Emmalie's Birthday #5

Our little girl turned 5 the other day! How grown up she is! Loosing teeth, riding bikes, and just wanting to hang with the big kids all the time some days makes her seem even older! If anyone has a recipe to make kids stop growing up so fast please let me know!!!

Emmy was blessed by Nana and Bumpa with a special sleepover for her and her sis at the campground where they spend the summer. She was even was able to catch some fireworks in town! The next day we had a little party and she was blessed with some nice clothes, toys and a bike (that came a few weeks ago).

Emmy (along with her Mimi) really like hello kitty and got this cute little shirt which is now her favorite.

Mollie's favorite gift...

Happy 5th Birthday Emmy! We Love YOU!!

Ethan Turns 9!

Our little Ethan turned 9! It's hard to believe he can possibly be that old!! He has grown and changed so much, becoming more and more responsible and always adding some silliness to our days! The day of his birthday was busy with church and working on our families garden project but we took a special afternoon break for some ice cream cake!

It's too funny that two years ago Ethan also requested an ice cream cake and ended up with the same one. It's Auntie Sarah's specialty. HERE is the post from his 7th birthday and the directions on how to make one.

Here is Ethan getting ready to blow out the candles, he used an interesting technique of blowing each candle out separately and not all at once!

Ethan is really in to Star Wars this year. Here he is thanking Papa for some Legos!

This is a little blury but I loved his excited face when he saw the double bladed light saber!!

The day ended with the last gift, a roof for our first greenhouse!

Grandview Farm Blog

We now have a new blog for our families "farming" project this year. You can check it out in the side bar or by clicking the link below:

http://grandviewfarm.blogspot.com/

Easter Babies!

It was such a treat to have our new baby chicks and ducklings arrive two days before Easter! It is so fun to have babies in the house!! We bought 8 chicks and 4 ducklings from a NH woman who sells them on Craig's list. We are so excited to see how the Speckled Sussex chicks are going to look as adults. They are the reddish ones in the pic below. We also bought 1 Barred Rock which is the black and white one and 1 Buff Orpington which is the yellow one with it's head turned back. The Buff Orpington was a must to replace Mollies chicken Fluffy who didn't survive a dog attack:(

Here are our beautiful little Cayuga Ducklings! They are so sweet and cute and soft!! They have a much different personality than the chicks, far more easy going and docile. I chose this breed after researching a little and finding out that they are much quieter and tend to be more docile than other breeds. Plus the male becomes a beautiful greenish back color when full grown. They are also very hardy in colder climates.


Our other babies are veggies!!! This is the grow table that Pat built so that we could start lots of seedlings inside without having to put them all on the kitchen table. We also added artificial lighting to help the plants to not become leggy. Under the shelves on the floor is our brooder. We can keep the chicks and duck warm and heat the soil for the seedlings at the same time!! Nothing like multipurpose!

Here is the side view and James checking on the chicks.

Our real Easter babies on Sunday morning at church were the cutest though!!! The girls are sporting the little cardi sweaters that I started as Christmas presents but ended up not being finished until last week! They were perfect for Easter though! The pattern for the sweaters and the little purses can be found on the Lionbrand Yarn website.

Boiling Sap: Our Set-up

Our first batch of finished maple syrup! It took many hours to produce but is so satisfying to see, smell, and taste!!

Each batch seems to go a little bit smoother as we figure things out as we go. Here is our basic set up using a double propane turkey fryer that we borrowed from Pat's dad.

My "clothespin" can has now been re-purposed as a pre-heater for the cold sap. The sap is poured through a filter (an old shirt) and then slowly leaks out of two small holes into each pot. The sap warm as it sits in the can and the slow leak ensures we do not "kill the boil".

Here is another view of our set up. We decided to put up this small tent to keep the falling snow out of the pots. It also helps to keep out the pine needles and debri from the trees next to us. The chair is for brief moments of sitting! It's been too cold to move far from the pots warmth anyway!!

A night time pic of the steam in our little tent and Pat checking the progress!

Set up #2 was given to us by a friend of Pat and seems to work pretty well if Pat is home to get the fire going. I cannot seem to figure it out!! Once the fire is going... the pan on the left is used for warming and then ladeled into the pan on the right which we try to keep at a continuous boil. This method has some flaws, the ash from the fire below seems to find it's way through small cracks and into the boiling sap. The small cracks would not have been there if the pan that came with it was useable but after several attempts at repairing a crack in the bottom we went with these two cheap-o turkey roasting pans instead. We continuously skim the gunk out and it gets filtered two more times before bottling so the ash does not end up in the finished product. Also our wood is not dry (lesson learned!) and so we sometimes have a hard time keeping a continuous boil.

It is most definitely my favorite method though because it is WARM! There also seems to be more action involved with this system and keeping busy helps you forget the frigid air.

This pic shows our sap storage barrel that was also donated to the cause by some friends. Pat continues to pack snow around it so that the sap will stay fresh throughout the week until we are ready to boil again.

Our total so far is 4 1/2 gallons of finished syrup! My goal is to have 5 gallons stored away to use for eating and cooking throughout the year. We are hoping for anohter 2 weeks of the season and so are definitly going to reach our goal, even after giving alot away! We are so thankful!

"And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food." -Genesis 2:9

Our Maple Syrup Adventure Begins!

We officially have Maple Fever!
I have been reading lots of "grow your own", "make your own", and "do it your self" type books and just happened to come across Backyard Sugarin' by Rick Mann at our local library. He makes it seem so easy and fun to produce a small supply of syrup in your backyard! In my excitement I began sharing all the info with Pat, then fever hit us! We collected all the supplies and even located some great trees (in Jackson at Pat's parents house and at their neighbors)! Last weekend we decided it was time to set the taps.

