Campfire Cabin

We have been enjoying our backyard campfire area for several years. Eddie has wanted to put a lean-to type of a cover near the fire pit for a while. During the past couple of weeks he finally made his vision a reality. There is a concrete slab under it that was there from when this used to be an operating dairy farm. He made the furniture that is in it too! A piece of lattice will be added as a back wall when we get the chance. I will also now have a place to store all of my campfire cooking gear! This has been great since he made it. We can sit under it during the day and it provides a nice shady area to relax. It also makes a nice area to sit by the fire even if there is a light rain. We have enjoyed it many times already!

Green Bean Harvest 2009

This was our first harvest of our green beans this year. I was able to freeze 11 quart bags from this picking. I have a Foodsaver but I decided to try the new Ziploc vacuum seal freezer bags and they work great. The beans taste great and we are eating them with dinner often. I have also given some to my parents to enjoy. I am sure we will have this many at least one more time.

Chicken Coop and Chicken Tractor

The chicks that I posted about a couple of months ago have grown up. It turned out that 6 of the 25 chicks were actually roosters. Until today, all of the chickens shared the large coop as well as common land to free range. Since we planned to keep 12 chickens for the purpose of egg laying and the others for meat, the roosters will be the first to go. In order for us to eat them, they must be separated from the hens for one month because we feed them all medicated starter. We need to have the roosters free of the medicated food for at least a month to be sure the meat is clear of any medication. In order to get the roosters separate from the hens, Eddie built this portable coop, called a chicken tractor. It is 12 feet long by 5 feet wide. There is a hanging waterer, a roost and a place for food. It can be moved around the pasture so that they are still able to benefit from the natural bugs and plants the others have access to. Their feed will be non-medicated and in a little more than a month, Eddie will get to practice butchering a chicken. He has found several online sources to help learn how to do this. One site that he keeps returning to is this one: http://www.butcherachicken.blogspot.com/ It is very informative and he has links to many other blogs and sites that are helpful. For more pictures of chicken tractors, you can visit www.thecitychicken.com

Freecycle Windows

I recently discovered the website http://www.freecycle.org/ and joined my local group. On my very first day I scored these great windows. The person had found them on the side of the road herself several years ago and never used them. They are moving and needed to get rid of them. Great luck for me. On the same day, I also scored a complete set of kitchen cabinets, countertops and center island. These were from a woman who has cancer, lost her job and has to sell her house to move in with her daughter. A kitchen upgrade was done to get the house sale ready and her old cabinets are now in her way. Eddie and AJ are going to pick them up on Friday. We will use them in the garages and AJ's animal area. I suggest that you check out your local freecycle site. It is great for getting rid of and acquiring great things!

Sweet Inspirations Car Show

After leaving the Renaissance Festival we stumbled on this great car show and diner. We stopped in for a bite and the food was great. I had a fish fry sandwich, Eddie had a pulled pork sandwich and AJ had a burger with the works. Great Drive-in Diner food. After walking around and checking out all of the cars, we headed home. A very full day!

Sterling Renaissance Festival

We took AJ to the Sterling Renaissance Festival yesterday. This spring, when we asked him what he would like to do over the summer, his first answer was to find a Renaissance Festival to go to. I found this one from their website http://www.sterlingfestival.com/ and it looked great. It was about 3.5 hours away. We had a great day! The weather was perfect, about 70 degrees and sunny. The festival winds through paths in the cover of trees. There were amazing artisans, fun shows, delicious foods, interactive roaming actors and entertaining games. AJ spent $10 buying tomatoes to throw at a restrained rogue! Eddie earned a "woody" award for a bullseye axe throw and a "hammer" award for ringing the bell at the top of the tower. The quality of the artisans was great. Many of the visitors wore period clothing as well as the villagers. I took over 150 pictures and it was hard to choose just a few to put in this post!

The brochure stated the following:

"The year is 1585. You have entered the village of Warwick, England, a small country town not far from the bustling city of London. Step through the gates of beautiful Warwick and you will soon find yourself greeted by the town's jubilant citizens, who will warmly welcome you as one of their own. Villagers, both fair and foul have left their work and their worry to prepare this festival day in celebration of a rare visit from Queen Elizabeth and her court as she sojourns through the English countryside."

Great Roadside Find!

I was driving home from work and spotted this unique window leaning on a tree with a $5 sign on it! What a great deal! I am not quite sure yet how I will use it, but it is so cute. It is 64 inches tall by 16 inches wide.

Memory Box

I have been holding on to this cigar box since my son was born almost 15 years ago. It was a box of "It's a Boy" cigars that we passed out in celebration of his birth. It has been used to store several things over the years, the last of which was tubes of oil paint. I was inspired by Cathe Holden's project on her blog "Just Something I Made," to make this memory box to hold pictures and momentos from my son. I covered it with scrapbook paper and some duplicate photos that I had from when he was little. I used some upholstry tacks and string to make a latch for the top. It looks great sitting in my office and I have filled it with some of the things that were scattered about on the bookshelves collecting dust. He even thought it was cute!

Back Porch Display

I found this old crate in our storage barn. Eddie said that it was here in our old barn when we bought the property. He used it to store food in when we had hogs. He threw it in the back and just stored it after we sold the hogs. Last week, we were looking for pieces of old barn board to use for a shelf project (pictures of that to come later) and I saw it. I thought it would make a great display table and useful cupboard for little things on our back porch. I used an old window, bottles and insulators we collected, a birdhouse Eddie made, and a plant to make an interesting focal point on our back porch. It looks much nicer than the catch-all table we had there.

AJ's Turtles

Among AJ's animals he has several turtles. He currently has four painted turtles and two snapping turtles. The top pictures are of a snapping turtle that he has had since it's shell was only approximately 2 inches in diameter. His shell is now approximately 7 inches around and he is very aggressive. AJ has a smaller snapping turtle in a separate cage.

AJ's Fishing Trip with Grandpa

My dad bought a small boat last year to use for little fishing trips on the Hudson River or on lakes in the area. AJ went on a day-long fishing trip with my dad, one of his other retired friends and his grandson. They had an excursion on the Hudson River and caught a few little fish. The day was full of small adventures such as getting the anchor line wrapped around the motor, drifting into the weeds too close to shore, and having a pin come out of the motor that AJ had to get in the water to fix. They ended the day by going out to dinner at Talk of the Town in Glens Falls. Memories AJ will cherish!

Cruise-in

We own a 1965 Custom 500 car. There are free cruise-in car shows every night of the week at local diners and ice cream shops. This was Thursday night at Ginny Rae's Restaurant in Hudson Falls, NY. We don't go to many of them, but it was a beautiful night so we decided to take a drive over. It's just a nice place for people with classic cars to gather informally and share their hobby. There are also more than a few car shows around the area every weekend. We occassionally go to those too.

Athol, NY Cemetery

While on our excursion through small Adirondack towns yesterday, we stopped at a small old cemetery in Athol. I have ancestors from the towns of Athol, Thurman and Stony Creek. I was wondering if there may have been any of them buried in this particular place. We stopped and were lucky enough to find ancestors with the names Frost, Aldrich and Larkin. I think they are brothers and sisters of my direct ancestors, but it was still exciting to find a connection to my family history in one of these beautiful old towns.