Birthday continued

There was much playing and mess making and lots of coloring of pictures. Papa Jim and Grandma Flo gave Sagan a book on mythical beasts and so just before bed time there was much dragon picture coloring. Once again the birthday ring was brought out and the candles lit. We ate Loch Ness monster cupcakes, after a birthday dinner of mac and cheese.

Happy 8th Birthday Sagan

Oh, my sweet darling Sagan. Happy happy birthday to you. I remember your birth like it was yesterday. You were my first homebirth. We worked and worked to get you out into the world thinking you were late only to find out that you were early, you were long and skinny and yummy! You nursed like a champ, and with you I discovered the wonder and joy of cloth diapers. I found Mothering magazine. I found my true voice, my true calling into motherhood. You surprise me everyday with your thirst for knowledge, you want to know so much, you are so full of questions.

You have pushed me to be a better mother, tested me, forced me to grow and change my thinking about what it means to a good mother. I hope I am doing a good job by you.

Happy birthday my sweet boy.

Goodby summer (part 3)

We also went on a hike to Wolfneck Woods. Now that is an amazing place, lots to see, many trails and the osprey ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osprey ) nest ground. We saw a nest up in a tree on an island off the main trail... it was massive, but alas we saw no osprey. Sagan's book of Maine birds came in handy and and so did the binoculars he was carrying around most of the summer. After the hike we stop at a picnic area and had a quick snack. We must go back to see how fall looks on Wolfneck Woods.

Goodbye summer, see you next year!

Goodbye Summer (part 2)

Mike took Sis and Logan to see a free concert at LL Beans... the Wallflowers! They said it was great except they couldn't get close, do to there being something like 20,000 people there to see them for free. Ah well, such is life.

There was alos another concert that there are no pictures of... Audrey's birthday concert to see Greenday in Boston. That was a great one!

Goodbye summer (part 1)

A few things I never got around to posting about this summer. First... the Highland Games! ( http://www.mainehighlandgames.org/home.html )Nothing beats getting intouch with your Scottish/Irish heritage. Being around all those people who you are in some way very very distantantly related to. Watching all the strange and different sporting events (like the caber toss), and feeling tempted (but not brave enough just yet) to try haggis. The music is always my favorite... ok that and getting Mike to put on his kilt.

Nature walk

The boys, the cat and I went on a nature walk today. We have so much going on in our yard and just down the street from our house. It is lovely watching fall appear in our neighborhood; the red and orange leaves, the cool autumn breezes, the different feel in the air.

Common Grounds Fair 2009 (part 4)

A few last shots of the day.

Common Grounds Fair 2009 (part 3)

We followed a very tall fellow to the children's area to give the kids a break and let them have some fun. They hammered nails into logs (something very neat and honestly the kids loved it!), made scuptures out of mud, tossed around "onions" (tennis balls in white socks with a knot tied in them and green fabric tied on at the toe), posed in goofy shots for mama and were in the garden parade. If you notice we have a circle of life or food web going on with the costumes the kids wore. Logan was a pumpkin, Sagan was a slug and Cae was a chicken. Slug eats pumpkin, chicken eats slug, chicken poo feeds pumpkin. How neat is that?!

Common Grounds Fair 2009 (part 2)

After eating (which seems to have to come first every where we go!) we headed off to see the large farm animals. The kids discovered a set of blue ribbon bulls whose names were Mike and Jim (dad and papas names!) too funny to pass up, so we got a shot of that! We looked at the fiber tent and fed the cute goats and sheep. I got 1 1/2 ounces of goat fur, uncombed and very cool. Looking forward to using that in something, maybe at least story time. I got to pet the yarn for about a minute, then it was off to have a look at something new.

Common Grounds Fair 2009 (part 1)

Today was the day, the day I had been waiting for almost a year for... the Common Grounds Fair put on by MOFGA ( http://www.mofga.org/ ). The Common Grounds Fair, is a huge three day ordeal of ogranic local farms here in Maine, getting together to show off their animals, their produce and their goods. There are, of course, your food stalls (which seem to be the only thing my children are interested in) but even those have a local and somewhat healthy bend to them, like the popcorn which was made from locally grown popping corn, Maine sea salt and organic safflower oil. Pretty cool.

Getting to the fair was a long long drive, but it was lovely. So much beautiful country side. After turning off the main road we got stuck in a 45 minute traffic jam, which we were sure would lead to us having no place to park, only to find out that the hold up was a local soccer team trying to get money from passing cars (stange way to go about things). After we parked we took the 10 minute jaunt thru the woods, which let us see draft horses pulling logs. There was a talk on sustainable logging going on and a demo.

Chestnuts

Our chestnut tree finally started dropping the chestnuts! The boys were bringing in pockets full of nuts. It was very exciting, until I found out that we do not have the kind of chestnut you can eat, we have a horse chestnut tree growing in our yard. Very sad on the eating front, but still very fun to collect! They are now filling up bowls in the house and all over the nature table!