Halloween, holloween, this is halloween

Too bad I don't have a pic of my full costume. Oh well. Can you guess who I dressed up as?

Halloween, holloween, this is halloween

Mom says they look like sausages

Here is Emma and her one week old puppies. They are 3 weeks now though and look a lot more fluffy. They have started to develop their own characteristics too. These aren't good pictures to see them with all their cute faces, but its what I've got right now. One has a name, but I am still thinking what the other puppies names should be until they go to their new homes... maybe Peter, Johnny, Guinevere, and Jasmine or something else. The one puppy that does have a name is Oliver. He is the one on the far right in both pictures with a "y" white marking on his neck. I want to see the others personalities more before I name them. Aren't they cute? Wait till I get some pic.s where you can see them better.

In the basement...

... are 5 new residents living in our basement. Five fuzzy residents. Emma, my English Shepperd had puppies on the fourteenth of September. Just seven days before her own birthday. There are 2 girls and 3 boys. they were born near my room or, actually in my room. All of them are bob tailed except one boy. The bob tails are from Emma's side of the family. She really doesn't have a natural bobtail, more like naturally tailless. Not even a stump.
Aiden is their father, pictured above. I'm not able to put up recent pictures of Emma or puppies because Dad and I are still looking for that Camera cable. Oh, cable maple

Camp Arrow head

In June Robin hood showed us were he and his band of merry men camped for that week.

Here you can see his rappelling skills. He took C.O.P.E.

Robin hood shows us a non man made Alter that was found when this camp was built.
I suspect that it might have been made by ancient Nephites.

More camping

Hello feet!

I know i am smiling in this pic, but I caught so many fish and I forgot to bring the fishing knife. I cleaned out around 15 bluegills with a pocket knife. It took a long time. I regretted not releasing any.
Look at those big Carp! Said Ducky. I was trying to catch them for a wile, and then when i almost caught one I chickened out and pulled my lure out of it's mouth. They don't usually take lures. Carp are BIG, not pretty fish that normally feed on the bottom of the lake. They can get up to 100 pounds as far as I know. I was worried I'd get drug in the water.
Swinging like Tarzan!

Swimming in a shallow river is the best way to cool off.

This summer...

Lots and lots of camping trips, swims, floats, mini vacations and adventures.



Dad is whittling with jessa and keeping our lunch cool.

Robin hood foung a turtle wile swimming at ariver.

Telling stories and listening to all the things that go bump in the night.

How about Scouting?

This summer has been full of camping. We have been going every week end or so; fishing, exploring new places, camp grounds, swimming beaches, historic sites, and festivals. Also, on top of that, or somewhere in there, I went to Girls camp last week and Robin Hood went to Camp arrow head, ( a scout camp). Last year he had to " Chew-on-a-key."
This year Robin hood came back from camp with better leader ship skills then before. He's senior patrol leader.
I'm going to be part of the Boy Scouts, too- Mom and I are going to help start a community Venture Scouts troop.
( Surprise, surprise, Grandpa!).
I am going to start a girls venture troop so I can go to Philmont. Wouldn't you like that? They allow girls in Philmont if they are venture scouts. Venture scouts can be boys and girls now, although, not at church. I really want to go to a horse trek and work at the stables next summer at Philmont. However, The girls Venture Troop will take time and work to start. It will be fun though. It will focus on outdoor leadership and personal talents/career goals and making our own businesses. But mostly it's about going to Philmont every year.
I've been in Girl scouts before, but all we did was sell cookies and go to theme parks; while Robin hood gets to have C.O.P.E. (ropes course,) and swim, practice archery, canoeing, rock climbing, and all that. Who wants to sell cookies in a card board box instead of that? And standing up for faith and family and God is a nice thing, too.

CAPTAIN MORONI

This is me with two of my Tomato plants. this is just before transplanting, even though they are over ready. The tomato in my left hand is Moroni, a cherry Sungold tomato; and the one in my right is a Big beef named Pike, after a big toothy type of fish that lives in lakes around here. I have named all my SunGold tomatoes after Book Of Mormon Heroes. My Big beefs are all Fish names, and my Early girls are named after horse breeds. My best Big Beef is Pike, my best Ealy girl is Arabian, and my best sungold is Moroni; and i named him that before I knew he'd turn out good. I have given them all names so that i will take care of them better. It works! There like green pets.

