Saturday, November 06, 2010

It's been awhile since my last post, I know.
In the interest of keeping my family life private - and my children protected - I have decided to close up shop on Chipmomk.

I will no longer be posting entries here.

For my family and friends - I plan to start up a new blog in the near future that is password protected. Will keep you posted, if I have your email address...

Friday, October 01, 2010

Yeah, this pretty much sums it up.....


Persimmons.



Apparently, we have a wild persimmon tree. I'm not entirely sure what to DO with a wild persimmon, but they look quite lovely hanging from the branches right now.


And I suppose the good news is that with every wild fruit tree we discover, I have renewed hope that an orchard is a possibility on the farm. Still looking for a good wild crab tree and am surprised to have not found one, yet....


Every week there's something new to discover.




Maybe next week we can find an elusive paw-paw....


The guineas are slowly beginning to lay eggs. We got the guineas around mid-May, and by the end of September, a few eggs were beginning to appear. Problem is, they are appearing in the strangest places. A few, with odd shell, or rubbery shells, appeared under the perches in the guinea hutch, which seems reasonable enough, although it would appear that the guinea who "laid the egg" did so while still on the perch - score zero for maternal instincts. More eggs have appeared randomly in the tomato patch, one was found along the wall of the house and one over by the compost heap. The fact that these birds are able to reproduce at all is clearly a miracle.

A lovely young lady at our local farmers market sells guinea eggs and tells me they are tasty and nutritious. So, IF the guineas laid eggs and IF we could collect them, or IF they went broody and hatched them out, that would be neat, no?

Soooo, I made the guineas a little nesting box. I even put a golfball in one of the boxes, as I had read somewhere that this might give these dimwitted birds the notion that THIS, the NESTING BOX would be a good spot to put, oh, you know, anything one might have that looks vaguely spherical. And off-whitish.




The nesting box has been an utter failure. Although one guinea does appear to have hollowed out a wee spot to rest, directly UNDERNEATH the entire nesting box itself, no one appears to be using the boxes. No one. My next plan of attack is to cover the nesting box in some old juniper twigs and see if this sort of "camo" will encourage the birds to want to nest in the boxes. Stupid guineas.

In the meantime, on the other side of the coop, my chicken nesting boxes house sleepy chickens and as of yet, no eggs, either, but that's because the chickens are still a little too young. But by next month, I'm hoping we'll start to see some chicken eggs in my beautiful nesting boxes.(And, yes, I'm inordinately proud of the nesting boxes - it gave me a chance to learn how to use our new nail gun - FUN! While using up lots of old scraps of wood from our house reno! Free! Sort of...)

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

We've had a busy weekend, took lots of pictures, but obviously all of those activities are superseded by the biggest event of all - ALL munchkins starting school at their NEW school!!! Whoot! Big C. has been attending school for a week, but the girls' first day was today, and they were crazy excited about the prospect. So, I shall leave pictures of the chickens,pictures of the White House visit, and pictures of our various other events to the side, and present you with this, the official back to school shot of the crew....


OK - everybody get in the car....

Tuesday, August 31, 2010



Why do back-to-school photos always sport bad haircuts where my son is concerned? Nonetheless, I think he's pretty cute. He appeared very confident and happy on this, his first day of Kindergarten. I suppose at this juncture I am supposed to comment on how my baby has grown, and how quickly the time flew by, but really, this summer was LOOOOONNNG and hot and busy and crazy and, yes, we still haven't unpacked all the boxes since moving and so, when I stop to think about it, I think, yup, we're right where we're supposed to be.
Kindergarten.
"Real" school.
He's ready - I'm ready - and we are all hoping that the school year will be filled with wonderfulness.
Now to get the girls ready to start Pre-K next week......

Saturday, August 28, 2010



Our trip to Canada was wonderful. We got to see Grene and Grandstan, we got to see Niagara Falls (because we were driving right by it on our way north, and what the heck, watching water fall over a cliff with 30 000 other people is always fun. Caden's hat flew right off his head and into the mists, so we even have a memorable incident!). We got to see Uncle Rob and Aunt Frannie (and stay in their luxurious home - it was awesome) and African Lion Safari (where we were attacked by an Angry Ostrich) and the Donkey Sanctuary (where we groomed donkeys and learned that they make A Lot of Noise). Also, buttertarts, Aero bars and maple cream cookies were highlighted.
Whew.
'Twas a busy week!
Pictures of Canada.







