May 2008

Can you believe this? Our baby is graduating from preschool! Barnyard Kids makes a big deal out of this and is having a big graduation ceremony tonight. They are presenting a Disney show by the kids. Bart is a little pig.....

Bart will attend kindergarten in the fall. He's not so sure he wants to wake up early and be in school all day but he is excited that his buddies will be going there too. Alex is equally excited about attending Barnyard Kids in the fall. He used to call it "Bart's School" but since we signed him up he calls it "My school" when we drive into the parking lot! He already has his Nemo backpack packed with toys and a naptime stuffed kitty...and he insists on bringing it into the school to show the teachers every time we pick Bart up!

We had a busy and very fun spring with lots of visitors. Our good friends the Webbs came with their daughter Dana, my parents came to see the boys right before Easter, and then my college room-mate Pam came with her fun family. We reminisced while Bryant and Mike talked racing and the kids played. Bryant's parents came to help us plant the new vineyard. Our friend Keith from Wilmington came for a long week-end. Bryant convinced him that mowing a pasture was fun and put him on the mower and a tractor with a Miller Lite. Keith seemed to enjoy it!!! Anybody else that's willing to mow in exchange for a beer is welcome to come on! My vet school buddies Nadine, Dave and Julie came with Nadine and Dave's kids. What a joy that was! The boys had a great time with each set of visitors and keep asking when the next people are coming!

Pictures above from Granz and Gramps' visit.

Alex in Kindermusik and Bart with "Favorite"

Fertilizing and weeding last year's vineyard, above

This year's vineyard is in the ground and growing wonderfully. We got brave and planted a test vineyard behind the house of grafted Chardonney, Cabernet Sauvignon and Traminette. The first two varieties are difficult to grow in TN but so far they seem to love our farm. Thanks to the TN Department of Agriculture for financial assistance in this endeavour. We are impressed with the effort Tennessee gives toward encouraging agriculture in this state.

Last year's grapes (Cynthianas and Chardonels) are coming along and should produce fruit for us to harvest next year. It is nice to drive up our long driveway and see the vines reaching toward (and beyond) the trellis wires! Just today Dr. Perryman (a retired Shebyville vet) came by and brought three bee hives to put in the vineyard.

The flowers have been incredible this year- with just the right amount of rain and sunshine. The blue Clematis live next to our driveway. The roses were planted on Toby's grave. NC friends will remember Toby as the grey tabby clinic cat that I bottle raised and loved like a son. He died of FIV when he was around 8 years old and we buried him here to keep him with us. His roses bring me so much joy!

Our pond is one of the highlights of the farm. This year we have a resident goose family with 5 goslings, along with the regular pairs of Canadian geese (and a domestic goose and duck pair) that love to hang out in the island year-round. We plan to stock the pond with more fish soon.... as last year's draught was hard on the fish population, and good for attracting every snapping turtle in Flat Creek to our farm!

 I want to put in a plug for CoCoRaHS (Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network). If you are a weather or rain nut, then you need to check this site out and consider becoming a weather reporter. We joined on last July and faithfully report the rainfall (and snow, and hail) from our high-tech rain gauge online every morning. There are a surprising number of volunteers all over the United States....click on the map at the web site to see how many are in your county alone! (And if there's not many- you need to help out!) CoCoRaHS is collecting invaluable information for a variety of scientists to help improve weather forecasting, environmental issues, drought issues, etc. Here is the link:

CoCoRaHS SITE

We are station # TN-BF-19 (Now you can get online every day and see how much rainfall we had!)

This is our rain gauge with the middle tube removed for snowfall collection during the recent 'snowstorm' we had . The gauge measures rain to the nearest hundredth of an inch! Believe it or not, this much snow came from a mere 2/10 of an inch of precipitation!!! (That means that melted down, it was equal to .2 inches of rainfall.)

Thanks to those of you that faithfully check out our web site and email or phone me about it. I appreciate everyone's online friendship and comments and encouragement!

                                                            Wendy   5/23/08