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.

We been so busy this fall.  Lots of adventures on the property and out and about.  I put together a small homeschool group at our local library.  We meet for book clubs,  crafts, board games, projects, etc.    Yesterday was our first meeting and we all had so much fun.   At the suggestion from one of my friends,  I also started a local group of Earth Scouts for the kids.  Our first meeting is coming up in a couple of weeks.  We are really looking forward to it.  

Joshua and I have been busy making leaf piles and hauling the leaves to the garden for mulch.  We've had some leaf jumping fun.



 


 
Joshua loves birds.  He especially likes to make nests for himself when he is pretending to be a bird.

 



Joshua and I have been planning our Thanksgiving menu.  We have a large dry erase board on which Joshua has been writing the choices on it.  We are researching recipes that will utilize our homegrown veggies.  We want to make our special dinner from Perry Hill Farm produce/products as well as from other local farms.  For example,  our flour comes from wheat berries that are grown organically on a local farm.  We stone-grind the flour in our micro-mill.  As a matter of fact,  Perry Hill Farm is now selling stone-ground flour and polenta.  Let me know if you want to purchase any.  Once you start using freshly stone-ground flour and polenta,  it will be hard to go back to store bought.

The Thanksgiving Holiday can be difficult for Joshua.  He loves turkeys so much. It is very upsetting to him when he hears so much emphasis put on eating turkey versus people being thankful!  He strongly says,  "Thanksgiving is not about eating turkeys,  it's about being thankful."   Each day we enjoy our rescued factory farm turkeys and we also get to enjoy the many wild turkeys that live at our farm.  The wild turkeys hang out all around our property.  We watch them roost in the evening and some mornings we watch them fly down from their roosts.  This morning some of the turkeys were fussing and we noticed Tiger,  one of our rescued cats,  was hunting them!  I think he was imaging he was some huge mountain lion or bobcat.  It was very comical to watch.  The turkeys are way too large for him and too fast but there is nothing wrong with dreams. 

Joshua loves his girls. 

 





"why don't I feel the warmth from this fire?" 

I think the Autumn brings such beauty.  Although most of the trees have lost their leaves,  our Japanese maple trees seem to be at peak.






Autumn is an amazing time to me.  We've had some hard freezes but we still have roses in bloom.