Mixed bag

I really like Brielle's creativity when I come home to find things like the "snake trap" pictured here. When Esdras and Carissa were here Esdras kept seeing a Garter snake around our granite front steps. I think Brielle had everyones protection in mind when she set up this trap. There is no bait in it and the snake would have to knock the stick down to make the trap work. Our cat Tigger did nearly catch herself in it but not quite.

This Hibiscus plant has survived our winters a good many years. It is one of my favorite blooms because of its massive size.




Cassandra has been doing a lot of bouquets from all the different flowers around the yard and here is Brielle with one of her own.

We went for an "apple adventure" out in the Gore and found a lot of damage from recent heavy rains . When we go o an "apple adventure" we are going to all the apple trees we find to sample the apples looking for ones that are good enough to graft someday. One year we made apple cider and boy was it good. I need to find an old cider press so we can do that again!!! We also went to visit Grammy Bradley and we tried a couple apples from trees in her field. One of them she said are Baldwins. It had a rather spicy flavor but was pretty good.

Where have you been?

Well I don't suppose anyone noticed(since I have had one comment in the last 50 posts) that I haven't posted in a while. I went for a job interview at Lakes Region Pellet in Center Barnstead(an hours drive) on Aug 7th and got the job that day. It was good to get the job but I have had one day off, sort of, since I started. The day I had off I drove to work for 6:30 am only to find my time card missing. When I tracked down the boss he told me they had nothing to do that day so take the day off but possibly expect a call to go into work at 7 or 8 that night to work over night. So I drove home, had some free time before trying to sleep in case I was called in, which I never was. That was my "day off". We have had some short days but no real days off. At first there was no pellet production so we were just cleaning then we broke into three shifts four to a shift. My shift has been 3pm to 1am still with no days off. Now we are getting ready to start doing 7-7 shifts 2 on 2 off then 3 on 2 off then 2 on 3 off. That works out to working five days one week(60 hrs) and two days the next week (24hrs) because it is a two week pay period we are getting paid straight time for all of it. I may look into the legality of that. I will be starting on the night shift. The good thing is I will finally have days off and I will have every other weekend off, Fri-Sun.

I will try to fill in some of the past weeks when I have more time and when I get some pics from work I will post those.

Higgins Beach

Bielle and Cassandra went to the beach while I went to work(this has been the pattern lately). They had a great time but said that the tide came so far in that they were forced onto the rocks after moving up the beach several times.
This picture of Cody and his girlfriend Betty is actually the next day when they went to visit Casandra's parents at Danthforth Bay. It is quite the coincidence that he and Ciara are both dating red heads!

Esdras and Carissa's visit

Cassandra and Brielle took Esdras, Carissa, Hope, and Caleb to Beede Falls in Sandwich Notch. They really enjoyed it. I was at work but did get to go for a walk on the trail off of college road that goes to campsites and a small beach on Squam Lake. That is when we found the frog on the trail and the kids went swimming. Brielle was at Camp Harmony so sadly she missed out on the visit.

Paige visit

Brielle and Paige going over the finer points of Facebook. Brielle is now on it, which she is very excited about.

Paige and I traded sunglasses. Who looks the most Cool??? Yeah I give her two thumbs up, she is wayyy cooler.

Time to kill the chickens

The scene of the crime at the end of our driveway. I have the buckets, cooler, table, hose, and a fire under the water filled drum for scalding. I kept out the gruesome pics, well the ones I thought might be considered gruesome.



Here I am just starting to dip a bird in the 140+ degree water. This is called scalding. It loosens up the feathers so they pluck easier. You have to be careful not to dip too long or you can start to cook the skin(not good).

Here is a plucking machine that we borrowed from the Roy's(Thank you). It hugely reduces the time it takes to pluck. We only had 16 birds but it still saved a lot of time. When the Roy's use it they kill upwards of 110 birds! The next pic shows what they look like after the plucking machine. Cassandra finishes plucking, cuts off the feet and passes it on to me and today Geoff who wanted to learn how to slaughter so he came to help(Thank you Geoff you saved the day)! Geoff and I gutted the chickens and then they went into cold water waiting to go inside to get a final check for feathers and a final rinse before going into bags and put in the fridge over night.

Campfire

Had a nice campfire in our fire pit so we could toast marshmallows. A little fire is always nice. I did get in trouble for not being out at the fire enough because I was baking oatmeal molasses bread, which was very good.

First ledge

I let Brielle decide where we would hike today and she picked First Ledge. Well that was all good but I should have taken the easy route around because Hope was terrified of the steep section. We made it and everything was fine until we got near the bottom and found out Hope's Sunglasses were gone. She had them on her head but she was holding them with one hand so I told her we should put them away so you can use both hands. I was thinking in a back pack but she decided on her shirt collar. I should have overruled but didn't so I take the blame. She cried and or sat alone nearly the entire time Mom and Ken were with us at the Kanc Rec Area. She really wanted to go home at that point so I decided to take the long way home, Tripoli Rd and Sandwich Notch Road. I hoped if we stopped at a brook a couple of times to play maybe she would start to forget about the glasses. It worked well enough that we even went to Beede Falls to play there for a while. A big THANK YOU to Mom and Ken for going out of their way to spend some time with us and for the Ice Cream, YUM.

Brent's a DAD

Brent(my brother) had a baby girl today. Congratulations Brent and family, can't wait to see my Niece.

We went to Clark's today and it was great as always! We got there late but still did everything we wanted to. Young Murray Clark does a great job with the bear show. Here is Hope(Brielle's cousin) on one of the bears.





Brielle was out to get me on the bumper boats, we both ended up soaked. Our first try on Segways, interesting but I don't really see the use of them, in general. After Clark's we went to the Roy's to borrow their chicken plucker and when we were driving home saw this moose on Rte 25 in Warren.

Blood Drive, Killer Pitbull

I donated blood yesterday and for some reason it hurt a bit when she poked me and when it came out. I ended up with this small bruise which I don't usually get. Must be getting old!



Isn't this "killer" cute? I still worry what she will be like when she is older. When she plays with our Dalmation "patches" she goes for his throat constantly, just light bites and nips now but for how long? She belongs to my Step Daughter Ciara who at 19 may be too interested in a pitbulls bitting ability and "cool" tricks that they can be taught. Hopefully she will never become a problem dog and will be a friendly loving pet.

Bud Grafting

This is how my day started today, driving into the sunrise as I drove to Curtis Pond Nursery in Maine. Geoff, who I worked with at Gunstock, also went and got there early like me so we got some extra "schooling". Delton was great but there was a mix-up somehow so there were no grafting knives for sale or extras for people to use so I shared my jack-knife withe Geoff and two older women at our table.

These are pictures of Geoff doing a bud graft, which is what the class was all about. Delton was nice enough to show us all how to do a whip and tongue graft and a bark graft, both of which are done in the spring. We got to practice on different kinds of fruit trees so we could see and feel how different species "work" when grafting. I was also under the impression from descriptions of the class that we would end up with five trees that we had grafted during class but we didn't end up with any. They have a more in depth class in the spring that I hope to take next year (maybe).


This was at a business that was on my route home, thought it was unique so I took this picture. The lot was gated so I could not get any closer.

Brielle's new bike

A big THANK YOU to Mom and Ken for Brielle's new bike. We are very excited for her to have her first bike with gears and 18 at that! Now I need to fix mine up a bit so we can go riding. I'm sure her Grammy will be after her to go riding soon.
Yes she does have a helmet she just didn't wear it when she test drove the bike.