I was so excited today when our new grain mill arrived.  I love it.  We get our wheat berries from a local organic farm.  Now we can freshly grind our wheat as we need it. 

Now I'm off to make some bread!

We love our girls.  All eight of them.  Turkeys are the most amazing creatures.  They will follow you around.  They love to be loved!! 

We've been extremely busy on the farm.  I've ordered all of my seeds and our greenhouse arrives tomorrow!!  Woo Hoo!  I usually have seeds started by now but I wanted to wait until we had the greenhouse.   I have so many seeds and we are looking forward to the variety of food we will be growing.  We hope to have the greenhouse up on Saturday. 

Joshua is still an astronaut most days.  I don't think he wants to take off his uniform.  Even though he is an astronaut, dinosaurs are still a passion.  We have joined a local home-school Paleontology Club.  We had our first meeting last week and Joshua really enjoyed it. 

We have chicks in the barn.  Four as of yesterday.  Many more to hatch very soon.

The animals have been enjoying the warmer sun and days.  Although today, it is a bit brisk.  It was 17 degrees this morning. 

We hope to have Romney sheared soon.

The turkey girls out for a stroll.

Springtime naps. The critters always like to take naps mid-day in the Spring.

Buster is such a cutie!

Wow you never know where our day is going to take us.  Today we were discussing our Paleontology Club meeting for tomorrow.  From that discussion, we saw a cute music video about Titaalik (a fish that walked) and in the video we saw some stop gap animation.  This opened up an entire discussion about animation.  We saw some simple to complex animation. Joshua grabbed the camera and said I'm going to make an animated movie using Rex my dinosaur.  Off he went.  I uploaded his photos to picasion.com and you can see some of his animation.  By George I think he gets it.

Rex Rolling Over

Rex Says Roar

Rex is going to eat you!!

This was so much fun.  I'm going to have look at some animation software. Joshua loves to take photos and videos now it seems he also enjoys setting up his photos so we can make animation.  Here's the best part,  Joshua was wearing his astronaut uniform the entire time he's making animation about his dinosaur!  

Glorious, glorious maple tree.....

We would love some of your sap please.
  

We joyfully drink your sap.

Thank you, thank you maple tree!!

Lovely, lovely snow drops.

The hens are sitting.  We should have chicks in a few weeks.  Last I counted,  we have eight hens sitting. 

The garden has been calling my name.  I need to listen to her, she needs my TLC. 

The plants in my medicine wheel garden are popping through the earth.

Red columbine popping through.

Lovely chickweed!  Oh how I love you,  you just popped up in the "North quadrant of the medicine wheel garden". By the way,  the north quadrant is all medicinal plants that bloom white.   She's a wise plant and so good for us to eat!!

Yarrow

Bee Balm.....Oswego Tea.  This bee balm is a beautiful red color just like what you see in my header picture.  By the way,  Joshua took the header photograph when he was four.

Ooooh  I'm so excited about this plant popping up.  Last year,  I dug up ramps in WV and transplanted them to the farm.  Ramps which are also known as wild leeks do grow around here,  I just didn't have any on our farm (that I know of).  I did not know if they would make it, but they did!  So exciting.  This picture only shows a few but there are about 10-12 popping up.  In a few years I'll be able to start harvesting them. 

Joshua is still an astronaut when he's not being a dinosaur.

He's a silly astronaut that is for sure.

He loves to go hiking at our farm.  I do too.  However, this particular day he and his dad had a special time hiking.

They had just stopped to take in one of the views.  Joshua is enjoying chewing a black birch twig. It tastes so good!

We've been making crackers and they are so yummy. Joshua thought we should use his dinosaur cookie cutters.
It was a great idea!

Sweet  kitty,  our Socks.

Have you ever thought about how happy, smiling people can change your mood?  Or how about how one negative person can bring down so many?  I prefer keeping with those who keep the joy going.   

Joshua's joy is so contagious it's like a happy infection that just  takes over everyone around him.  Recently,  when we were enjoying the Orchid Show at the Botanical Gardens his excitement and joy was being passed on to so many strangers near him.  As he would get excited about a particular plant I would watch other people want to share in his joy and watch them start to smile.  It is a wonderful feeling I must admit, making those around you happy,  just because....well you are happy.  His excitement inspires people to stop and take notice of what he's doing and seeing.  Then like magic, they stop, smile, and start to slow down and see what is so interesting.  I've had complete strangers come to me and say, "How wonderful,  that he loves these plants.  Oh he can teach us so much!"

Joshua is interested in space travel among the many other things he's so passionate about.  Friday, NASA launched the Kepler Mission in search of other earth-like planets.   All  day we kept the countdown clock open on one of our computers.  Joshua would check it out.  The launch was set for 10:49 PM.  Joshua was a little worried that he may be asleep during the launch so we promised we would wake him up and also record it on our DVR.  His excitement and joy was so BIG that evening. We decided to make it even more fun.  Instead of making him calm down and go to bed as I'm sure many tired parents would,   I thought we should have a launch party.  I made pizza while Joshua cut up apples and put cookies out for dessert.  He then decided he should decorate for our party.  He put up pictures of astronauts and the space shuttle launching.  He displayed his toy rockets.  We had a blast!!  He pretended he was a space capsule coming in for a landing.  He had a makeshift parachute and he would jump from the chair down to the bed.  He eventually became pretty tired about 30 minutes from launch time.   He was so tired, he could not stay awake any longer.  He fell asleep in his astronaut uniform.