We had friends come to visit for four days this week - all the way from NC!- and we kept very busy. We spent a day at Stribling Orchard, and managed to pick lots of peaches and lots and lots of apples (4 pecks!!!). The orchard itself is beautiful, on high rolling hills with a glorious view, and the apple trees were filled with fruit, which made picking easier for the shorter amongst us.

For lunch, we went to the Apple House in Linden, which not only serves FANTASTIC bbq, but also fries up the yummiest apple butter donut, rolled in cinnamon and sugar. Almost as good as the ones I used to buy at the Guelph Farmer's market, back in the day. Michelle and I agreed that, left alone with a dozen of those bad boys, they'd be ALL GONE in under 15 minutes. I would've taken a photo of them to share with you all, but there don't seem to be any left in the house. Num num num.


Caden demonstrates the handling of the "picking pole" on a peach tree.



Piper hangs out.



Quinn recommends an apple.



Group portrait.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010


We've been busy bees here.
We've been attending an outdoor Arts and Crafts camp, which occurs every morning for three hours, in the absolutely craziest heat that this area has EVER had. This makes for some tired and cranky campers when I come to pick them up at noon. We are also preparing for the start of school - Big C. actually starts at the end of August! - and then there's all the fun things to do around here, which include this weird shot of us watching Dada mow the back yard with the brush hog. I think this was the "Day of the Thousand Angry Wasps". Dada seems to have a penchant for stirring up the wildlife when he mows.



We also picked three enormous pecks of peaches at a local orchard. And then we froze peaches, and canned some peaches, and made "Peach and Rum and Brown Sugar Jam", and peach crumble and sliced peaches with blueberries for dessert. The urchins love the picking and the preparing, and they seem to do a pretty good job at consuming, too.
For our next kitchen project, I'm hoping to find pears and apples to make sauces and crumbles to put up in the freezer. And by then it will be time to - brace yourselves - put chickens to rest in the freezer. Not sure if that will make a blog post or not.....

Sunday, July 25, 2010




This weekend was one of record-breaking heat, and it really was unbearable outside. I felt so bad for the guineas and chicks in the coop that I let the grown-up guineas stay in the outdoor enclosure overnight, instead of shutting them inside (side benefit - less poo inside the hutch in the morning,so score one for me, the Chief-Poo-Remover-er). However, Big C. was absolutely determined to engage in a building project, and thus it was that we settled upon the creation of the sand box. So, I'd like to unveil our lovely new sand box - ta da!

The advantage of having your property completely littered with two year's accumulation of building material and miscellaneous building crap is that finding something to make a sand box out of is relatively easy. Walk out door. Look on ground. Assemble with nails or screws of your choice.

Which is why this particular sand box bears an eerie resemblance to the floor joists in our garage. And the sand, if one was very observant, is uncannily similar to the sand used in the grout between the bricks that cover our entire house. Free labor provided by Dada and a "found" reciprocating saw. We do own the hammer he used, though.

And here's an interesting side bar - that sunny patch of grass behind the kids in the sand box? That used to be the location of the dreaded 1960s trailer that was on the property when we first bought it. So Big C.'s project wins a star - not only for recycled content and environmental beautification, but also because now his sisters really think he's a hero. Turns out a sand box in the shade is a most lovely way to spend a hot sunny Sunday.

Thursday, July 22, 2010




Our property has about 27 acres of forested land. Big trees, little trees, dead trees and live ones. I have learned about the highly toxic black cherry, whose leaves are the most fatal when withering, and I have learned how to identify a black gum tree without a shadow of a doubt (cut a wee branch along its length and look for the central, rectangular "cells" in the pith, like a stack of little blocks). I can identify hickory, swamp maple,tulip poplar,sassafras, sycamore and dogwood as well as the seedlings of pawpaw. Pretty good for a Canadian girl who hadn't seen any of these, growing up! The woods here are an entirely different entity than those of my childhood, and it has been humbling and fascinating to learn about so many new species.

