Weekend Recap!

Friday we took the day off, set our alarm clock for 5am (yep that’s right) and then headed out on a 2 hour drive to Mt. Moosilauke here in NH. It is the first over 4,000 foot mountains in NH on the Appalachian Trail standing at a honkin 4,802! I have climbed this bitch mountain before but Dave couldn’t make it the first time due to some stomach nightmare so I promised him I would hike it again. I just needed some time to forget how hard it was. Bet your bippy I remembered how hard it was about 30 seconds on the trail. Ahh it was so worth it though*. I mean what a gorgeous view and the weather was incredible! The snow covered mountain in the picture is actually Mt. Washington.

Saturday I did the last leg of a rescue transport for an adorable 9 month old Great Dane puppy. I had to evaluate him and then bring him to the foster family’s house. He was so cute but so inappropriate! Hopefully he will settle in, learn some manners and be ready to go to his new home!

Yesterday, as a family**, we tended the garden. I prepared the beds and planted the seedlings that were started back in March. Andrew planted seeds (beans, peas, spinach etc), Tarynn raked and Dave added more fencing to the chicken pen to expand their area into the back yard. They now have the entire fenced in back yard to scratch in. Our reasoning behind that was basically, the dogs*** yard needed some TLC with tick removal and long weeds. Why not turn all that into yummy eggs?

I also attempted to make cheese yesterday using the vinegar and milk method. yes it turned into cheese but it was the blandest cheese I have ever tasted. I would love it if someone would speak up and tell me what I did wrong! :)

All in all it was a very busy but productive weekend. I am really looking forward to kicking back and relaxing!
Next weekend we bring home Noah! So much for relaxation!

*worth it now that I am done. ** when I say as a family I mean the kids got paid. ***Django really is the only one thus far that would not eat the chickens, frank has a bit of a prey drive ;).

Wordless Wednesday (I remembered)

Sasquatch

I realize it seems that we are constantly floundering and failing at what we are attempting right now. Its okay though, we would rather fail right now than when it counts and so this is our whole point. We are trying to learn stuff that we dont know. We are struggling to become more self sufficient and less reliant on other people for our own survival. We are trying to shrink our footprint on the planet and do things the "right way". There is alot of good that comes out of this, and it is alot of fun too. There are also parts of it that are not fun. Growing and raising your own food (like my dying garden and my mensa chickens) is alot of fun but its not enough. Our garden is totally failing because of the rain. I think we had something like 23 days of rain out of 30 and to be honest I think that is stretching the stats. I think we had like 2 days of sun and the rest of the days rained. Slugs have completely denuded our potato plants and the radishes failed for the same reason. I actually replanted the radishes though and I am hopeful it will work.

In an effort to learn about the less fun part of self sufficiency and in effort to shrink that giant footprint, we will be considering ways to provide our own meat as well. We are talking about raising meat birds and we are talking about different critters that are indigenous to our little corner of the world. As much as I hate to think about it, a really big problem in this world is the current mistreatment of animals and the methane those animals create. Raising my own animals I would know they were humanely treated and I would know they lived a good life. Also.... I have ALWAYS wanted to know what wanders around in our woods at night (or in the day) so I got a trail camera. We set it up last weekend and Dave picked it up today to see what we got.



Something set off the camera but as you can see, it was fast like lightening. Either that or... its bigfoot... It could be bigfoot... or we have alot to learn! Chances are good whatever set the camera off crossed the path and therefore was history by the time the camera woke up and took the shot. We left it up there for another week. If I get another weeks worth of blank shots, then the camera needs to be moved. Perhaps the train goes across ways or maybe there is no trail lol. We shall see!!!

Mother Nature is Patriotic!

**Please update your bookmarks to http://shmoopywood.greenpress.com**


We had a weekend up at S-wood and what a great weekend we had!! You see, here in New Hampshire, it has been raining since... well... I can't really remember when it started but I know its been WEEKS since we had a sunshiney day! THis weekend was sunny and gorgeous with the 'occasional interuption' from mother nature who felt as though she would like to exibit her patriotism and do some fireworks of her own.
Here is our flag which proudly hangs on the front of Swood when we are there, and in the background you can see Mom Nature's show coming over the mountain.

Also, while we were there soaking up some rays, Django was helping me Map our way home (around the 4th of July traffic)


After Django showed me the way home, I got to take a walk with my camera around our land. We are on the side of a "hill/mountain" in the north country so our land is not flat.
Here I am stand at the highest elevation of our lot (hmmm maybe 1800 feet??) on our land line (see the tree in the foreground is marked, thats how we do it in these parts) and looking straight down into what I call the "ravine" its funny because the lot has like "waves" that go long ways down the land and at the same time they are tilting up as well. I love our place. Someday this is gonna be where our goats play.



This slime was near where I was standing and I had to take a picture of it so I could research and see what it was!! very interesting stuff!


I can't wait go go and read what all of you all did this weekend! Whatever it was, I hope it was safe and happy!