Farm Weekend

We started the weekend with a tour arranged by the Homeschool Gardening Club of a local urban farm.  They had chickens an abundance of peppers and tomatoes they can and most impressively a serious rain water collection system.  Chris took notes on the later to replicate at our farm.

Amber was a little disappointed there weren't any goats at the farm on Saturday, so we decided to fulfill her need for goats by going to Oak View farm on Sunday.  We brought the dog and the boys brought their fishing gear, creating a recipe of fun.

As it turned out, Jared caught his first fish, and Titus had a couple good bites.  Amber tried for a bit but her focus was on seeing the goats, so off she and I went.

We were much amused at how excited Sarge was at seeing the goats.

The girl got to pet the goats and then buzz around a bit in the education center while the boys finished fishing.  Then back home to OFF for some pullet cuddle time.

Art Camp Downtown

I had signed Jared and Titus up for two different classes week long art classes, but as it worked out they ended up combining them into one class.  Today was the final day and show.  The boys had a great time painting and working with clay.

Worms - The lastest addition to OFF

OFF is the "Otto Family Farm", though some prefer to call it "Ottoville Gardens", we'll leave that debate for another day.

Ever since going to a Vermicompost lecture early in the summer I've been wanting to start my own.  We had the notes, Grandpa Harv had gotten the containers a while ago, the problem was getting the worms.  The two people who were suppose to sell them locally, were no longer doing so.  Eventually, I just decided to buy them online from "Uncle Jim".

They arrived today.  We decided to start with two bins; 1000 worms each.  Kids and I put them together after dinner.  Here's hoping for lots of "black gold" for our garden (and no run-away worms).

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Lots of Bulls

The Durham Bulls that is....

Lance's baseball team had one more activity together on July 11th, Team Night with the Durham Bulls.  The team assembled on the field and each member was assigned to a different player.  Lance was to the pitcher and got to stand center field next to the pitcher mound for the national anthem.  The boys came home very excited, Chris in particular.  Chris came home with a bruise and a ball after successfully diving for a fly ball in the stands.

Then on July 19th Chris and the boys attended another game because Jared really wanted to see the PawSox play.  (They had found out about them going at their last game during the fireworks.)  They must be a good luck charm for the Bulls as they have yet to loose a game they've attended.  It is a beautiful stadium and an easy drive.  For my baseball loving crew its a temptation impossible to turn down.

More is Better. Right?

Since we had been done building Castle Coop for a whole two weeks, we apparently felt we needed more to do with our lives because the weekend we went and bought seven more chickens.  Well, were not actually that crazy, the state is.  The state is banning the sale of chickens starting August 15th so we decided we'd better get some more before that takes effect.

This time we our criteria wasn't pets to learn with but more practical.  We wanted the best egg layers we could find, that weren't aggressive or broody.  The kids and I went on a recon mission Friday, July 10th to see what chicks were available from Urban Chicken.  I sent Chris pics and we almost left with all of the them, they were so cute.  However, reason won the day and Chris told me to come home and we would go back this weekend after doing our research.

Part of the research involved deciding if we had enough room.  The conclusion was that the castle/house inside Castle Coop would need to be expanded but the coop would suffice for up to 14 chickens.

So back we went on Sunday to pick up 4 more chickens.  We chose the Sexlink/Golden Comets for their temperament, and industrial egg production (They basically lay one extra large egg a day for three years and die.)  We explained to the boys these are our working chickens and not our pets.

We left with seven chicks, why not right and they were quickly named Monday - Sunday.  We never got into "Chicken TV" with the Brahmas but these chicks have had everyone out on the porch throughout the day watching them ever since they arrived.

UPDATE:  The guinea pig cage we bought to house them in for the first four weeks till they were old enough to join the flock, was outgrown in two weeks.  So to avoid the $60 egg we decided to re-purpose Sarge's cage.

I've started calling them our velociraptors.  The other day I caught a robber fly in a clay pot while they were free ranging.  I had Lance bring one over, we lifted the pot so she could see and she quickly stabbed in once in the pot, it flew a few feet and she finished it off in the grass.  Then began the game of "chicken football".  It's so much fun to give them a choice treat and watch them run around trying to keep it to themselves/away from their flock mates.

To expand the house we've decided to add two wings, turn the perches 90 degrees allowing room for two more perches and a side door into the house.  We have just enough left over lumber and paint to complete the job, now we just need time to do it before they out grow Sarge's cage.

Catchy Field Trip Day

I'd been meaning to take the kids to the NC Museum of Natural Science to do some drawing, been meaning to check out the NC History Museum across the way and I'd been meaning to stop by the chocolate factory downtown to pick up their free cocoa bean shells to use in the garden for a very long time. 

Always an over achiever I decided to catch up on all that... today.   Amazingly, not only did we do it all we all had an absolutely marvelous time. 

I told the boys in the morning that if they finished all their school work before 1pm we'd go to museum to draw.   Motivation is a great thing, we were out the door at 12:45pm.

My plan was to spend an hour at the natural science museum drawing and then an hour at the history museum drawing. 

The first part of my plan worked out.  We went to the second floor, where I felt the greatest variety of subjects for drawing existed, got out our tools and began to draw. Amber stayed with me and the boys spread out and we all drew, even me.

After a while everyone gathered together ready to move on when Titus spotted the special exhibit sign. I didn't want to pay money to see the special exhibit (the museum is free) and I said so, but Titus pointed out "This one is free!".  Apparently a generous patron had covered the cost. With my objection nullified into the "Dig It" exhibit we went.

