Spring Garden 2008

 

The three-egg-a-day hens. Can't beat those Rhode Island Reds.

 

 

 

Hens & chicks of a different kind. It's been a relatively wet and cool spring which makes all spring-things happy, including the gardener.

Chickens Thumb Their Beaks at Ace

A few minutes ago, I was out checking the chicken pen when I saw the girls running crazily around fighting each other for some huge night crawler. Awfully big worm. Fit for the Guinness Book of World Records. Then I saw that it wasn't a worm but a ring neck snake almost a foot long and as wide as a pencil. I love ring necks - the ONLY snake I love, and got into the pen to get it out of their beaks. It took a bit of wrestling and at one point I thought it was dead but it was only playing possum. As it started heading for the door, I held the girls back and helped it along. They get enough kitchen scraps that I don't feel they're a bit deprived. Ace (the Airedale) has always been the snake-killer around here and truth be known, his prey are a bit lengthier and more venomous - copperheads, mostly. But he has to hand it to the chickens, if it wiggles, those girls are going for it.

Jake's graduation photos

 

This is one of Jake's '08 graduation photos. He originally balked at the idea but finding the bow tie helped him get into it. He even began hamming it up by the time the photo shoot was winding down. It's on to UNCA to play soccer and room with Kai.

Second snow of the year

Hey there, family and friends. I'm just feeling my way around the blogdom thing, trying to figure out how this works. If you bear with me, I might just have regular entries and photos for you. The news around here is that we had a decent snow Thursday (17th) and we're expecting another little one tomorrow (19th). Franklin had to stay at his "home-away-from-home-motel" in Lake Junaluska Wednesday night to be sure he could get into work on Thursday.

In other news, Walker turned 21 on January 12th. (Erik turned 30 this past summer and Jake turns 18 in April). We won't mention the fact that Franklin turns the "big five o" in April, too. Well, let's see if this works. -Susan

Family Photos

Erik and I on his 30th birthday at Morikami Gardens in Florida. This is a beautiful place to see Japanese gardens.






Michelle, Betsy, Julie, I and Becky in Susan Bost's hot tub. Susan had prepared a gourmet breakfast for us and had scented and bubbled the water. We'd hiked almost an hour to get there and the air was crisp but the water was warm.




Jake playing for Reynolds High School this year. It was his semester of not being a homeschooler.







This is Walker doing his thing on his slack line. If you want to know what slack lining is, just look it up on You Tube. Walker is amazingly good on this thing which is like walking tight-rope only a bit harder.