Category Archives: Family

Shooting…for the first time

August 21, 2008FamilyFamilywarren

My brother and I used to target shoot in the back yard all the time. We shot thousands of rounds into the backstop that we had made out of logs. Sometimes we shot .22, sometimes deer rifles and sometimes we shot skeet with shotguns. I learned a lot about guns, about my brother (like don’t tangle with him…he’s a better shot), and about being outdoors. When we got old enough, I suppose we shot every day after school.

It was a great time of fun and friendship. This weekend, I decided that Isaac needed to be initiated into the back-yard-shooter’s club. My Dad and I talked with him extensively about firearm safety, how to aim and shoot, and how to take a little ribbing when we miss a shot. Dad and I are right-handed and Isaac is left-handed

so that introduced a little twist to the fun. I expect Isaac and I will do some more practice in the coming months. We’ll initiate Abigail when she gets a little older too!

Indian Festival

August 19, 2008FamilyFamilywarren

Every year, my hometown, Tionesta, PA, has its annual Indian Festival.

It’s long been a tradition for folks who grew up there to come back “home” for the Saturday parade and have a good time eating too much food and catching up. We attended this year and I saw a few folks I grew up with and I definitely ate too much. The festival is a week-long celebration.

Initially, the festival highlighted Tionesta’s Native American roots, though it is only nominally related to that history now. Still, it is a small-town festival including a carnival, a parade, and lots of bad-for-you good food. We saw tons of firetrucks and a few politicians. To be a successful parade entrant, you must throw candy! My kids said so. Anyhow, it was a good time.

One thing I look forward to each year is the Vision Quest Buffalo Soldiers . These guys put on a pretty awesome march routine and are very fun to watch.

I was also amused by the advertisement for the local Hammer Museum on one parade float. I have no idea what was on display but I will try to visit the next time I am in town!

Traveling West Virginia

August 18, 2008Bees, Family, Nature, WVBeekeeping, Bees, Family, Nature, WVwarren

Brad Rice from WCHS TV interviewed us for the Traveling West Virginia series. He was pretty brave donning a bee suit and gloves. Running the camera had to be an experience with the heavy leather gloves but he was able to get some great video to do his story. We talked for about 2 hours about all sorts of bee-related topics and he produced this most excellent story about our meeting. Within 5 minutes of the story’s first airing, I had 3 phone calls from people who wanted to buy honey! My kids were SO excited to have Brad come and do the story and their biggest concern was whether they would be on t.v. He was very gracious and assured them that they would have their chance at fame!

Honey harvest – part 1

August 11, 2008Bees, FamilyBeekeeping, Bees, Honeybeeswarren

We started our honey harvest on Saturday. Emily’s grandparents have a perfect location to extract the honey. They powerwash and otherwise scrub their garage out in preparation. We set up tables and cover them with plastic table cloths. One little storage area at their place has become “the bee room”, so we just haul everyting out of it into the garage. Everything gets cleaned once more and then we bring in the honey supers.
Emily’s Dad helped me collect the honey supers from the hives this year. Some folks use smelly chemicals to remove the bees from the supers. I prefer to pull individual frames from the supers, shake and brush off the bees and carry them to the garage. It isn’t any slower to do it this way and saves the smells and chemical intrustion. We pulled all of the honey at once and then went about our extraction. Our extractor is an motorized tangential version so we extract each side of the honey super individually. Radial extractors can extract both sides at once. I’ve never had one so I don’t miss the difference.

We typically extract 8 or so frames before we take a break to drain the honey from the extractor tank. The only preocessing we do is to filter the honey through a seive to remove wax bits. Of course, honey is fairly thick so Emily or her mother spend a great deal of time bent over the honey gate holding the filter, waiting for the honey to flow though.

Honey harvest has become a pretty good family affair. All of this work is back-breaking but it’s a lot of fun too.

Honey is poured into individual mason jars and sealed with a lid. We wipe the outside of the jars as a little honey makes a lot of sticky stuff pretty quickly.

The kids seem to know when to slip in so they can “clean up” after we are done extracting. It is hard to beat the tastes and smells of honey straight off of the hive. Many people who typically don’t like honey (yes, they do exist), really love to help “clean up” when we are done. In fact, it’s about the only time Emily will eat honey!

Solar power!

August 8, 2008Family, NatureFamilywarren

Isaac discovered the power of the sun on Sunday. He lit a number of leaves on fire using Momaw and Popaw’s solar energy focuser – aka the magnifying glass.

I bet he spent an half-an-hour setting piles of “stuff” on fire. The sun was hot so it didn’t take long to start a little blaze. We had a little educational time on the power of the sun and the danger of setting fires. Hopefully he’ll remember!

