The cool weather from the weekend has worn off.  It was back to hot and sticky (92F yesterday), but it was overcast and some little sprinkling showers helped.  We stopped by a persimmon orchard on the way to the farm yesterday afternoon and picked a bunch of persimmons.  We’ve gotten some from our trees this…

This weekend the weather was perfect.  It was warm but not hot and the air felt pleasantly dry, like a humid day in Southern California, or like Pennsylvania in July.  It did not seem like Florida at all.  For the first time since summer really began, we went out and had a major work weekend…

We have an elderly lady neighbor in town who has lived next door for about two years exactly.  I remember just when Ms. Penny moved in because it was right after Clothilde was born, and she had some kind of sawing/noisy lawn work/construction going on a few feet from our bedroom window from barely daylight…

The Christopherous curriculum we are using this year offers several Norse-inspired poems to memorize.  Mirin loves memorizing dramatic, inspiring poems, even long-winded ones like Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Heather Ale” poem. But the poems provided were just not what I thought he would like.  There was one about Thor and Loki that seemed to be the…

Two very different snakes presented themselves recently.  This little guy was hiding under some old rotting wooden pallets we were moving.  We weren’t sure what kind of snake he was, only he didn’t look like the poisonous kind.  I thought maybe he was a small rat snake. This monster was a coachwhip snake that Ethan…

Mirin turned 10 yesterday!  We’re into the double digits now, and that seems impossible.  There are so many September birthdays in our family!  On Wednesday we’re celebrating with my brother, and later in the month is my mother-in-law’s birthday. We had a simple celebration with just family at home.  One of the highlights was receiving…

A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week.  A simple, special, extraordinary moment. Joining in with Soulemama today!

I wish I had more pictures today, but the truth is that it has been extremely rainy  again this past week.  On Tuesday we got two inches of rain in a single afternoon!  In two days we had gotten five inches. The garden seems to be coming back to life a little now that the…

Today my baby turns two!  (Well, technically not yet, since she was born at 11:10am and it’s only 10:11 right now!) Yes, two years ago Clothilde was born on the couch in the living room.  I had really worried that she would be born on Mirin’s birthday (the 14th) or on September 11th.  It’s seems…

Back in July, Rose suddenly decided to start helping milk the goats.  She has wanted to help milk in the past, but our cow Matilda is not friendly enough. She started by helping bring them down from the pasture.  During black cherry season it was quite a task to convince them to stop gobbling up…

Rose went to her very first audition for the Nutcracker over the weekend.  When Clothilde saw Rose getting dressed, she insisted on also being dressed up in Rose’s old leotard and tights. This past week was our first week back to homeschool.  I was feeling nervous about it, but it really took me by surprise. …

Ahhhh…..it’s that time of the year when more and more hints of fall start to creep in.  The pastures are green and tall but the grass has declined in the cooler, drier weather.  Matilda’s milk quantity is going down.  We’ve been turning to the goats’ milk, which I usually like to make into cheese. We…