Outdoor Winter Jobs

I've completed two of the outdoor jobs that I'd planned for this winter.

I have dug out the pond, which has doubled it's size. It is Soooo immense now that I fear pond-effect snow.




The blue bird houses had also needed to be replaced. I built three new houses and the kids have painted them.

Christmas Tree Time

For a three years before we went to England and now for 2 more since we've gotten back to the US we've gone with good family friends to cut down our Christmas tree. We went to the Snickers Gap Christmas Tree Farm


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It was a great day. We brought a camping grill and had a post-tree tail gate party! The weather was beautiful so it was no problem being outside!

The tree is up and the lights are on. Decorating tomorrow!

Gettysburg

My 40th (yikes) birthday present was a weekend at a B&B near Gettysburg. We stayed at the Shining Dawn B&B in Hanover, a few miles away.

Hanover is the home of the Utz Potato Chip company. We didn't get a chance to visit the factory but will go there with the kids.

The new Visitor's Center at the Gettysburg National Battlefield opened earlier this year and the famous cyclorama by the French artist Paul Philippoteaux was re-opened for viewing this past December. It is an amazing painting: its size (360ft), detail, and topic.

The auto tour of the battlefield was organized by day and the accompanying CD of the tour was invaluable. Throughout the battlefield were columns and monuments showing the organization and layout of the different US and Confederate groups during the flow of the battle. Approximately 100 cannons and artillery from the Civil War-era are all over the field to add impact.

We were lucky because we were there for the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. Many Union and Confederate reenactors were marching to the monuments for the army groups that they represented. A few Union bands were playing, too, at battle locations like Little Round Top and the Devil's Den.

You feel so overwhelmed with the vast layout of the 3 day battle. You can picture the various attacks and could almost sense what the soldiers felt.

On Saturday we at at the Dobbin House Tavern right in the town and, on Sunday, we just *had* to stop at the Appalachian Brewing Company to sample their offerings. Yummy!

I definitely recommend a trip to Gettysburg.

Lazy?

I'm back...look for updates

Street Names in England

I'm sure that there are ALOT of great names but two that we saw were Oldbutt Road and Crotch Close. Unfortunately we were only able to get a picture of one.

Funny stories

Looking back through the blog I realized that I forgot two funny stories involving drinking (and they didn't include me).

I flying back from Amman, Jordan to London-Heathrow and was sitting next to a Scottish guy returning home after 6 months of working in Jeddah. We landed in Beirut, Lebanon to pick up some more passengers. We had to wait on the tarmac for 2-3 hours because of very high winds in England. Well...the Scottish guy found out that they had IrnBru (Scottish soft drink) on the plane and, it being BA, the alcohol was free. After an uncountable amount of vodka & IrnBru's while listening to his headphones he started singing (loudly) and crying....oh, I almost forgot...and arguing with the flightcrew because he didn't believe that he had drank all the IrnBru. I'll always remember that flight as "The One with the Drunk Scotsman."

The second story deals with the Pogues' lead singer, Shane MacGowan. At the Birmingham (UK) Pogues concert this past December, Shane was beyond drunk. He would sing fine during the song but, during an instrumental break or a song by one of the other band members, he would leave the stage (with his bottle) and stumble off. After it was done he would stumble back on stage. He would swing his microphone by the cord and smacked it off of the ground and the mike stand. A few times we would drop the F-bomb to the crowd. It was still great to hear the Pogues play again. We had seen them once in Washington DC back in 1995 or so.

England Rugby

It's funny...I never really found myself cheering for the English soccer team in competitions because everyone in England always thought that the team was unbeatable....yet they always underperformed.

In the leadup to the Rugby World Cup (the final is tomorrow) the English team was getting beat regularly by the other top teams to the extent that nobody in England expected much. And what happened? Well...New Zealand, the runaway favorite, was beaten by France. England upset Australia in the quarters, the host French in the semis and now face South Africa in the finals. I'm cheering for England for a change.

Wildlife on Osburn Road

The deer are still all around the woods. I have had to put up a fence around the strawberries and also around the vegetables (broccoli, asparagus, cauliflower,lettuce). I wasn't running a buffet for the deer. We have gotten one fully ripened strawberry already and a a bunch more are growing!

The squirrels are running around and birds are returning since I hung up a bird feeder.

Leo has started hunting more but usually goes outside in the daytime rather than at night. He brought us a present the other morning.

When I was putting up the fence I heard a lot of noise in the woods that I had to track down. It was a feisty box turtle that wouldn't hide in its shell.



While gardening we also found a salamander.

Deer Central on Osburn Road

Being away for 3 years I have forgotten how popular our woods are with the deer. Since we've been back in the house we have seen many deer. Yesterday we saw three different groups. When the bus came to pick up Colin and Rachel we first saw 2 fawns and 1 doe in the drain field. A 2 point buck them came out of the woods followed quickly by a 3rd fawn.

At lunch time Jennifer and I were in the garage when we saw a doe and 2 fawns between the house and the drain field. The one fawn walked closer and closer to the house eating the leaves. Then its mom called and the fawns ran off.

Lastly, in the afternoon, I was cleaning out the berry plants and saw a 6-8 point buck.