It is amazingly ironic, then, that one of the countless birds around here chose to create a nest - not in one of our many trees, heck, no - but in a rickety metal ladder we had leaning up against our "portable storage facility" at the front of the house (yes, the back portion of an 18-wheeler. Scenic, no? It has been here so long that I don't notice it anymore, which is probably a Bad Thing.).

The kids like to climb the ladder to check on the baby birds, while I fear for the birds' safety and wonder what the heck the parents were thinking.

Every day is a new adventure.




We've been very busy - Grandma (and cousin Maddie) came for a visit, and approved the new/old house! We've been doing swim camp and riding lessons and jujitsu and the guineas and chicks are growing, and the garden is, too. We went to the local county fair (where junk food for the day is the rule - yes, Funnel Cake was a large part of my dinner) and we've been discovering new, cool things in our neighborhood. Mom and Pop bakeries, small grocery stores offering amazing local products, local milk in glass jugs....this is a pretty cool little corner of the world!


And sometimes, we just sit on the front porch and enjoy the view....

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Big. C. grinned the ENTIRE time he was on Audrey. And the instructor thinks he has a "natural affinity". WHO KNEW????

Miss. P. on Audrey - looking a little apprehensive, but she assured me later that she really DID have fun.

Miss. Q struts her stuff on Audrey.



The chicks are here! The chicks are here!
31 Wyandottes and one "mystery chick".
They're living in the hallway for a few days, so I can keep an eye on them, and then they will make the big transition to the coop! That means Big C. and I are going to have to get busy building some nesting boxes this week....
The proud farmer.
Or at least the proud guinea-hutch-making assistant.
I know I'm biased as his Muma and all, but isn't he handsome?




Which brings us to Guineas. The weirdest domesticated bird to be found. But,having raised them from day-old chicks, I have to say that I have taken a real shine to these birds. Out of thirty chicks, 28 have survived to adulthood, which seems pretty hardy. And now that they are free-ranging around the homestead, our tick population has plummeted. I can say this with some authority, as every night I "tick check" the children AND the dog. At first, we would pick two or three ticks off the kids in the course of any given day, and on bad evenings, I have actually pulled more than 30 ticks off of the dog. (And yes, we DO use an anti-flea and anti-tick - FRONTLINE - medication on him, every three weeks, as advised by our vet). Sooooo, I know from ticks.

Imagine how pleased I was last night, then, when I found NOT A SINGLE TICK, not on the dog, not on the kids, not on me. The guineas have been free-ranging for barely 2 weeks! Granted, this is the end of "tick season" and Rick has mowed and cut and trimmed and slashed the rampant verdant growth around the farmhouse, but I'd like to give the guineas their due. They return to their hutch every night (see below), they wander around the farm eating bugs all day, and they are excellent at warning of approaching visitors, low flying hawks, and 747s (they are admittedly a little confused by large airplanes, causing them to panic and run for cover).
Here's to guineas!

Now I'm off to deal with the chickens...


Monday, June 21, 2010

Cue the "Green Acres" music....Big C. has taken to the tools of farm-land like a duck to water. He loves loves loves to be given a task, working outside alongside Muma or Dada. Here he shows off the interior of the chicken coop/guinea hutch, which has consumed much of our energy lately.



Other tasks include hangin' in the pickup truck, which the girls seem to prefer (Miss.P was actually WORRIED ABOUT HER NAIL POLISH yesterday, and therefore declined to help me unload straw from the back of the truck. Gahhhhh. How in the world will I raise two Princesses????)

Sunday, June 20, 2010






We have a cherry tree on our property! It is down the fence row, quite a way from the house, and almost over-grown by a couple of ratty looking dogwoods. I can't really identify the type of cherry - it is very very sweet, but it has that cherry-red translucent quality you would normally expect from a sour "pie" cherry. They are small and yummy with a sizable pit. And there are millions of them on this very unlikely looking tree....so, what better to do in the early morning than pick a wee bucket of cherries and make cherry muffins? Yum yum yum....
The three urchins gave them six thumbs up.



