Chinese Yoyo

Chinese New Year is just around the corner, 2/3/11. This time of year our boys' Chinese yo yo team gets lots of invitations to perform. They performed today at a Japanese grocery store. They did great.









Published by Nathan 1/29/11

Chickens

Today we put all of our chickens together in one big space with a fence around them. This is the first time our two groups of chickens have been together. We are putting them under our fruit trees. We hope they will help control the bugs that got into our fruit last year.




They will all shared the big chickens coop because it is big enough for all 9. When we first put them together, the older chickens pecked the younger ones on top the head and chased them around. That didn't last too long. They spend most of the day scratching and looking for bugs. They seemed happy. Tonight the little chickens seem nervous about the new coop. They keep going in and out. Hopefully they will get used to it soon.


On the positive side. With 9 chickens all laying eggs we have more than we can eat. They are producing over 2 dozen eggs a week. It is a nice problem to have. Our friends are very happy to take some eggs off our hands.


Posted by Nathan 1/29/11

Match Rockets

Had a great time making match rockets today.
Here is a link to the directions we used http://www.instructables.com/id/Match-Rocket/
... and here are the results.


Posted by Nathan
1/17/11

Haloween

We had a great time trick-or-treating with some friends in the area. The weather was perfect, high 50's, no rain, no wind. The kids had a lot of fun. We had Juliet, a dinosaur, a ninja, and a negative political campaign add. You can't see it that clearly but the political campaign add accuses our two governor candidates of being a vampire and a zombie and concludes with ...and I approve this message.
Posted by Nathan

New Orange Belt

We have a new Orange Belt at our house. Our middle son tested successfully to go from Yellow to Orange.

Exploded tomatoes and Parsnips

Ever since the fall rains came our tomatoes have been exploding. I think there is just too much water for them to handle. About the time they start to turn orange they split.
Next year we will try keeping them under cover from spring to fall. We did a low tunnel this year to get them through the spring but by summer they were too big for it. Next year we are thinking about a bigger tunnel that will be 8 feet tall. We'll see.
We are enjoying a small harvest of parsnips. This is about half of what we planted. They have been growing since early spring. They have been a very trouble free vegetable. We may plant a few more next year. It is nice to have some thing to harvest in November.

Pumpkins

We planted sugar pumpkins this year. They are supposed to be good for pies. We harvested them a few weeks ago. They are kind of small. Hope they taste good.