Autumn Pleasures

Gorgeous days are now upon us. The temperature is just right and the sunshine delicious. Days almost made for biking. Our dear friend Mr. Reiche has been telling us about this delightful trail not to far from us, so on one of these picture perfect days we headed out with him for a biking adventure.

The Paint Creek trail is approximately 10 miles one way. We took the shorter more scenic part of it, 4 or so miles one way.

The darling little Paint Creek wiggled back and forth underneath the trail. Sparkling and laughing along its merry way!



Sweet bits of meadows were strewn along the way, and gorgeous trees cast delightful shade upon the road.


The trail was made of crushed limestone, which was quite smooth and a joy to bike on.


The trail ended and landed us in Rochester park, where we waded through the streams and played with ducks.

Yes ducks, there were these cunning little "wild" mallards that were really quite tame, they enjoyed our crackers immensely.


This little squirrel joined us for lunch, he even brought along his own apple=)

When we made it back to where we began, we stopped by the paint creek cider mill to look at the old water wheel. It was a lovely day with gorgeous weather and charming company!

~Chs

John and Mandi's Michigan Reception!

Saturday, the day of John and Mandi's Michigan reception, dawned cloudy and cool. God had blessed us so much in preparation for this event, and it turned out beautifully!


Our friends from church came early in the morning and helped us set up our newly acquired tent.

And helped decorate the garage with tulle and white lights, and pictures of the wedding.

Outside our decorations were all a fall theme.

All of the girls had been baking up a storm the past week resulting Saturday morning with a table full of food. Tiny helped me set out the cookies on the trays. (and eating the broken ones too:)

OH!! melt in your mouth deliciousness. Grace's Mint Chocolate cake!!

It was delightful for John to be able to see all our relatives, and Mandi to get to meet them.

Despite some of our doubts there was enough food for everyone, and a little bit extra besides!

Mrs. Ostrander stationed herself at the lovely beverage station which she and Mrs. Fultz put together.

Following are some more pictures of the good friends, old and new, and family that attended.

Thank you to all who made the day so enjoyable for us and especially for John and Mandi!

~Chs

Our new acquisition

At our house it is never long before, in some way or another, we happen to acquire some sort of new animal. This time our new pet is quite a bit smaller than most of our other animals, and strangely enough we are simply "Babysitting" this little rodent for two years;)

Meet Squealer the Guinea Pig. (choruses of Aww's all around)

This chubby little creature moved in about a week ago on lone. He is excessively adorable and extremely chubby.

He absolutely loves grass and hiding under things, and we are very happy to have him for these two years.

~Chs

An update from Kevin.

One or so weeks before My people inconsiderately left for Texas, I, Kevin was hopping around in the garden not paying attention to my surroundings and all in all being way to friendly, when a person picking beans stepped back to survey their work and landed on ME! The poor unsuspecting bird. I was not mortally wounded, but my sustained injuries were as follows: Half of tail feathers- missing, Right leg- broken above the elbow, Pride and Self respect- totally crushed.


So they grabbed me and took me to the infirmary, held me down and....

much to the damage of my dignity, fixed a splint and cast firmly upon my leg. My adoring people were quite concerned about their darling little birdy while they were gone, but my care takers who stayed here with me assured them that I was doing fine.

Upon their returned I demanded they remove the bandage, and they complied much to my relief, and soon (mainly because of my insistence) they were forced to release me out side to be a free flying bird once again. Phew! At first it was a bit painful for me to place much wait upon the injured leg and it did not grip very well.

But now I am happy to report that my leg is practically completely healed, and I can almost use it to the full extent, especially when there is a peanut involved=).

I promise to keep you updated on my important self, as I know that really is the only reason you look at this blog thing. So long for now - signed KEVIN.

Wherein Kevin Takes a Bath

Checking out the "new" birdbath.

Testing the waters.

Wahoooo!!!!!

Enough for now.

Drying out in the sun.

A walk in the autumnal woods.

Last week Josiah got his long standing wish to go for yet another walk at the state game area near us.

All through our walk we ran into beautiful reminders that fall is on its way.

The great adventurer!


It was great to have Skylar with us for the weekend and she joined us for our expedition.


Ooh camouflage shelf fungi!




It was a gorgeous day, and we noticed as we trudged along that we seemed to be trailing quite a few horses. This was one of the nicer signs;).

Our destination was pinnacle peak, but Josiah in trying to take us along the "quicker route" ended up leading us on the most circular and up and down way to our goal.

We did finally reach pinnacle peak and caught our breath while surveying the gorgeous surroundings before plunging down the hill towards home.

Our lives these days are so rushed and full of things we just "have" to do none of us take enough time to stop and take a look around us. God has created so many beautiful amazing and breathe taking things, you could spend your entire life studying all the minute details that he has placed in the world for our use and enjoyment, and still at the end of our lives there would be more things to see. So take some time to thank your heavenly Father for not just placing you in a mundane black and white world, but instead fusing the world with color and texture, and life! He has given us so much to be thankful for; let us take some time and observe them.

~Chs

Beauty in the Garden.

God has blessed our garden over and abundantly this year, and we are more than thankful for the produce we have, are, and will be able to bring in. But more than just produce God has seen fit to bless us with little bright surprises of beauty splashed about our garden.
Last year Faith had planted two artichokes plants and had covered them diligently for winter. Unfortunately this spring we did not see either of the artichokes return to life and had given them up for dead. Yet a little later on in the season one of the plants surprised us and began to grow. Now it has put forth the most glowing flower I have ever seen. I think it could glow in the dark!

Another volunteer was a morning glory plant that is positive it is a tomato plant=)

Oh well, it is pretty anyways.

Our pumpkins also have begun displaying color, as they ripen into the beautiful trademark orange.

Two vegetables that we have never had much success with did very very well this year. The cabbages are huge and healthy, despite the many cabbage white moth floating around the garden,

and our onion patch actually have grown to a decent size.

We are ever thankful for Gods grace, for though we may plant and weed and water...
God provides the increase.

~Chs