The Confederate officer.

Josh in his new Confederate outfit that Faith made for him.

Doesn't he look positively smashing?

~Chs

A Harvest Party.

October 31st found most of our family (Dad, Mom, Faith, Christianna, and Josiah.) down at some old friend's house for a Harvest Party.

It was a slightly windy and chilly, but we still had a wonderful time.

The Mills have a great set up, and are incredible hosts.


It was great to see some of the people from our former home school group.

One of the first activities was an archery contest, and everyone lined up out behind the barns for the shootings to begin!

They divided the participants into 3 groups and there were 3 targets at certain distances. The challenge came when they had to find their arrows that missed the target.

One of the first contestants.

And he aims and... aims and releases. Twang!

The winner of the 18 and up age group.

One of the other activities was a family scarecrow competition. We used Josiah's old overalls and flannel shirt. We put some seeds in his pocket and a stuffed bird on his shoulder. He also held a pitchfork and wore an old straw hat.

A very creative pumpkin headed scarecrow.

Here is a Canadian skier Scarecrow.

Darth Vader.

Our finished creation.





Near the end of the evening after the meal Mr. White led us in some square dancing. Faith joined in, everyone had piles of fun!!





Mr. Mills also took whoever wanted to on a wagon ride.

We had a wonderful time with friends celebrating Gods blessing of harvest. Thank you Mills Family!

~Chs

The case of our disappearing Dad and the return of the Founding Fathers.

Dad has been disappearing.

It all started with the removal of his 27 year old beard. We all were shocked as none of the children had ever seen him with out a beard in person.


Next his 30 some year old mustache was removed. That was a little to much! Even mother had never seen without some facial hair. The reason for the facial cleansing, was.....

that Mr. Ervin had been asked to put on a production on the constitution at the 11th district, US, Federal court of Detroit. After a few auditions, about 8 men were chosen to dress up as founding fathers and give a presentation on the constitution. One of theses was Dad, and as none of the founding fathers had any facial hair, Dad had to get rid of his.

The date for the presentation was Thursday, October 29th and on Wednesday evening there was a dress rehearsal at Mr. Ervins house. Mom and I went along to help with wig styling and costume fixing. I was fortunate enough to get pictures of the men in their costumes. This is John Adams.

Let me introduce you to the the Virginian, Thomas Jefferson.

John Adams during his speech.

Now my fine friends, I am pleased to present James Madison,

and the Honorable John Jay AKA Paul Sauve. (Looks different doesn't he?)

This is the fiery patriot, Patrick Henry.

Unfortunately I was not able to photograph George Washington in his outfit, but here is his outfit without him=)

I was not able to go with Dad to the court house, but Dad was allowed to take our camera with him, and after they were done with the presentation he got some pictures of some of the men in the Million dollar court room.

Check out all that marble behind him.

Dad standing in front of the incredibly ornate door of the court room.

Here is the group together, left to right they are; George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, John Adams.

Chs

The dog house feud.

Fiona kicked Java out of the dog house and took it over as her personal residence.

Java protests while Fiona simply turns away. Poor Java dear.

~Chs

Falling Leaves!

It was a beautiful fall day when I headed out back with our goats to rake the leaves around our huge "Winnie the Pooh" Maple Tree. Fiona and Java loved the leaves, and Java's favorite thing to do was stand in the middle of my pile and as it mounded up around her pick out the best and juiciest leaves from the bunch.

It wasn't long before Josiah joined me and suggested that we rake a big pile under one of the tree limbs and jump from it.

Our outdoors, barefooted, farmer boy.

Another one of Josiah's favorite things to do is scoot out to the end of our sturdy straight branch, and then grabbing hold of the branch above it slide down until the branch bent to the ground. Quite the little Monkey!

Java loved being buried in the leaf pile. Here she is laying on my lap, at one point Josiah had her whole face and head covered with leaves, and she didn't care one bit.

We all had great fun (goats included) and got quite a bit done in the process.

~Chs

Our Artistic Boy=)

Saturday morning we had what Josiah calls in duck "Oh Boy" Waffles. Otherwise known as waffles with strawberry sauce and whip cream. Josiah always being a creative thing, wasn't satisfied with a neat plop of whip cream on his waffle.

No, he had to spread and shape his whip cream into this lovely pumpkin in honor of the season.

Later that morning I was cooking up one of our pumpkins and left the top with the stalk laying on the counter. Josiah seeing quite a lot of flesh underneath the "handle" and not wanting anything to go to waste, cut it off and set to work.

Pumpkins being on the mind, he decided that would be his objective.

Being a bit of a perfectionist, he did not stop until his work was the perfect replica of a half 3D pumpkin, complete to the grooves on the vine. Talented fellow isn't he?

His older sister wanted to get in on the fun too and created this slightly not so 3D perfect, horse head.

~Chs