Let's Go to the Movies!

I decided that the Pure Water Hollow crew needed a little break from all the mowing, gardening, fencing and farm chores, so last night we enjoyed a rare "night on the town"!  We ventured over to a town we seldom visit in a neighboring county.  We ate at a quaint diner/dairy bar and then found the movie theater located in the community center.

This is the Roy F. Collier Community Center in Inez which houses, among many other things, a movie theater!  It is a nicer and cleaner movie theater than the one in Paintsville.  The place we ate was across the street, so even though it took too long for them to bring our food out we were just minutes away from the movie.

I had originally planned on taking the family all the way over to the Mountain View Drive-In movie theater in Stanton to watch the new movie, "Monsters University", but there was a threat of thunder storms.  I doubt a drive-in movie would be very much fun in the rain!  Two years ago we went to that drive-in and watched the Pixar movie "Cars2".  We took our one-ton with the large 12 foot flat bed so there was room for the whole family.  We set up our chairs and cushions on the truck, ate pizza, and enjoyed the movie.  That was a lot of fun, and I was hoping to do it again this summer.  But, the possibility of rain took my thoughts in a different direction.

Thinking about "Monsters University", I realized that it was being shown in both the 2D or 3D formats.  This may sound odd to those of you who go to the movies all the time, but my family had never seen a movie in the now popular 3D format.  Instead of going to the drive-in, this would be our first movie experience in 3D!

Actually, Christina and Simon had seen Toy Story 3 in 3D when they stayed with Grandma up in Cincinnati during the summer of 2010, but Monsters University would be the first 3D movie that we would see together as a family.

I was pleased with the 3D and everyone had a great time!  I still have many of my old viewmaster reels that we get out and look at every now and then and this movie made me feel like I was watching a viewmaster reel with movement!  How fun! 

Actually I was surprised how quickly I got used to the 3D effects.  I realized this when I noticed that I was no longer being amazed, even though the picture was still in very life-like 3D.  If the 3D trend fizzles out, this would probably be the reason, coupled with the higher cost.  (I can't believe I actually paid $9 for each ticket.  $54 for my family just to see a movie, not counting any refreshments, is rather steep!  But my wonderful family deserves a treat every once in a while, and I thank God for blessing me with the means to make it possible!)

I wanted to get a picture of us in the movie theater with our glasses on. Christina really enjoyed the movie, even though she did not think it was "cool" to have her picture taken in the theater with the glasses on!  I'm glad she still puts up with me! 

The 3D glasses sure have come a long way since I was a teenager!  For the one or two movies in 3D that I saw in the 80s we had white cardboard glasses with one red lens and the other blue, if I remember correctly.  Talk about a "not cool" fashion statement!

In the same building as the movie theater, there was a McDonald's play place, which was pretty neat.  No restaurant, just the play area!  After the movie, Timothy had to try it out some.

  That's Timothy up there in the tube and also flying an airplane.

This is a picture of the seating area next to the play place.  Lisa and Simon are looking up at Timothy.

And here is Timothy at the bottom of one of the tube slides.  He had a great time playing here and I think he may have enjoyed this more than seeing the movie!  (Wouldn't you know he would have more fun with something free than something that cost money?)


But enough of play time!  Let's get back to some more work around the homestead!

Homestead Happenings: Random Pics From First Half of May

Things have been rather busy around here, lately, and I've not had time to record much of it.  I did take the camera out a few times and got some pictures, however.

The meat rabbits are still doing well. 

Simon and Timothy enjoy taking care of them!

Our Angora rabbits are also doing fine.  Christina tends to them everyday.

Matthew, Christina, and Simon went on a fishing expedition down the river the day before Mother's Day.  Lisa was hoping for some catfish for her Mother's Day dinner.  They had a nice time on the river, and saw several geese and a couple of mama ducks with their ducklings, but the fish weren't biting.  Maybe next time.

Chief is rather old, for a Great Pyreneese, but he is still with us.  I think he has the sweetest face!

Christina did not want to wear the helmet, but since they were going to be on the road, we insisted.

Augusta (long u in the middle) is a good dog and loves her family.  Wherever we go, she is sure to follow!  Luna is still with us, also, but she didn't make it in a picture this time.

Timothy, 'Gusta, and Sandy looking around up the mountain.

Tigger is one cool cat!

I didn't take pictures of the other cats, but they are all cool cats as well. 

Since I'm thinking about it, I'll report that Fritsie has had her kittens!  The children found them in a box in the wood shed.  I think there are 6 of them, but Fritsie hasn't brought them out to play yet.  When they start appearing in the open and playing, I hope to take several pictures of them.  It's been many years since we've had the kitten experience!