Thankfully, we aren't living in the garage, in all its Tyvek-covered glory. It's quite, uh, rustic, currently. But this is how the house looks, as of June 20th. I'm told the brick masons will be arriving tomorrow, and I'm told we may even have shutters by the end of this week. Rumor has it that the electrician and the plumber will be stopping by, as well, so, hey, maybe we'll have lots of new things to post on the blog!!!
Stay tuned!

Saturday, June 19, 2010

My apologies for the delay in getting back to this old blog. My absolutely lame excuse is that we moved - finally - to the farmhouse in Virginia - while Rick was overseas. And sold our house in North Carolina. And built a chicken coop and still haven't unpacked all the boxes, and made some nice raised garden beds and still haven't found the box that has the rest of my glass mixing bowls in it. And a few other things, along the way.
For those of you who forgot about the farmhouse, here's a little memory-jogger:




It looks a little better than this, now that we are here.... but it would appear that, despite two years of work, our contractor STILL WASN'T FULLY PREPARED FOR OUR ARRIVAL. I guess all those times that I would call him, long-distance, from North Carolina, and tell him we REALLY, TRULY, ARE moving to Virginia - well, I guess he thought I was KIDDING. Or merely testing him to see what his reaction MIGHT be.

Because on that fateful day when the kiddos and Josie and I fell, exhausted, through the front door of the farmhouse, knowing that all our worldly possessions were somewhere on a highway between here and there behind us, well, let's just say the house wasn't really DONE. As in, we had only one bathroom with BOTH a functioning toilet AND a functioning sink. And it was on the main floor (that would be one floor AWAY from all the bedrooms, for those of you keeping score). The children were never really fans of the whole "wash your hands after using the potty" rule, anyway. But this - the absence of nearby sinks in which to perform said duty - made the rule practically obsolete. So, yeah, ewwwwww.

I spent 2 weeks brushing my teeth twice a day in the laundry-filled laundry room. (The washing machine hadn't been hooked up properly so, while we accumulated MUCH laundry, it had to wait...but at least the laundry room had a functional sink....)

Also missing - screens. Window, or door. This means that you are faced with a choice - either suffocate from the noxious fumes from the freshly refinished hardwood floors, OR open the windows and doors and invite 7000 flies, 473 stink bugs, 113 things called a "house centipede" (which, ick, nasty) and two very angry wasps into the indoors with you. Send flyswatters. (Miss P. calls them "Flyswappers")

And mud. We had been promised a verdant carpet of green, lush grass to cover the sea of red clay that has pretty much surrounded the house since construction began. The reality is a patchy assortment of weeds and some very sad blades of grass that bring to mind those guys who should've shaved off the last of the glory-days hair style years ago, but cling stubbornly to those sad little wispy strands still dangling forlornly to their shiny scalps. You know the ones. My yard is a metaphor for male-patterned baldness.

The dog, the kids, the worker dudes - everybody brings this clay-ey red mud into the house. The floors are covered in a fine veneer of red clay dust. Every. Single. Day. The kids' socks are red. The floor mats are red. The pads of the dog's feet are red. When it rains, the rivers of mud running through the front yard are - yeah, red. Gahhhhhhhhh. This juxtaposes quite nicely with the mulberry stains (from the three trees surrounding the house) which are purple, cover any surface NOT already red, and do NOT wash out. Ever. Mulberry juice is more permanent than permanent ink. OxyClean weeps when it sees mulberry. Trust me on this.

But I know Grandma wants to see pictures, so I'll try to comply over the next couple of days.
Here are a few to tide you over....moving day (and no, we didn't put them INSIDE the moving van), and two of a wee excursion to DC on a sunny day - when unpacking boxes just wasn't any fun anymore....
Will post more, later!




Tuesday, April 20, 2010


Yeah, spring is lovely and all, but this pollen is KILLING me already. Can't breathe, can't sleep, can't stop scratching my eyes - gahhhhhhh.

Happy Spring, everybody. (The red-bud are in bloom at the cottage, see?)

On Grandma's visit, Grandma's gift to Big C. was a 300+ piece Lego set. Here, Uncle Scott can be seen wishing he had stayed at home - in Pennsylvania. Big C. is THRILLED to have an "assistant".