road trip....

Although the sky looking kind of "angry" in this photo.. the day was actually an amazing fall day. Perfect for a "road trip" and starting it off at one of our favorite places to eat....

We had a couple of passengers with us... Miss Debbie is a great "rider in the car".. she always finds a spot and just ... sleeps...

Camille does the same... and even though there was plenty of room to sit on the seat with Deb... she chose the floor...(she didn't want Debbie "touching" her, I guess...)

The third passenger ... these wheels, which are off the old hand pumper Protection 2. This winter, Ed is going to be giving ol' Protection 2 a spruce up. He's very excited about taking on this project and we'll be keeping a blog on "her progress"....Ed will be doing the metal work, and the wheels are being done by a wheel wright... which is why we had them with us today.

The place is called Firefly restorations, and is run by Andy Swift. Andy has been restoring and preserving old fire engines for over 40 years, and he is so interesting and fun to talk with.

His place may not look like "much"... but looks are deceiving....

Everywhere, there are wonderful old treasures, just waiting their turn to be "loved" once again....

And though, it's main fire engines that he deals with, there are other "goodies"  that in time, will have their time as well.

Andy took us on a grand tour of his place. I have to say, I really love old fire engines, guess that comes from being a fire chief's daughter and wife to a fire fighter.... but I especially love the pieces that were horse drawn. There was such pride and craftsmanship that went into those old pieces... it would be so cool if they could talk and share all the stories of their lives....

I couldn't even say how many "pieces" were there, all  in various stages of work... some privately owned, some still owned by fire companies.... I could have spent hours just looking them all over...

But back to "our" project.. Andy helped Ed unload the wheels of Protection 2 and took a quick look at them.

Compared to some of the projects that he has done... "our" wheels aren't going to be that big a deal....

While the menfolk talked, I took Camille and Deb out for a little walk and look around. Took some pictures of Debbie for her "training blog and experiences..."

After we left Firefly, we headed down the coast... had a nice lunch at Moody's diner (didn't get a pic...) and then just decided that we would stick to the coast the whole way back. Went by some old haunting grounds....










And just enjoyed the day, being together and knowing how blessed we are to live in the prettiest state in the country.....

Hello October...

October has arrived.. and I feel like it came rushing in and we haven't even had a minute to think.....why does time rush so...

The weather has been beyond beautiful... the days feel like summer and the evenings have that hint of fall. Our old Silver has some very good news.. I had truly feared that we would be putting him down this fall, he had been failing over the past year. But, our vet recommended a different feed, and after just three weeks of being on it, I am seeing HUGE changes in him. So, it has been decided that he isn't ready to leave us, just yet.... (whew!!!!)

Abbie stayed with us over the weekend, and just had the best time playing outside. I got this antique pram at an auction years ago.. I remember thinking that "one day maybe my grandchildren will play with it"... well, that day has arrived. It needed some repair, which Abbie pestered her Papa about until it was done... Then she loaded in all the babies she could find....(which it holds alot of them)...

And she was off. We went up and down the road several times (because it went much better on the hot top than the dirt driveway) and she had a blast with it. Stopping every so often to 'check that everyone was alright" and enjoying their walk.

Duke and Tonka were quite interested in the going ons......

The sunflowers are beginning to pass... I showed Abbie how we are going to get the seeds from them, and she is so excited to 'save some seeds to plant" next year.....(the rest will go to the turkeys and the wild birds)

One of the local big fairs opened this weekend as well. This "poor" fair has the reputation of always having rain, so for the past couple of years, planning to go was always ruined by the weather. However, this year, with all that great weather, we ventured out with Kass,  Nate, Reagan, Rachel,  Rob, Naomi and Abbie.... and so did about a "million" other people. It was jammed packed.

We started out by letting the girls have some rides... thinking that if we did that first, they would be much happier touring the grounds. The lines to the rides were long, and I began to have some doubts about how much we'd be seeing...

They had a really good time....

Course, this year, Reagan is a bit too small for that sort of thing, but next year, I suspect he'll be climbing right on.... at least he had Papa to talk to while we waited for the girls....

We made our way up to the barns, but the walk there wasn't fun. People were crowding every where (and sadly --- were quite rude at times). I had thought of bringing Debbie and was so glad I didn't, keeping an eye on Abbie was more than enough. I think we stayed just two hours, and I was done. I don't do well with crowds anyways, and not being able to 'see" anything just made it "not fun".... so, we headed for home. Think I'll stick to the smaller fairs and be just as happy with that.

October 1st is Kassy's birthday!!!! She had to work that day (as was Ed).. so I decided to drive over to work and spend some time with her there. I have never missed a birthday of her's and I'm not about to..... Dave and Nate got pizza for everyone for a birthday lunch....

And it was great fun to have a break and spend the time together.....