It turned out to be a really neat exhibit. They had core samples from every state, neat hands on exhibit illustrating how water moved through the three main soil types, a cute entertaining detective show and best of all the Kinetic sand table with an interactive topography laser mapping.

The boys shared the table for a bit with other kids.  Once they had it all to themselves I sat down because who wouldn't want to play with that for a long time (I even took a turn for a bit). 

However, that did take a large chunk of our allotted time so I suggested doing the History Museum another day but the kids still wanted to check it out.

As the trend continued, I was glad we did.  The museum was much more impressive than I expected. We planned to just run through and see the Wright Brothers plane (full scale model) but ends up lingering a bit.  I was taken in by the signs that said "Please Touch".  Wow! A museum actually made for kids to visit!  The boys even sat down to watch the video about he NC involvement in the Revolutionary War.  The Museum is laid out as a twisting timeline of history so the Revolutionary War seemed a good place to stop.  We ran ahead through time to see the plane but we'll be back again soon!

That was more than enough activity for one day but we still had one more stop downtown.  This too went well.  We managed to get four free bags of Cocoa Bean shells for the garden.  Well, not really free as we ended up buying some samples of their chocolate but everyone had been so good I couldn't resist.  That was the end to our "Catchy Field Trip Day".

Bayer Bee Care Center - Field Trip

We started off with a good laugh today.  We could have been frustrated but we try to laugh when negative emotions come to surface.  You see we were actually going to be a little better than on-time to our field trip today when Siri tells us "Turn left and arrived at your destination".  Problem was all there was for miles on the left was forest.  Ooops.  So we pulled into a business on the right and opened up a different Direction program on my phone, yelling silly at the phone, we found out we were 7 miles down the road from our destination but the kids liked the silly yelling and the road was 55mph so we still arrived on-time.

 
First, we had to check in at the security station at the Bayer Corporate offices, all those drug patents are closely guarded.  Once checked in we drove in circles looking for a parking space only to end up all the back at the security center to park.  It was one of those mornings, but we had plenty of company both getting lost and touring the parking lot.

The center was located in a beautiful modern style building.  Our guide was great with our large group of kids, keeping them engaged and interested.  We began with a short saftey video and then a tour of facility where we learned about native bees vs. imported European Bees.

Then about what was being done to combat the virus infesting hives across North America.  On a good note she dispelled the myth that bee populations are declining across the country, on a bad note they have yet to find a hive not infected with the virus.

Lastly, we went out on a screen porch where she showed us a working hive up close and personal.  I asked if the Top Bar Hives had a lesser incident of the virus since they were suppose to be more natural and therefore less stressful.  She caught herself before speaking too negatively about the Top Bar Hives (sort of funny) and just said they produce less honey.  I guess we'll just have to try things out of ourselves, adding bees to our farm is our project this summer.  I like the rhetoric on the Top Bar Hives as being healthier for the bees, since our main concern is pollination, production takes a back seat to me.  I need to find a way to keep the hive healthy without the well meaning Bayer products.  I do so if for no other reason than buying them would make the project cost prohibitive and not meet our goal of self-sustaining, but more on our gardening philosophy in another post.

Red, White and Boom!

We attended the Fireworks display at Koka Booth again this year.  We parked at the local elementary school and walked down to the display area.  As you can see it was an absolutely gorgeous night.

We came prepared this year with chairs and food, as the ground was rather soaked with all the rain of recent days and were rewarded with great seats on the sidewalk front and center. They once again did a fabulous job much enjoyed by all and well worth the walk.

Rabbit Day Book Review - June 2015

June is our casual reading month, they spent a lot of time reading books off our book shelves. Then I added this collection of baseball books from the library.

How Georgie Radburn Saved Baseball by David Shannon (Fiction: Lots of modern day innuendos to public perception and the government, boys and we parents all enjoyed for different reasons.)
Barbed Wire Baseball by Marissa Moss (Hist. Fict.: Playing baseball in Japanese interment camps during WWII.  Not a lot is written about this horrific government action during WWII.)
We are the Ship by Kadir Nelson (Hist. Fict: Postive/Realistic story of the Negro League)
Derek Jeter's Ultimate Baseball Guide 2015 by Larry Dobrow (Very Basic, I think the boys were a little disappointed on the playing tips but enjoyed the statistics.)
Long Ball by Mark Stewart
Ballpark: The Story of America's Baseball Fields by Lynn Curiee
 
Seashells by the Seashore by Marianne Berkes (By far my favorite counting book ever!  Love the pictures, writing and the fact Amber learned how to identify 10 different seashells.)
Farmer Dale's Red Pick-up Truck by Wheller (Chris and Amber cracked up to this again and again)
Joe Cinders by Marianne Mitchell (Boy version of Cinderella, Jared read to Titus again and again.)
Henry and Mudge by Cynthia Rylant (Titus is now reading this series.  My absolute favorite early reading author).

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens  (This was my first time reading this novel.  Though the writing is excellent, I will not be having the kids read it till high school or maybe never due to the content.  It is a very dark look into sinful side of humanity during the French Revolution.  It is historical fictions but of events quite disturbing.  I have no idea where all the cute re-makes of the same name ever came from I saw no resemblance in the original.)

Zoo Time

After all our hard work over the last few weeks, we decided that everyone needed a day of fun this Sunday.  Since the new polar exhibit had just opened at the zoo, we chose that as our destination.

The polar bear put on a grand performance, Amber got to see her beloved elephants, and the boys enjoyed the romp between the animals.  It was just the day of fun we all needed.