The last few days we've been getting a little snow here and there.  Today,  we finally had enough to play in but it was very cold.  While I was attending the Board Meeting for http://motherhouse.us  Motherhouse the "boys" were home playing in the cold.  They had a lovely hike and had fun sledding.

They also enjoyed some drizzled chocolate over some snow.

Joshua has always loved, loved trains. We managed to purchase a "work-in-progress"  train layout for him.  (Gotta love Craig's List!)  He and his dad spent most of the day planning and working on the layout.  Santa brought Joshua some engines, buildings and train cars to add to his new layout. 

Joshua was being very serious today while he was sketching out some plans for the layout.

He has a lot of work ahead of him and he's most excited about it. Today,  he and his father were talking about painting and repairing the mountains,  filling in by the dam, and adding a lake. 

Joshua is standing where the lake will be. 

We were playing with the settings on the camera last evening and we liked how the lights came out all blurry on this one.

Another fun setting on the camera.

I purposely moved the camera to try and get this technique.  Joshua had a lot of fun working on this with me.

One of our favorite ornaments.....Turkey Love
 

Joshua wanted to surprise his dad when we returned from a visit with his grandparents.  He wanted us to bring home a Christmas tree.  I knew that hubby would be fine with this surprise as he's crazy busy right now.  Lucky for us, it snowed the day before. The snow made it much more festive as we climbed the hill in search of the perfect Christmas tree.

Is this the tree we want?

No,  this is the tree that Joshua wants.  Note the astronaut suit on under Joshua's coat.

Joshua got busy sawing down the tree.

However,  mama did most of the sawing.  Joshua decided to take a funny picture of me sawing the tree. 

 I love our grain mill!  I grind hard red and soft white wheat berries as well as corn.  I make all of our bread, bagels, pastries, tortillas, tortilla chips, polenta, etc.  Nothing beats freshly ground grain!  I also love the fact that the grain is grown 7 miles from our farm on an organic certified farm. I hope to grow some of the grain for ourselves next year.  Want a bagel?

We have several owls that live in our forest.  Each evening we are blessed with the sounds of their voices calling.  Yesterday,  afternoon,  one was calling close to our garden.  Joshua and I set off on adventure to find this owl, or find where he nests,  or his owl pellets, or skat.  Did we find him?  No,  but we made a lot of other discoveries and really enjoyed a splendid hike in our woods. 
 

You can almost fly when you run down a steep hill.

We discovered this very cool knot of grape vines that Joshua just loved climbing.

Let's climb up to those rock outcroppings.

He made it!!

We heard wild turkeys,  several hawks,  bluejays, and crows.  We saw a lot of turkey scratchings,  deer scrapes, and deer, turkey, and fox skat. 

The weather has been so mild,  it is hard to believe that it's almost the end of November and my roses are still blooming!

We loved how the green house was illuminated from the sun.

All the plants are coming up nicely in the greenhouse but we have a problem with a vole who is eating a lot of the sprouts! 

Look at all those lovely sprouts and plants.  This is only part of the bed we planted in the greenhouse. The bed contains  spinach,  arugula,  mesculin, gourmet lettuce,  cinnamaron lettuce, russian kale, curly kale, walla walla onions,  red onions,  carrots,  beets, miner's lettuce,  garden cress, collard greens,  dill, oregano, cilantro, parsnips, lavender, rosemary, celery, peas and we are waiting on the basil, cabbage and celery to sprout.  As you can see,  it is intensely planted. 

We went back to the Botanical Gardens last week for their annual train show.  It really is so beautiful.  It's hard to believe that the buildings are completely made from plant material.

Notice we have only thin jackets on or not a jacket.  It was in the 60's.  It's hard to believe that it is late November and our weather is so mild.   My roses are still blooming.

A replica of the old Penn Station.

The details are amazing.

This was the third show for us.  It is always magnificent and different.  We are looking forward to attending many more shows.

After touring the show, we had to tour the rest of the conservatory.  It is one of Joshua's favorite places to be.  He was just as excited going through the conservatory learning about different plants from all over the world as he was to see the model trains in the train show.  We also managed to make it over to the Children's Adventure Garden for some Gingerbread Adventures.

Inside Joshua ground cinnamon, cloves, and wheat.  He also learned how the cinnamon, cloves, wheat, sugar, and ginger is harvested and processed.

Joshua really enjoyed looking at various plant materials in the microscope.