Then Nate surprised Kass with birthday cupcakes.... ( there were yummy!!!)

Happy Birthday my sweet girl!!!!!!

Debbie has a batch of kittens, so after we had lunch, we walked to the house to see them. They're so cute.. and Reagan was fascinated by them. He's really noticing things and it becoming 'a real little boy"....

He has no choice about loving animals, between his own family, and his two Grandmothers... one must love animals  LOL!!!!

After we played with the kitties, Deb put them in the pen with her bunny... the bunny was very interested in these little creatures, and they were pretty fun to watch...

And we can't forget!!! to put the monthly photo in here.... so not only happy birthday to Kass (on the 1st).. but happy seven months to Reagan (on the 2nd).. October is on a roll, I have no doubt it will go speeding by.....

Honey of a day!!!!

After "stealing" the two frames of honey from the "girls".. Ed and I have been waiting to process it. Fortunately for us, Deb and Dave have all the equipment to do that, so we only had to borrow it this year. We will need to purchase our own sometime, but for these two frames it was nice just to borrow. First step... uncapping the honey comb... this was done with an electric knife that is hot and the capping comes right off....

Abbie was here and she was so interested in how this all was done... she watched very carefully.....

She really wanted to do it herserlf... but Papa said another time....

The bees capped the honey to store it, so, in order to get the honey out, you have to uncap it. The "cappings" wax is saved and can be used to make candles or anything else that contains bee's wax.....

Now that the frame is uncapped, it's time to go in the extractor....

The honey frames are spun, and the honey just shots out of the comb. Abbie had a great time spinning the honey from the comb.....it drips down to the bottom of this steal tub....

And then you open the plug and the honey pours out. You use a very fine strainer to catch any little parts of wax and such....

I have to admit, we got more than I expected to get... so I can only imagine what it's like to get a full taking of honey....Once we strained it threw this strainer, we did it one more time, just to be certain that it was all ready to eat.... 

The empty frames go back to the bees, they will clean up any honey that we didn't get, they will clean all the combs, and will begin to put honey back in. And this way, they don't have to build new comb from stratch.

And here it is.. our very first jar of honey. I like the dark color.....(and yes...) it is VERY tasty....












From just those two frames, we got four and a half pounds of honey. I'll give a few jars away, but the rest we'll keep for this winter's treats...


thank  you bees!!!!














 

the 4th Thursday...

It's the fourth Thursday of the month, so in my world that means just one thing... check in day at NEADS!!! It's funny how I now get excited about driving into the city and working around it with my little girl... going to the city wouldn't have ever been "my thing" had I not gone into this "service puppy world"... When we got to NEADS, first stop is the scale... Debbie may look big, but really she is a bit on the small size and at just five months, she only weighs around 30 pounds.... I do hope she will get some size on her.

While we waited for Dave to finish up some things, the pups hung out in the main room. Zuzu (our mascot poodle) and Bernice traveled down with us this month. Some one had left a big bin of balls, and didn't the puppies have fun with those. Now, even though Deb had her own, you know that she wanted Zuzu's as well.....

Once Dave was ready, it was into the training room, just to take the usual time of talking about the puppies, telling what adventures they have had and getting questions and the like answered. It's a good time for the pups to wait quietly....

Even if it is boring ---- (right Rayvan???)

Today we "played" with the lift on the van. Debbie hopped right on, and sat and looked at me as though to say "OK, what's next"... all the puppies did very well with the lift.. so I dare say, next month, Dave will begin to have them "ride" on it....

Rayvan hopped right on as well.....from there we went over the hospital. I don't know why I didn't get any photos there, but we played on the elevators, had some lunch.. all the usual things. It's getting so these trips seem kind of routine.....

From the hospital to the bus station. I love the way that Deb handles all these things... she really is a "go with the flow" puppy, and I already have a very good feeling about her completing all the training and going into the service dog world.

Both Rayvan and Debbie are very steady puppies. After a while they just laid quietly and watched the world go by. Debbie even got stepped on by a gentlemen who claimed "he didn't see her??" She jumped out of the way, but then just settled right back down again.

Course, while the labs were "working" looked who schmoozed the crowd. Zuzu was the height of attention.. I told Bernice they should have put out a small tin cup and collected tips for the service dogs!!!!!











It was an absolutely wonderful day, the weather has been very warm and almost summer like. The puppies were all so good, that we allowed a bit of play at the end.



From here the others headed for home, but Deb and I stayed later. We were invited to be a part of NEADS training council, so we had to stay late for the that meeting. It was a very interesting meeting, and I met so many great people. I also got some "inside" scoop on the working of NEADS, which is usually something we don't have time for on the regular training days. It did make for a long day, but it was worth it and next month, Linda (our chapter leader) is planning on staying for the council as well... since she was away this month... and that would be great fun to go together and just be a part of NEADS and their plans for the future.