. We made 2 trips up to Vermont. One at Thanksgiving and another just after Christmas...blizzard and all. Lots of activities and fun!

Hope your holidays were as enjoyable as ours.

~Rachel