I posted a story on our farm stories page on our farm website today. 

 

http://www.perryhillfarm.com/farmstories.html

 

It's titled When Donkeys Cry.  

 

 

 

 

 

We had planned to have a New Year's eve bonfire to ring in the new year.   But we were all tired from the day's work on the farm and farmers' market. Joshua suggested we do a sunrise bonfire to bring in the first day of the new year.  We loved his suggestion and so we did it. 

 

 

 

The bonfire was built in our fire pit.  We also managed to clean up some brush that we had laying around.

 

 

We decided to write out our wishes for the new year.

 

 

Fold them up...

 

....and toss them in the fire.

 

 The fire was lovely and warm.  As we sat by the fire, we realized we were hungry.  I looked at this fantastic fire and knew I needed to cook our breakfast. 

 

 

Toast

 

Scrambled eggs

 

 

Joshua said they were delicious and we think so too.  I'm so glad our hens are back to laying eggs again. 

 

 

A wonderful tradition we have started on the first day of the new year. 

 

Happy New Year wishes!!!

 

Christmas morning Joshua woke up to some gifts from Santa.  All day he kept wondering how Santa lifted our Christmas tree and put a train set under it.  It was magical indeed.

 

 

He could hear this noise coming from the room where the tree was.  It was a Union Pacific train going around and around the track.  Do you see that little Santa?  He was actually in his bedroom,  how did he end up on the track?  Santa also left him a note and even left a train car in the kitchen where he ate some cookies. We had purposely left off our breakable ornaments because our tree was so tall and we were concerned it may fall over.  We actually tied it to a beam.  On Christmas day we had planned to finish decorating the tree but our little blind dog wandered off. We spent most of Christmas day looking for him.  A few minutes before dark we found him.  Over five hours of searching for him.    

 

 

 

Here's another reason we had held off on the breakable ornaments.  I threw in another picture of how busy my sweet hubby has been.  Look at all that firewood and it's four rows thick!  Did you know we have never cut down a live tree for our firewood.  We just use the trees that are already dead.

 

 

Our Christmas day in Joshua's words, "The best Christmas ever to almost the worst Christmas ever to the best Christmas ever!"

 

 

 

 

On the Winter Solstice we went out into the woods to look for a Christmas Tree.   We thought we would cut down a cedar tree.  We will be working on a fencing project soon and will be using cedar posts that we will cut from our property.  We all felt if we were to cut down a tree,  it needed to be used for something other than decoration.   As we walked around we observed a lot of damage in our woods from the Halloween Snow Storm.

This oak was split right down the middle after the storm. 

We didn't like the looks of various cedar trees as they seemed either too thin or not tall enough.  Joshua suggested we head into one of our Spruce thickets.  At one point in time,  our farm was a Christmas tree farm.  We have three thickets of various  Spruce trees.   We finally found the perfect tree for us.  It was a top of a Spruce tree that Mother Nature snapped off in the Halloween storm.  It was in great shape with soft needles and still very green.  It was keeper and best of all,  we didn't have to cut it down ourselves. 

Later that evening we made a bonfire in our fire pit and stood around the fire singing Christmas songs.  It was a fun tradition that we like to do on the Winter Solstice each year.

 

 

One of my new soaps is just a delight to use.   Organic Cinnamon and Clove powders scent and color this soap while the essential oil of orange makes it so refreshing.  This is getting to be one of my favorite combos,  well next to my milk and honey soap. 

 

 

Sweet hubby has been working like a mad man while I'm at farmers' markets ensuring we have enough wood for our heat and hot water this winter.  We have not purchased oil for two years!  Love that for two reasons:  it's better for the environment to use our own wood as our fuel and it saves us a lot of money. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Work...work and more work!  Working for our renewable energy business and on our farm.  I've been busy making soap, wreaths, etc. Joshua has been busy learning, learning and more learning. I haven't had much time for posting to the blog.  So I'm going to post some recent pictures.

 

 

 

 

The above photos were taken in the past  couple of weeks.  Museum visits,  bird care,  gardener's soap, leaf soap,  packaging and selling our seeds, wreath making, canoe rides, wood splitting, astronaut visiting at the farmers' market,  dinosaur digs, and the list goes on and on.

 

 

 

Snow on October 29

 

Snow on October 30

 

 

Boo  A snowy owl on Halloween

 

 

Last week between farmers' markets,  Joshua and myself headed to the Allegheny Mountains to spend a few days with my parents.  Thanks to my parents,  this trip and very special train ride were possible.  We've been so busy this year, we have not visited them as often as we would like and we were missing them terribly!   The car was loaded with our clothes and a lot of my supplies for making products because I had two markets back to back when I returned.