 About one minute to launch time,  we woke him up.   He was so  excited.  We counted down from 10.  With each count down,  his joy became more and more BIG and so did ours.  10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...BLAST OFF!!  Wow it was amazing to see. The rocket launch was fantastic and my little boy's smile and joy was spectacular!!!  Oh how he shined!!  Dad quickly ran outside to see if we could see the rocket at all in the night sky.  He came in and said,"Quickly come out,  I can see it!!"  We all three ran out in our PJ's and slippers.  Sure enough in the southern night sky we could see an orange light rising higher and higher very quickly.  Then.... it was out of sight.   This was a memory making moment.

I am so thankful for my son's infectious joy!  He makes us all so happy and he inspires us to take in and learn so much.  Life is beautiful through my son's eyes!!!

Did you ever read,  If you give a pig a pancake?  This is what our days are like.  Always evolving, always moving,  and always learning. 

Here are just some highlights from yesterday:

We were talking about how artists sign their paintings/drawings etc.  Joshua doesn't like to sign his drawings because he feels it distracts from his artwork.   We went online to my friend's website to see her paintings and how she signed them.    http://isabellegrange.com/content.html

We then pulled out  one of my favorite books.   Renoir,  his Life, Art and Letters.  Joshua was thrilled to see that one of the world's greatest painters was born on Feb. 25, 1841. Although he realized Renoir was born a looonnng time ago, he was excited that they both shared their birthdays on February 25.   We talked about impressionists and compared paintings.  He loved turning the pages of the book.  If he really liked a painting he would go "WOW"  Of course when we got to the "bathers" section of the book he blushed and said,  "Renoir really liked to paint naked ladies!" One of his favorite paintings was the mother nursing her baby.  He looked at it and said, "oh mommy how sweet!"   Later in the afternoon we watched a video on discovery streaming education on impressionists and more about Renoir's life.  We learned about Monet and Renoir's friendship.  In the video they had talked about why Renoir was so depressed because he was not financially stable at one point in time.   This became an entire other conversation about jobs,  making a living,  paying bills, buying things etc, how some people work to make money but may not like their jobs.  How nice it was for Renoir to paint and eventually begin to become financially stable.  Painting was his life and it was wonderful that he could paint to make a living. 

We then were consumed with everything Rockets.  We got to see NASA's picture of the day which is the Orion rocket on it's way to Kennedy Space Center.  We watched NASA TV then went to NASA's website to watch videos and read press releases about the Orion and Ares rockets.  When daddy came home from making a living....  I had just finished printing out a coloring book found on NASA's website. 

 
One of Joshua's space drawings.....Joshua's astronaut attached to the space shuttle orbiting the earth.

After dad got settled, he came in with a big surprise for Joshua. With the used office furniture we are acquiring for our new office space,  Jonathan brought home a huge wipe board that will eventually be in Joshua's room.  Oh my gosh,  he was so excited. He was in heaven.    He immediately started drawing rockets and then we saw all of these numbers like a diagram.  I tried to video tape him but it was too dark.  He goes through explaining the distance of miles to the moon,  how big the magnetic field is around the earth,  the distance of each rocket part.  It was fun. He reminded me of some crazy college professor writing madly while describing his diagrams.  You know,  he always amazing me.

So yes our life is very much like...."If you draw a picture and don't sign it, look at what other artists do,  how to make a living,  USA is going to the moon again using the Orion, how far is the moon from earth,  how big is the magnetic field around earth, and it goes on and on and on......

We are blessed. 

Several years ago Joshua participated in an art class for clay modeling.  We loved the class and took several sessions.  Our instructor is a wonderful potter and instructor.  She had projects that we would work on BUT the children always had a lot of free time to create whatever their hearts desired.  I loved  how she encouraged the children to create.  We have some really fun creations from that class.  They are proudly displayed on our mantles and other pieces of furniture in the house.  We both miss that class. 

bowls, plates, volcanoes, trees, pots, turtles

Saturn V Rocket and a big head.

Dinosaurs, volcano and elephant above

The class was pretty far away for us.   Since then, our instructor moved to almost two hours away.  We both felt that drive was a bit far for a weekly class.      I have been checking Craig's List for pottery supplies and especially a potter's wheel so Joshua and I could keep working with clay.   I had dabbled a tiny bit in college with pottery and I realized from Joshua's class how much I really missed  working with clay.   Both Joshua and  I love the way it feels on our hands.  A few weeks ago,  Joshua carried one of his pieces in to where I was and said, "mom I really miss working with clay."  I said, "I do too."  My sweet hubby was standing there listening to us discuss options.  About 15 minutes later,  I had an email from him where he had found  the contents of a pottery studio for sale on Craig's List.  He asked if Joshua and I would like this.  Of course we said yes. 

We now have our own pottery studio waiting to be set up.  We picked up the supplies on Saturday.  Yesterday, Joshua and I both got our hands into the clay.  Oh how we love it.  We've got big plans and are looking forward to our many creations.

Joshua took this video of me while I tried to remember how to use a wheel.

We're looking forward to Perry Hill Farm's Pottery Studio!