The chickens enjoy their free-range time! I like to let them out early in the afternoon, as long as they don't go to the highway in front of the house.  When they get into that bad habit, they find themselves staying in their lot much later into the day!

One of the White Rock hens is setting right now.  If all goes well, we should have baby chicks around the first of June.  But I'll not count my chickens before they hatch!

We still have 2 hogs at the moment.  We will be butchering them if we don't see piglets pretty soon.

So, I've reported about our dogs, cats, rabbits, chickens, and pigs, but I've not said anything about the cattle or bees. 

Well, one of the hives swarmed earlier this month before we could divide it.  We lost them because they swarmed to the highest point in a tree in an impossible location for us to capture.  We need to try to divide the other hives before they swarm, too.

I haven'tt gotten a picture of the cows in their lots for a while.  Right now we have Violet, Dandelion, and Rosebud  here, close to our house.  They have both barns and the hill lot that we originally fenced off for goats.  It's not a very good pasture, but at least they have room to move around and they like to eat some of the leaves and branches from various trees and they find some grass and weeds that they eat. 

We plan to start trying to milk Dandelion soon, but are concerned about her cooperating with us.  Rosebud was her first calf so she has never been milked.  Violet should calve sometime in June, we think.  She is starting to show some signs already.  But after our experience with Dandelion, we're not going to expect any calf too soon!

Meanwhile, Gracie and the two bull calves are at Pure Water Pastures.  There has not been much change over there in a while.  I plan on doing some more fencing work over there.  I already have all the materials laid out there for a second lot, but I need to find the time to invest the sweat equity required.

So, that's a bit of what has been happening around our homestead.  We've also spent several evenings getting our garden out.  I hope the garden will do well, even though we've had some cold temperatures in May.  Last week we even had a few nights in the 30s!  But I'll save the garden news for a future post, because we still have some room out there to plant.

Thank you, Lord, for your many blessings!

Taking Care of Some Beesness

We have been learning about how to run an apiary and earlier this week we decided to check on how our honey bees are doing.  We have 4 hives right now.  Two are colonies we purchased in 2011 and two are new swarms from last year.  Last year, our colonies began to swarm in March and continued to do so through the summer, so we were afraid they may have been getting ready to do that again.  This time, however, the plan was to head off the swarms by dividing the colony that seemed to be the most active and possibly ready to swarm.

Here are Lisa and Matthew suited up and checking them out.  They are looking at the hive that we thought may be ready to divide.

This was the scene between the super and the top hive body box.

These frames show that some of the brood has been capped, but we were expecting the frames to be completely full and capped.  If they are all like these, then this hive is not ready to divide.



Pulling out a couple more frames.

Here is Lisa examining it.

These are not as full as the first frames checked.  We will check on that hive again in a few weeks to see if they get everything filled up.

They also checked on the other hive that has been most active, which was a new swarm from last year.  They looked good.  The bottom frames are getting filled up nicely. 

All the hives seem to be doing ok, even though none are ready to divide yet.  We had a very cold March, over all, this year and it seems that true Spring weather was slow getting here.  I've noticed that everything is blooming later this year, so I guess the bees are just rounding out everything later as well.  Maybe last year everything was just earlier? 

Thankfully no one was stung very badly during this expedition.  Lisa actually did some bee work all by herself a couple days earlier with no protection except the veil and did not get stung at all.  When these pictures were taken, last Wednesday, the only sting we had was a friend who was visiting.  I was up there very near the bees taking pictures and he was up there also, observing.  Neither of us were wearing any bee protection and he unfortunately got stung on the ear.  Thankfully it didn't swell much and he discovered that he is not allergic to honey bee stings! 

Free Venison

Both life and death are part of a homestead cycle, it seems. About 50 yards away from the barn that just saw the birth of a new calf, the highway and a car joined forces to cause the death of a young deer passing by. Matthew and Simon saw the truck that hit the deer, and since the deer was not messed up at all they hoisted it up into Matt's truck. I was amazed that he had it skinned and had the hams and tenderloin ready to be washed off within 10 minutes of getting home. It should be a couple of very nice venison meals for this homestead family!  Ya gotta love a country boy!

  Added later:  We had never had such a young deer on our table before.  The meat from this animal was excellent!  I guess being younger makes a difference in the tenderness and flavor.  Even if someone thought they did not like venison, they would have found it difficult to not like this.  Delicious!