I remember loving to mess with matches and magniying glasses, etc when I was a kid. Fortunately, I never set anything big ablaze, but that was mostly dumb luck I think.

Isaac is so curious about so many things. It inspires me and makes me wish we could explore everything. For now, we will have to be content with experimenting as weekend scientists.

More firsts

August 6, 2008Audio, FamilyAudio, Familywarren

Isaac and Abigail each had some more firsts this weekend. Abigail has been practicing and practicing her whistling but has never been able to do it. Friday night, she was puffing and puffing and finally let out a few whistles. She was SO excited and kept on blowing and blowing until she could do it more reliably. She has to work some on volume yet but she is well on her way. Click the arrows below to hear some of her first whistles

[audio:https://myhomeamongthehills.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/abigailwhistle1.mp3] [audio:https://myhomeamongthehills.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/abigailwhistle2.mp3]

Isaac hasn’t ever really tried to blow bubbles with gum much but this weekend he started. At first, he took a lot of time flattening out the gum just right and holding his mouth just right.

He blew his first bubbles on Saturday. These pics are from the same piece of gum as his first bubbles (though that might not be saying much as he would save gum for weeks if we’d let him!). By Sunday evening he was blowing bubbles with Dentyne which is not know for its bubble-ability.

Birdhouse

August 5, 2008Family, Green, NatureFamily, Green, Naturewarren

There was an old junky shelf in our basement that was pieced together with a 1×12 and a 1×8 screwed together. I hated to just burn it up but wasn’t sure what to do with it. Isaac and Abigail had a visit at their Summer camp program from the Three Rivers Avian Center where they learned about bird habitats and their bird rescue program. The kids were so interested that they suggested we make some birdhouses out of the wood. We’ve had a house wren pair that have nested in an existing house the last three years and hatched 2 sets of eggs per year. That leaves us with a lot of house wrens around. I found some plans online for a house wren’s house and our wood measured out sufficient to make 3 houses. That should hopefully help our wren-friends. I ripped the boards to width and the kids sawed them to length by hand. They did a marvelous job on the first house. Abigail primed the wood and painted it in a rainbow motif. She assured me that the birds will like it and never go to the wrong house. She also thought the bees would enjoy the colors. It is really a beautiful paint job. We’ll probbaly work on the other two houses next weekend.

Abigail was a tremendous painter through it all. She applied several coats of primer to both the house and her legs. She waited patiently for each coat to dry…at least 10 minutes or so between coats. The best part was her work with colors. She was incredibly excited with her creation…with good reason!

She has not yet announced her design thoughts for the next houses. She is opinionated about everything though so I am sure she will let us know!

WV Power baseball game

August 4, 2008Family, WVFamily, WVwarren

We got some tickets from friends of Emily’s folks to go to the WV Power game last night. We’d had a long day working in the garden so it was a nice chance to relax and just play a little. Emily’s folks came and bought the kids some food at the park and entertained Abigail during the game.

We sat on the third base line and had a great view of the park. I think we are pretty fortunate to have such a nice facility in Charleston. There were lots of nice folks in attendance (and one loud, obnoxious one on the first base line). Unfortunately the Power lost to the Delmarva Shorebirds. Isaac got quite a kick out of the name, Shorebirds. It was a lot of fun!

Four in the bed

August 3, 2008FamilyFamilywarren

Yesterday morning, there was a pretty good storm with lots of thunder and lightning. I was somewhat aware of the flashing and racket but was fully awakened when both kids came running in and hopped in bed with us. Emily and I seem to fit pretty well in our full-size bed but the kids made four…in a full-size bed. It was pretty tight. I am used to hanging on to my 18 or so inches that Emily deeded to me, but I was given even less with everyone in bed. We all had fun for awhile, but the kids became restless. According to tradition, I headed to Panera to get some cinnamon rolls and bagels. Weekends rule!

Corn

July 30, 2008Bees, Family, Garden, NatureBees, Garden, Honeybeeswarren

I mentioned in an earlier post that the bees were really working the corn tassels a couple of weeks ago. I got some pictures (click on them…they are pretty neat when full size!) of

honeybees as well as a bunch of
blue orchard mason bees that were around. It turns out that the starlings were really working the

corn too. This weekend, we had to harvest a bunch of the corn before the birds did. We ate some for supper this weekend and Emily

froze most of it still on the cob. She blanched the ears for 6 minutes then let them cool. Once cool and dry, she then wrapped them in cling-wrap and put the ears in freezer bags. We probably harvested half of the corn so we’ll see what the birds left us later in the week!

My Home Among The Hills

Life in WV!