A Killer In The Corn

Elliott, Oliver, Sullivan, and Harrison created this short western movie over the past several days! I (Meredith) think they did a really great job!

New Farm Schedule

Since moving to the farm, we've all struggled to find a balance between work and well, work! It seems there are never enough hours in the day to accomplish the many tasks calling out to us. At nearly the point of complete exhaustion, Timmy had an idea for a possible solution. He suggested we all begin our day at 5am and give it our best during the next 8 hours till lunch time at 1pm. We could then all take a break during the heat of the day and be rejuvenated when evening milking rolled around.

The new farm schedule has been working wonderfully although chores often attempt to steal the designated afternoon break time. We're trying to stay flexible though and not get too disappointed when we don't actually get a break till supper at 8pm.

Sometimes the flexibility has involved the 5am wake up time. This morning, for example, alarms could be heard at 5am although not heeded. Timmy knew that after a night like we had last night, sleeping till 6:15 was a much wiser choice.

A huge storm came through in the middle of the night with high winds and torrential down pours. As the storm arrived and we both woke up, I closed windows throughout the house while Timmy surveyed the farm through intermittent flashes of lightening illuminating the farm yard. In an instant he saw Elliott's flock of Thanksgiving turkeys all standing ignorantly on top of their shelter which was made especially to protect the birds from storms such as this. He woke the older boys and all of them headed out into the clapping thunder, high winds, pelting rain, and bright flashes of lightening. They ran to the nearby turkey pasture and quickly tossed all the turkeys under their shelter. Then they ran to check on young broilers and baby chicks - securing brooder boxes and shelters.

No sooner did the boys all come in, change out of their totally drenched clothes and crawl into bed than did Sammie's new puppy begin crying long and loud. Timmy tried to quiet him through the window but it was no use. He told me he was concerned that if the pup continued to wail, it would call in the same predator who had recently killed the rest of Sammie's litter. Upon hearing that, I rose to my feet and headed for the kitchen. I held the fridge door open for what seemed like an eternity trying to find something that might settle the puppy. After spying some leftovers I was willing to part with, I headed outside to find the pup. Frightened and wet, he scampered toward me and gobbled up the plate of food and stayed quiet the rest of the night.

So, the beautiful picture of the sun rising over the corn was NOT taken this morning, but rather on one of the more successful "New Farm Schedule" days.

~Joy

Family Happenings

Last night, we went to Chick Fil A for their Labor Day Giveaway. We all enjoyed free chicken sandwiches for wearing sports team-related apparel. The guy working behind the counter commented that we must have a lot of fighting within our family due to the many college teams we appeared to cheer for. Between our shirts and hats, we were representing the Duke Blue Devils, UNC Tar Heels, UVA Cavaliers, and VA Tech Hokies: We hoped to hit at least one more Chick Fil A during the evening, but got caught up in Elliott's truck shopping until very late. Elliott's been searching for a good deal on a truck for quite a while and finally bought one this morning! It was a great deal and Elliott is very happy with it.
In other family news, the three school-age boys went to a free homeschoolers' eye screening last week and learned that Sullivan needed glasses. He is so handsome with his new glasses. He loves to read, so glasses look so appropriate for such a bright little boy.

The Problem Child in Family Pictures

You'd think that in a family with eight people, the biggest problems with our family pictures would be caused by the three youngest ones. However, our problems in this year's crop of pictures are most often caused by the eighteen year old! All of the following pictures have been cropped out of the family beach pictures: