OKI 2009- vacation pictures

We had a wonderful vacation at Oak Island this year. Here are a few pictures from our trip. They include beach pictures, the boys at the park & our trip to the Ft. Fisher Aquarium.

Our Beach House (the green one)

The Fisherman

Charlie playing in the water

Playing in the water & sand

Rosty playing in the water & sand

Rosty on the boogie board

Charlie & Rosty at the park

Charlie on the slide

NOT A LIVE ALLIGATOR!

Feeding Rosty to the alligator-

we have a picture like this from every year we have gone to the aquarium

Feeding Charlie to the alligator

Brothers

Rosty at Ft. Fisher Aquarium

Charlie sleeping

Rosty-

Know Your Farms 1st Annual Farm Tour

I promise to post pictures from our vacation but first I wanted to share with everyone about the KYF Farm Tour.

Know Your Farms (http://knowyourfarms.com/) is a local food club but a whole lot more too! Please check out their website. We have been working with them for a couple of years now and have really enjoyed their programs and what they do for local farmers.

This week-end was the 1st Annual Farm Tour. There were 9 farms on the tour in 6 counties. The participants either pre-paid for their tickets or got them at the farms. They then decided which farms they wanted to tour. It would have not been possible to tour all 9 farms since they were spread out between so many counties.

The tour was from 2 pm to 7 pm.

We had people at the farm as early as 1 pm though.

It was up to each farmer how they wanted to conduct the tours. We decided to do ours as a hayride. Since all of our animals our raised on pasture most of them were on the backside of the farm anyway. So we had 3 hayride times posted. We actually ended up doing a 4th hayride because we had more people show up at the farm but we were happy to oblige.

We had plenty of people come and just walk around on the outside of the fence and look at the animals that were up front which included a few chickens, ducks (Peanut Butter & Quackers), our Thanksgiving turkeys along with the boys State Fair turkeys, sheep, goats, pigs and Llama Bean. The dogs were also a big hit (thanks for being good sports Panda, Bandit & Annie).

Lee's dad drove the truck & trailer while Lee conducted the tours. I worked the Market Trailer (which is our enclosed trailer with freezers that we take to the Market) & answered any questions that people may have about the farm or the animals.

I also had our Wild Turkey Farms scrapbook on display for everyone to see.

In the scrapbook I have pictures of the poultry processing equipment. I had so many questions about the equipment and how it works. everyone loved the story about me plucking a chicken by hand when I was about 7-months pregnant.

We hope that everyone had a good one and enjoyed themselves!

We had over 2oo visitors to the farm on Saturday...WOW!

A big thanks to Christy & Wes of Know Your Farms and all the other volunteers. A special thank you to our volunteers Matt & Lynn. We appreciate all the work you guys did that day.

Unfortunately, I was so busy I never took my camera out that day but click on the link below to read the story and see a few pics from our farm and some of the other farms on the tour.

http://davidsonnews.net/2009/09/20/hundreds-hit-the-road-to-meet-their-farmers/

Vacation 2009

We made our Annual Labor Day trip to Oak Island, NC.

Our first trip was in September 2004 when Rosty was only 9-months old and just being to stand up & creep along the edge of furniture. It has been a lot of fun to watch his progression from just playing in the sand, to playing at the edge of the water to boogie boarding and jumping waves.

Charlie was 6 weeks old his first trip to the beach. This year he enjoyed the beach but when he was ready to go inside that was that.

Since Rosty started kindergarten this year we had to incorporate educational opportunities into our vacation. Believe it or not we actually did a lot of things that were educational & Rosty had to do 30 to 45 minutes of school work everyday (this was my decision I know I'm a mean mommy).

This year we went to the Ft. Fisher Aquarium. there were lots of cool exhibits. They had Luna the Albino Alligator and of course there were fish, turtles, jellyfish, stingray, turtles, and the list goes on. I DO NOT like snakes at all but they had a snake exhibit. What was interesting was that they had fed the snakes mice & I really wanted to see the snake eat the mice but he never did.........

We also took the ferry from Southport to Ft. Fisher and back again. On the way there me and Rosty went to the top of the ferry and sat in the indoor lounge. We had the opportunity to talk to one of the crew members while in the lounge.

We also collected shells and tried to ID them & we got to see the turtle nesting area. Lee fished while we were there so there was also fish ID lessons. He even caught a baby shark!

We are very fortunate to be able to go with some good friends of ours. We have done this trip with them since September 2006. The guys fish & the girls hang out & shop. I think the 2 stores I bought something at were the thrift store and the Habit Restore (I'm a big spender). Since my parents live close the boys spent 2 nights with them so we were able to go out and have a kid-free meal one night too!

The unfortunate thing is that the only store that we are close to is a Walmart. We are not really Walmart shoppers but I think we went there 4 times during our 7-day stay....oh well!

I'll post pictures soon from our trip.

Farm life with a kindergartener

We have had so many things going on lately it's hard to decide what to post about. We have been trying to get"caught up" (LOL) at the farm & I have been trying to get caught up at home.

There are so many things that always have to be at the farm like grinding feed. We try to grind enough feed at one time to last us a few weeks though.

Another activity this week was working our sheep. Their hooves need to be trimmed (like us trimming our fingernails or toenails). Some our easier than others. It took me and Lee both to control the ram (and he was somewhat haltered) he still kicked me in the ankle though...ouch!

We also moved one of the boars in with the females. Not a difficult job it just takes time & equipment. First, Lee hooks the tractor up to a movable pen. Then fence has to be opened for him to get in and then we can usually get them in the pen with some tempting food. Of course, then the fence has to be opened again for him to get out and then we head to the females. We have to feed the females tho get them out of the way, open the fence again, get the boar off the movable pen.....so you get the picture. It's just another day on the farm.....

Our newest challenge has been that we now have a kindergartner living with us. So this means we have to be home at a certain time every night so he can do his homework, get his bath and go to bed.

Rosty is really having a great time in kindergarten. He has made new friends and got to play on the playground which has been the highlight of everyday for him.

He has homework sent home every Monday and it must be returned by Thursday.

This week he had 4 papers. He did some counting and writing the numbers, some coloring, sequencing and also cutting & pasting (the old fashioned way). It has been so neat to see him excited about doing homework.....I'm sure that won't last!

Sleeping Beauties