Last week we adopted a 4 month old puppy from Hubbard's Hounds dog rescue. 
We named her....
* Andi *
Just in case you imagined that we haven't been working much over here.... Let me invite you into my cupboard. We are getting rolling on the canning. What you see here is what we have done so far.....340 jars .
Included are.....
These are the veggies we picked one afternoon recently. Here we have lettuce, zucs, cukes, potatoes, tomatoes, green beans and snap peas. We have made tons of zuc bread and have eaten endless sauted zucs and onions. Jody LOVES the fresh tomatoes. We have pickled the beans and cukes. Maya Rae loves fresh cukes and eats them straight out of the garden all the time. We are beyond sick of salad :) but are lovin the potatoes.
Very sad news. 
These are the homestead critters in July.
Barley man is growing. He was sick for a while. Has worms and lice too. We got everything fixed and he is growing big now. We need to get him a lady friend. Hes so lonely.
The chicks are little chickens now. The white ones will visit the butcher at the top of Sept. Several of them broke out of their run and we havent been able to catch them. 
The ducks are the clowns of the property. Everyone enjoys watching them splash and play. They are wretched roomates for the turkeys though.
The red ladies are locked up for now while the 70 chicks take over the chicken pasture. They are not thrilled and have decided to molt instead of lay. After the white birds go to butcher all the red - young and old- will run together on the pasture. There will be alot of wrangling for position but in the end they will all be happy.
Vayda has been dying (no pun intended ;) to have the underside of her hair dyed pink for ages. 
Well, I buy organic dye for myself and the company just started making hot pink and purple and other wacky colors so Vayda jumped on the phone and ordered herself a box of pink from Mother Earth store in Geneva. She finally pinned me down and got me to do it for her. The dye went on well but definately did not turn hot pink. I guess we needed to bleach it first. Hummm. Well, that brings us back to toxic waste. So Vayda decided that she was 'fine' with the burgandy color she got but still wants hot pink at some point.
So- where was Elanee while we were all over here entertaining Destiny?
She was part of the Between the Lakes Players production of Beauty and the Beast. She was a bar maid (in the blue kerchief) Sorry the pics are so bad but that is just how my camera did it. She also played a cork screw. I always knew she was a little screwy ;)
Jody, Ben, Vayda, Maya Rae, Ravyn, and Saige and I all went to see the production and bumped into friend Emily- along with others.
The show was great!!! Elanee has found her passion. She made a ton of new friends and she cannot wait to do this again.
As you might imagine, all these exciting events ran us ragged!
This was my favorite activity while Destiny was with us.....a visit to the Piggery!
The Piggery is a farm in Trumansburg. Its a family run farm that raises organic pork, free range, on open pasture. These are the happiest pigs I have ever seen! They run of many acres of rough pasture. There is brush, grass, trees with shade and a pig's bliss- mud!
The natural spring in the back provides a pig 'spa'. Its a pig's heaven I'll tell you! They were rolling and splashing happily in the water and mud. There were 40 babies running in clusters.
We learned the pigs in a natural setting are (obviously) healthier and more gentle than your average factory farmed pig. I found the whole thing very cool and VERY inspiring!
Well- you cannot visit the country and skip the county fair!
Luckily the Seneca County Fair was going while Destiny was here so I took Vayda, Ravyn, Maya Rae, Destiny and Saige for an evening of fun.
The big girls ran around together while I took the young group around. They saw the critters and displays, rode the rides, ate fried dough and won a prize.
In the end we had tired and happy girlies!
One of the highlights of many happenings with Destiny was a visit to Aunt LouAnn's house. 
Vayda LOVES riding so she thought this was great!Thanks again LouAnn!!! ;)
*Destiny Stepney *
For years we have wanted to try having a Fresh Air Kid.
I had a little boy back when Elanee was 1 yr old. We had a great time. Even so, I kept worrying my way out of going for it again. A Fresh Air kid comes from NYC and stays for 2 entire weeks. Thats a long time if things are going badly. But, after Elanee spent 2 mo and Vayda spent 1 month in South Carolyna with my dear friend Lauretta I saw how an extended stay away from home can open the mind of a young person. I have come to believe that no matter how bad off or how well off you are- stepping out of your reality and emersing yourself in another's can be life changing. I think the ealier that can happen the better.
So, that is what stopped me from stopping myself again this year. We signed up and went through the possess of being interviewed and background checked, etc. Then on the second week of July we drove to Ithaca and picked up our little girl at Stewart park.
Her name was Destiny. She was 7 yrs old and she was from Brooklyn NY. This was her second time being a Fresh Air kid. It took us a few days to get adjusted but then we were off. Ms. Destiny was great. She was full of energy and made us laugh. She thought we were nuts! We dressed wierd, had a strange van (thought my driving was completely rediculous! All that waiting and being patient was just unspeakable ya know ;), our food was odd (what do you mean no McDonalds?), and no TV??? What!? She was bewildered by Maya wanting to play with Barbies and Bobble heads. It took us days to figure out that she plays group games.
We made it our business to keep her entertained and to show her our world. I took the kids to every State park within reach. They swam in the lake several times. Jody took the kids biking on Sundays. She and Maya played dress up. She showed us her hip hoppin dance moves!
I took them to a horse show in Trumansburg.
The girls painted canvases on a rainy day.
They had a long afternoon at the water park in Geneva.
We had a picnic lunch at the falls overlook.
We did normal stuff too...like make applesauce and strawberry jam. (I sent a jar home with her)
We turned gourds into bird houses.
Jody and Destiny bonded over a map of NYC! They actually found her building. Its that big!
We had a back yard camp fire.
We went to a birthday party for one of Maya's friends from baseball. It was at the pool in Seneca Falls. Destiny was at home in the pool. She said, "This is how we swim in the city". :)
The kids just chilled with ice cream cones in the back yard.
This is The Village Soft Serve in Ovid.