Homestead Happenings

I thought I would share a bit of what has been going on since my last post a couple weeks ago.  This will be a hodgepodge overview of a post.  On one hand it feels like nothing much has been happening around here, but after I think about it I can come up with quite a few small things.  A few small things tend to add up to a rather large post!

Spring and Winter have been battling it out as we've had some freezing nights and snow as well as some sunny days in the 60s. 

Based on these Daffodils, I think that Spring is going to win!

Christina has been enjoying working with her rabbits. 

 Here is some of the angora wool she has gotten.

It is softer than kitty cats!

We were told that the tan rabbit and white one in the same cage were both girls, but it turns out that the dark one is a boy!  We were planning on saving any breeding activity for a later time, but since they have already been together we wonder if the female could be pregnant?  If she is it will take only about 21 days for kits to be born! 

Earlier today the rabbits were again enjoying some time in the sun!  Christina has been putting them in our garden spot that has a fence around it.  Pretty soon I will need to till it up, but for now it is a nice safe rabbit run!

This tan one has recently discovered his masculinity! 
Christina has named him Wilely.

Here is Snowflake, the female. 

Her twin brother is named Big Guy, but we did not get a picture of him today.

I think Wiley is the cutest, even though he is a boy!

Augusta was keeping her eyes on them through the fence! 

Speaking of our canine friends, the original owner of that little beagle dog came by and claimed her.  We miss her, but not as much as Gusta misses her.  They were such pals!  Little Dog wandered up back in December with no tags and we had been taking care of her ever since, but her owner acted like he thought we were wrong for keeping her!  He was not nice at all.  Some people are just naturally rude!

Lisa and Christina have started some tomato, egg plant, and jelly melon seeds over the past couple of weeks.  We already have plants coming up!

Matthew has also found a few more days to work on the house at Lawrence County.  There is much that needs to be done with that project and I am amazed at how proficient Matthew's carpentry skills are becoming.  So far he has done everything with only Simon, Christina and Timothy's help.

Timothy liked helping with the flooring removal.

Here is what it looked like soon after Matthew had removed the wall separating the kitchen from the "long room".  It really opened the area up!

Matthew is also going to re-do the ceiling.

Here is a piece of the ceiling removed showing the higher rafters. 

We're toying with the idea of taking out the whole plywood false ceiling and working with the rafters to make sort of a cathedral ceiling effect.  We would loose some attic space with that plan, but it would really look and feel nice!

On another day, Matthew made some advancement on raising the floor in the long room to match the kitchen floor.  He's using 2 x 4s covered with rough cut lumber.  He's going to put smooth ply-wood over the rough lumber sub-floor.

The fireplace could not be moved, but I think that I like the way Matt fixed it.

Since the floor is being raised, the outside doors also need to be raised. Tonight Matthew was working on raising the door going out to the carport.  You can also see the 2x4s for the subfloor.  Before too long, those windows next to the door are going to be replaced with a wall and a regular window.

Meanwhile, we were enjoying the beautiful day.  It was sunny and 65 degrees!

Lisa and Christina were working on cleaning out some of the flower beds around the yard.

The Hyacinaths are pretty.



We're not sure what type of flower these are, but we were happy to see them coming up in the flower bed!

I like the way Christina got the blue sky behind the daffodils in this picture.

The only other things I can think of to note is the other stock:  chickens, pigs, a horse, and cows. 

The chicken flock is doing good even though that little beagle dog probably killed one of my hens when she was playing with it.  Currently we have 16 hens and have been getting between 3 and 8 eggs a day.  When all the young hens start laying regularly we should get plenty of eggs every day! 

Our two hogs have really grown and we think they may have bred.  If so, we really don't know when exactly it happened, so we could be having piglets within the next month. 

Gracie is doing fine, but no one has ridden her in a while.  Maybe the children will get back to riding her some as the weather continues to improve.

The Jersey bull calves are getting bigger and bigger and Violet is doing well.  We still hope she will calve this summer.

And then there is our expectant 2 year old Jersey milk cow, Dandelion.  It's been two weeks now that she has had milk!  We used to think milk was a sure sign of an impending calving at any moment, but now we've read that they can have full milk for up to a month before they calve!  She has been put up in the barn for the past 2 weeks now.  Tonight her udder was so full that her teats were protruding at angles instead of hanging loosly down!  I really think it will be any time now.  Instead of a December calf, we should have a March calf!

Well, that's a glimpse into some of the happenings around Purewater Hollow Homestead as we finished up February and started into March.  We're looking forward to the Spring and Summer that's soon coming up and all the adventures they will bring!