The mountains were beautiful.  We had managed to be in the mountains at peak leaf color.  It looked like at a beautiful painting wherever we cast our eyes.  Mountains speckled with green, gold, red, and brown.   The sky was that beautiful azure blue.  We spent our first afternoon picking apples and black walnuts.  The next day we set out early for an all day steam train ride which is a 22 mile round trip up to the second highest peak in WV, Bald Knob.   The weather was chilly, the sky was overcast, and rain was expected.  For my little train obsessed boy,  that did not matter!  He could not wait to get there.  When we arrived, Shay Engine 11 and it's passengers were all loaded waiting to start rolling up the tracks to Whittaker Station.  Joshua was bursting at the seams.  "Mom, Gammy,  look at that steam locomotive!! Isn't she beautiful!?"  

 

We had arrived early in anticipation to get a tour of  the repair shop but we had been given wrong information and we missed the tour.  However,  I was promised we could go to the shop after our train ride and look around.    Loaded up with a map, our tickets,  and information about our route,  we waited patiently at a fantastic new playground for our train. 

Joshua was so excited when he heard the whistle blowing of Shay Engine No. 6.  "Mom,  there she is,  that's the locomotive that will take us to the top!!!" 

Joshua quickly pulled out the information sheet on the locomotives and started reading about them.  Shay Engine No. 6 is the newest of all of the locomotives at Cass.  From the Cass Railroad website:   Built for Western Maryland coal service Shay #6 was shipped to Elkins, West Virginia May 14, 1945 for use on the 9% grade on the Chaffe branch. Shay #6 was the last Shay ever built. The locomotive's commercial life was short, lasting only four years. #6 was then stored and finally donated to the Baltimore & Ohio Museum in Baltimore, MD, where it remained for 26 years.

In 1981, an exchange was arranged for Shay #1 and a Porter 0-4-0 owned by Cass Scenic Railroad. Shay #6 was carefully removed from the old museum. It actually was driven onto the Turntable and out of the B&O Museum using air generated by a compressor. Today, #6 is still like new and a spectacular example of the fine technology of geared locomotives. It combines the grace and refinement of the Pacific Coast Shay with sheer mass (162 tons). The locomotive is about twice as large as any other locomotive at Cass. The Big 6 is assigned to the Bald Knob, Spruce, and Elkins excursions.

A very happy boy!!!

Despite the gray gloomy looking day,  the color of the trees was still magnificent!

Arriving at the Bald Knob Station, elevation 4,700 feet, we could feel a drop in the temperature.  It was windy and quite chilly. 

Amazing views.

He was even more happy to sit in the engineer's seat.

After returning back down the mountain, we did get to go to the repair shop and train yard. 

Four steam locomotives were sitting in a row and idling.  We learned that the locomotives need to be running at least 36 hours before they can move.  The locomotives during the season are running 24/7  as they make several trips each day. 

It was a full day of learning and fun.  I was interested in the American Mountain Ash that was full of these gorgeous red berries growing near the tracks.   It usually only grows above 2500 feet in elevation.  I could not wait to get back to my parent's camp and look up this tree in one of their reference books.  I just knew it was used medicinally.  Yes it was! 

On Wednesday, I had planned to make products for my Friday and Saturday markets as Thursday we would be making the 12 hour drive home.  It was raining really hard and we lost electricity for the entire day.  My dad is ever so resourceful,  he fired up the charcoal grill and we used the fire for making my products (their stove is electric) and for cooking our meals. 

On the drive home on Thursday,  we stumbled upon the C&O Historical Museum.  We had decided to stop and make sandwiches at the Clifton Forge, VA Amtrak Station parking lot.  I figured we could eat our lunch and watch all the CSX trains coming and going as well as a possible Amtrak train.  It really is not much of an Amtrak station as it is mostly a CSX train yard.  As we left town,  I just happen to see a sign for the C&O Historical Museum.  Well you know,  even though we needed to keep moving in order to get home at a decent hour,  I knew we had to check out this museum.  Life is too short and sometimes,  you just need to find a way to change plans in your day.  I'm so glad we did, as this museum was worth the stop.   I will post pictures from the museum in another blog post.  Finally on Saturday,  Joshua ended the week on a fossil dig with the NY Paleontology Society and his dad.  WOW  what a great week for my joyful boy!!

 

He's all decked out with his hard hat, gloves, glasses, and boots, which is a must for the fossil digging in this quarry.  They did find some pretty cool fossils and Joshua was given a fossilized shark tooth by a fellow member, very neat indeed!!

The Vegan Society, based in Birmingham England, asked if they could use the picture of Joshua and his girls on their poster for World Vegan Day,  Nov.1.  We gave them permission.  Joshua is so excited!!!