BOO!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

The better of two evils!

Brian's recent midlife crisis resulted in the purchase of a 2005 Yamaha Vmax. The boys were stoked! I was choked. I feared for their lives every time he took one of them for a ride. Turns out he was not happy with the bike and so traded it for a Honda CR250R for himself and a Honda CRF70F for Jamie. I always thought that the last thing I wanted to do was go ripping through the woods on a noisy, fossil fuel burning machine, but I have to admit that it is actually a lot of fun. So much so that I now have my very own Honda CFR230F with electric start (sweet!). We are going out again this weekend, so more pictures to follow. Below are some pictures of the first ride and a video of Jamie the very first time he rode his bike. He is really quite a natural, although he has managed to dump it every time he has been out...ouch, the learning process is painful.


Jamie in his street riding gear gettin' dirty!
Yes, we now have a proper dirt bike helmet for Robert. But check out the grin!

Is it PMS, or is it my life?

I thought I would pop in to (finally) change the link for "big and little" blog and caught myself reading the poem I placed at the top of my blog. It suddenly dawned on me that lately I am feeling like I barely have time to breathe, let alone stand and stare! Let's see, I am a mom of two young boys....that alone should be enough. One is home schooled (or is that nagged) while the other mostly gets ignored throughout the day. I am chief cook and cleaner and laundry washer. I have a casual position at the hospital which could be close to part time hours if I didn't refuse as much as I do. Aaand!, I am trying to complete two online courses in preparation for my re certification exam. In between all that I am also trying to maintain somewhat of a social life. Were it not for my weekly tea times and visits with friends, I think I would be a ranting lunatic....or wait, I am!

My babies produced.

O.K. I know it doesn't look like much, but I am incredibly excited. This is my first crop of huckleberries. I can't wait till we have enough for pie!

Cranberry Festival (Sept. 28)

A bright sunny Sunday was spent here. We all got into posing as cranberry farmers.


Jamie got a temporary tatoo of a lizard painted on.
On the farm were some ponds full of frogs. I am sure the boys could have spent the entire morning just trying to catch the frogs. I was a little worried that someone was going to fall in and get soaked, but everyone managed to stay dry.
This picture does not do justice. The view was unbelievable.
We waited in line for 30m for these. There was a lot of pent up energy needing to be released.
I picked up 10lbs of cranberries to try drying again. Last year I had some success. They are not as sweet as the store bought ones, but at least I know what is in them. I worked out a system of lining them up in the groove of the cutting board and slicing a row of them at a time. They need to be sliced because they are so big. Thirty minutes later and this is what I had........
This is 5lbs sliced and ready for syrup. Then they go into the deep freezer for three months (to sweeten up) before they are ready to dry in the dehydrator. Now, what am I going to do with the other 5lbs? Any suggestions?