These photo's are by James who was sent with strict instructions to take pics of tapping the trees since I could not come (I was home with a sick babe:-(
Here Pat is pushing his homemade sap collection sled up the field to the sugar maples.

We had gone out earlier to identify and tag the trees that we are 99% sure are sugar maples?? 99% because the fever hit us after the trees had lost their leaves and were buried by a foot of snow! I researched how to identify them just by the buds and the leaves that I could find after digging in the snow at the base of the tree. If I'm wrong we are sure to end up with some interesting syrup!
Here is James' pic of his Dad drilling the tap:

Next the tap is set in the hole and the bucket and lid are placed. We got a great deal on taps, buckets and lids from a friend of Pat's who had extra he was not using.

Here you can just barely see the first drop of sap coming to the end of the tap! Success!

This little video was also shot by James and then edited at home (with a little help from Mom!)


We have now collected over 35 gallons of sap and are looking forward to trying our hand at boiling this weekend! Stay tuned for more pics coming soon!!

Up, up, and away!

We had a great time the other night at the Balloons Over the Valley event in North Conway. There were not a lot of balloons (maybe 6 or 8) but it was a magical experience for the kids who had never seen them!

These first pics were taken on our way there in the fields by our house!

Once we arrived in the park there were three big balloons set up to give tethered rides. We took these photo opportunity's from a picnic table at the train station.

Then came the silly faces!

Next we met up with a couple of celebrity's!

We were able to enjoy a beautiful sunset too! I only wish there had been a balloon in the middle not the traffic light!

We had to wait an hour or so for nightfall when several of the balloons were going to be lit up in the park. So the natural thing to do was of course... have ice cream! Here are our happy and full of energy and ice cream kido's with Dad after enjoying their treat! I opted out of ice cream and decided to have a dessert crepe at Crepe's Ooh La La. Lemon and sugar on a giant crepe! Yum!!

Finally it was time for the "Balloon Glow" that we were anxiously awaiting! Here is a pic before...

...and after they turned on the "power"!

There were four balloons in all! Every few minutes the would count to three and they all would "glow" at the same time! These pics just don't do justice to how pretty they were!

I didn't know at the time of taking these pics that Ethan was actually the one turning the gas on in the checked balloon to the right! A boy about his age asked him if he wanted to hop in the basket with him and light up the balloon!

Soon it was time to pack these giants up! They make it look so easy!! First they let all the air out and lay it on it's side.

Then with a little bit of help they squeeze all the extra air out!

After the air is out everyone holds the balloon as it is stuffed into a giant duffel bag.

Ethan was a little small for this job so he decided to hold it up with his head!

The kids helping also got to periodically jump onto the bag to squeeze out every last bit of air possible!

We had a great time and are now officially hooked on balloons! Mollie and Emmy both say to me each day "can we go see the balloons?"

Here is a list of some Balloon Festivals coming up this summer in New England for any of you who may also be hooked or just want to see them for yourself!

Quechee Hot Air Balloon Festival Quechee VT- June 18th-20th

Spirit in America Hot Air Balloon Festival Old Orchard Beach ME- June 24th-27th

Hillsborough Balloon Festival Hillsborough NH July 8th-11th

Stoweflake Balloon Festival Stowe VT- July 9th-11th

Green River Festival Greenville MA- July 17th-18th

Pittsfield NH Hot Air Balloon Rally- August 6th-8th

Great Falls Balloon Festival Lewiston/Auburn ME- August 20th -22nd

Plainville Hot Air Balloon Festival Plainville CT- August 28th-30th

Adirondack Balloon Festival Glens Falls NY- September 23rd-26th

Ethan Turns 8!!

Our little Ethan (who is not so little anymore) turned 8 on Saturday! I tried to find an old pic of him to post but in every one he is making a crazy face or doing something crazy! That's just how he is, the family jokester, always turning everything into FUN! This pic is of him just after becoming a big brother for the first time, he had just turned 4! He looks so happy and proud to finally be bigger than someone!

I couldn't leave out one of the silly pics! This is Ethan at 6, trying on uncle Phil's fireman helmet at a field trip we did to the fire station.

He has grown so much! More responsible but still always looking for some way to turn everything into fun! We had a very small birthday for him this year. He picked two friends to sleep over and enjoy the day with him. He got a bunch of new water and beach toy's.

This is the one he has been enjoying the most! A super water blaster! It shoots up to 20 or 30 feet (I can't remember exactly)! He also got some hot wheels and a new fishing pole from Nana and Bumpa!

The big surprise of the day was this:

Thanks to Auntie Sarah and Uncle Zack it was set up with water in it when the kids arrived. They took the kids to their house to play Wii while Daddy worked hard to get it set up! When they arrived Ethan just kept saying "What! What! What!?"Unfortunately setting up didn't quite go as planned. Daddy had a great idea of filling the pool from the brook (instead of draining our well) and rented a pump to get the job done. After setting it all up and lugging the pump down the steep embankment to the brook he realized it was too small to pump the water all the way up the hill! So everything had to come back up the hill and back to the rental place to exchange it for a bigger one! This time it worked! Only the pool was not level so we had to drain it and called in a favor for a load of sand. We worked along with Papa, Mimi, Auntie Sarah and Uncle Zack into the night to get the sand spread and the pool in position.
In the morning it was ready to fill! But we woke to a crazy thunder and lightning storm!! It finally stopped and then the pool was filled! The kids were so anxious to get in that they went for a quick dip before we added any chemicals. And I do mean quick! The water was only a little over 50 degrees! I think they were shivering and blue before they even got in!

We don't have any kids in the pool pics yet but I will post some soon!

It was a birthday adventure!
Happy Birthday to our littlest boy! We love YOU!!