Christmas tree

We had snow all afternoon last Saturday, so Sunday we headed out to get a Christmas tree.  We go to tree farm just up the mount from us every year called Edwards' Tree Farm.

Look at all the baby trees, one of these may be our tree one day.

 Here is the cabin.  After you get your tree you can head over to the cabin and have some hot apple cider or hot chocolate and gingerbread cookies and warm up for a minute by the woodstove.  I also picked out a centerpiece for our table while we were at the cabin and my sister Sarah got a hand tied bow to put on top of her tree.  They make all their wreaths, centerpieces, garland and bows in this cabin.

 This is the chosen tree.  It was just the right height.

 My nephew Jack had a great time running around the trees in the snow.

 This farm also grows pumpkins, there are still several pumpkins hanging out here under the snow.

On our way back down the mountain we passed this barn.  How pretty is this barn quilt?

It's snowing

It's snowing, the first snow of the year is always exciting, but it made my day to look out the window while I was in class today and see snow (yes, class on saturday morning....one saturday a month until may, but I think it will be worth it).  It has been pretty cold, but we are in the foothills, not wuite the mountains so we don't get as much snow as people who live about 15 minutes north-west of us.

So:
snow....last day of my class before winter break ( I got an A on my presentation about meeting children where they are and creating activities that allow kids to learn their way instead of trying to make all kids learn one way)...and tomorrow is Christmas tree day.

Usually Christmas tree day means saturday afternoon we load up with my sister's family and get our trees then we go our separate ways (they would head back on their two hour drive home and we would get to tree decorating)....but this year they do not have a 2 hour drive home.  Now that my sister and her fmaily live on the farm their drive home is about 30 seconds driving at a safe speed---maybe a 4 minute walk at most and I believe Alexander (nephew) can run to my house in under 2 minutes

This means we are not scheduling Christmas tree day around their visit.  So Christmas tree cutting will be in the morning (it may still be snowing) and then we will go to the Christmas parade down on main street.  We will not yet be decorating our tree though because we are getting new carpet installed on Tuesday morning so we will wait until after the carpet is down.  Regardless tomorrow will be a great day!

3 months (or more) later

Where have a been?  I'll give you a hint:

We got together our books and sharpened our pencils and...

....SCHOOL STARTED!!!!

and to add to the chaos I am working on my masters and can officially admit I have bitten off more then I can chew. 

But alas I have gotten organized (kind of) and caught up (not really) and will be attempting to post twice a week for now, and work my way up from there....

By thanksgiving I should be posting more, YAY!!!!

This is most definitely a stress release after a long exhausting, but usually fun day at school and then a long, exhausting, not fun at all afternoon and evening at my school (the grown-up one).

MORE TOMORROW FOR SURE

I'm Back

I have not been posting much lately because my computer broke and then it broke worse and did not work at all and then I was using a random assortment of old borrowed slow computers.  I am back in the game now though with a computer that runs at a decent speed and does not freeze or poop out on me whenever it feels like it. 

On that note it has been uncomfortably humid lately and my hope is that the weather gets a little more comfortable soon because I want to go outside for more then 10 minutes and not be sweating profusely.  I want to go outside and visit all the animals and it be enjoyable.

I want to go see all the babies

I want to visit the friendly cow (which is not common on a decently sized dairy farm.  We are by no means huge but the 450 cows that are milked each day are not necessarily interested in letting you come up and pet them, but 126 will be your friend)

I would also like to ask this cow if she is sure she can possibly get herself into the bed of this truck, because she is certainly thinking about it

....but all of these things would not be as enjoyable because it is so incredibly hot

Cow In the Road

Something you deal with on a regular basis on a dairy farm is cows (yes I know obvious), but I don't mean cows in general.  I mean the kind of cows that are places you do not always expect to find them.  A few weeks ago for instance a few cows were blocking traffic on the main road.  This cow was simply on our road so it was not blocking anything but my passage and I was not in any hurry and I had my camera in the car.  This nice girl was also polite enough to vacate the road when I pulled up a little.  See the cows behind her, that is where she should be.  I think they are wondering how she did it.  That's the thing too, the ones who get out usually will get out again and again.  Once they know how that's it.

Sometimes they are in my yard, sometimes there is one and sometimes there are several and sometimes there are more then several.

We do though have an alarm of sorts that lets us know if any of the cows are out and happen to be in our general vicinity.

Slide will bark if there is a cow out in the yard at night.  Which is nice until I go to peek out the window and one of the said cows is looking back in at me.  Then I have to go change my underpants before I can go motivate the cows back in the direction of where it belongs and hope that someone up by the barns will put them back where they belong, which they typically do.

The Road

I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy.  I read it in a day and it was intense.  It was emotional and sad and a lot of other things.  I watched the movie a few days after I finished the book and I thought it was a great match to the book.  Myles said he did not like the movie, he watched the whole thing and I think he found it a little disturbing, which it is.  I would recommend the book and the movie, but be prepared for sadness, it is moving and the relationship in the book is so inspirational.

Calves

I was just looking through some old pictures and came across this picture of a scary calf.  Well it looks scary in this picture.  

It looks as if the calf is trying to eat the baby (who is not a baby anymore, but a 2 year old)

I believe if this baby could talk he would ask, "Why are you taking pictures instead of saving me from this suckling beast?"