|
|
|
||||||||
|
Morton Update Page |
August 2008
What a fun summer we all had! Bart had a cute graduation-from-preschool ceremony and continued to go to summer school three days a week. We had many visitors - our friends the Jacksons from Lumberton, NC came for the 4th of July and the Kenny Chesney/LeAnn Rimes/Keith Urban concert at Legion Field. We all loaded up and tailgated in the parking lot before the concert.
Soon afterwards, our friends Jack and Jane and their grandson Jayson from Bladen County came for the Mule and Donkey Celebration. They try to come every year and we always have a great time. Bart attended Zoo Camp that week at the Nashville Zoo and really enjoyed it! Bart played T-ball June and July and was a great outfielder. Alex just went along for the freeze pops and socialization!
We have been making good use of our pool this summer. It didn't take Bart long to shed his floaties and he's a great swimmer/cannon baller! Alex zooms all over in his frog floatie and his goggles. The boys love having friends over for pool parties.
Our big event of the summer was hosting my grandfather's 92nd birthday party on our farm. We spent a lot of time getting the farm ready for 50 relatives from all over the US. We had a super week-end of eating, talking, swimming, hayriding, pony riding, exploring the farm, volleyball, fishing, square-dancing, and goofing around. It was SO nice to see aunts and uncles and cousins and new babies, and so good to spend time with a very young 92 year old grandfather! We even talked some of my cousins into helping us put newly baled hay up into the barn! We offered the total Tennessee farm experience!
Bryant's friend Phil from vet school spent the following week here helping us eat leftovers. The boys had a hard time keeping up with his 6 year old daughter, but they sure had a good week!
Now it's back-to-school time. Alex started preschool two days a week and Bart started full time kindergarten. It's hard to believe I'm going to have a few hours a week to myself again. I can't decide if I should pull out my stained glass supplies or my pottery wheel...or just try to get the house clean!
Bart has joined the inaugural kindergarten flag football team at his school. His first game was this past week-end...complete with kindergarten cheerleaders!!! Bart is an excellent blocker and takes his job very seriously. You can see him in the red pants (#4) on the far left of the above picture. He actually pinned several opponents to the ground and held them there for the play. We're not sure if that's legal or not......
A Morton report would not be complete without a grape update. We had nearly ideal growing conditions for most of the spring and summer and all of our grapes are flourishing. We let last year's Cynthianas and Chardonels keep a few grape clusters. We are excited to hopefully see a vineyard full of the picture above next year! The vineyard we planted behind the house this year is doing amazingly well. Those grapes (which are purported to be difficult to grow here) have almost caught up to last year's vines!
We are honored to have been approved as a Conservation Security Farm this year with the Natural Resources Conservation Services. That means we practice good farming techniques to support nature and wildlife, with special attention to water, pasture and soil conservation and preservation. In exchange the USDA helps finance some of the improvements. Horse farms do not commonly qualify for this program.
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:
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 2008 '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 8/24/08
We will use this page to post new pictures and updates on our life in Tennessee. Please email me if you would like to be notified by email when I update this page!
Morton Relief Veterinary Services, LLC
|
Entrance |
|
|
|
Exchange |