The almost trophy fish

A little late but here it is, ( top,) is the the whooper so far, a large mouth bass . 4 lbs and 18 in. that I caught in discovery pond. 2 more pounds and he could have been a trophy.
I almost caught a much bigger one but it broke my 10 pound test line. I caught this whooper at the last minute just as mom called us home and we thought the fish stoped biting. On that day Ducky made the discovery of Bullhead cat fish that have been living in the pond in secret. We are going to try and catch those to, besides the giant Bass that got away.

above is not the same fish but another I caught at a lake called Sims Vally. In this picture I am teaching Ducky how to clean fish my way.

My garden

This is an angel face rose bud from my garden. of all four of my new rose bushes it was the only one to have roses. below is a M&M lady bug I did while backing cookies. when little princess saw me she immediately began doing her own M&M designs.

A walk in our 5 acre woods

Ducky and I took a walk in our forest each at a different time and we both took pictures. I took the two top ones and she took the other two. When ever I am away traveling somewhere, I have missed the rolling hills of the Ozarks, the scenery, the out doors activities, the little critters, and even the thunderstorms, also a particular annoying bug that makes a wee, a wee, a weeeee sound. Those little bugs are called cicadas. they come around in June,, or when it starts to get hot. Their wee wee sound is so loud it covers any other sound like cars or the little frogs, crickets and Whippoorwills. Cicadas were one of the things I knew I wouldn't miss when I spent the summer in CA...however, the first couple nights it took me a long while to go to sleep. It was too quiet.

Little night bird

In the months of early spring, you can hear this rare little bird called a Whippoorwill. I tried to stalk him to get a picture but instead got his voice. you wont see any thing because it's night time, but I think he sounds pretty. Where I live there are many night sounds and different ones at in different seasons. This is one of the night critters I enjoy listening to.

Check this out!

We caught all these fish at Discovery on April 20; The smaller ones are Blue gills and green sunfish, And the white ones are Crappie. This big fella in the lead is a foot long- the biggest one yet. That's big for a crappie. He's also pictured all by himself at the right. Sorry about the bad pic.s . Couldn't get the flash off.

A weee one with a big one

Were catching bigger and bigger crappie as we learn their favorite baits. This one is 10 in. long. The middle pic. is Ducky with her Blue gill. I rescued this Luna moth from Emma who seemed to have fun chasing it.

Wellcome to the World Frodo & Sam!

Robin hood's ewe, Alaska, had twins yesterday morning. Robin hood named them after Lord of the rings characters. We thought Alaska wasn't having any this year. But she happened to have two healthy white boys. Frodo and Sam are our first white lambs. The rest of our sheep are basically brown or spotted except their mother. This concerned ewe is not their mother, but their devoted Auntie Arabia, who will have at least three of her own soon.

Tasty

Many people have told me that Crappie taste good. It really does, but for all us to get a good taste we had to cut him in pieces ( he is a pretty small one after being flayed). Also I finally figured out an easier way to flay any type of fish. In short, cut along the dorsal fins and the skin just behind the head and gills and pull the skin off without descaling, (Which is the worst part of gutting a fish for me). Then cut the head and tail off wipe out the innards and fry it. Yum yum!

Fishing again

We went fishing to Discovery pond again, but only for a few minutes so we didn't catch very much. But I caught the first Crappie ever caught at our house, too bad he's not bigger. look at the size of his wee little mouth!

SUPER early fishing

This week has been sort of warm, with little bits of spring showers every now and then. One day was especially warm so my sister bunny suggested we go fishing. So even though we didn't have any real chance catching anything, we finished our chores, packed our things and headed to the pond we call discovery pond. It is the closest one to our house, so we didn't have any trouble walking there on foot. We have three fishing ponds near us. This is our 2nd favorite one. Our absolute favorite is featured in the post: September fishing.

When we stuck our poles in the water; fish started nibbling on our bait. My sister Bunny broke the record for the most fish caught in a day at our house, with the number of 9 Blue gills, Ducky came second with 6, and last me, with 4. Unfortunately, they were all small except one of mine so we took it and Ducky's biggest home to eat. But Discovery pond will not last much longer unless somebody who has the money fixes it. Silt, (dirt) is seeping in because of the cows that have been stomping around it.

Spring polliwogs

Ducky took her younger sister and brother hunting for polliwogs,(tadpoles) in our pond today. They caught many quarter sized polliwogs and salamanders. Our baby sister likes holding them until their smooth wet bodies wiggle in her little hands.
I didn't think they would come out till May, But since they did, maybe the fish will be out pretty soon too.

SKUNK!

Ducky and I killed a skunk last week by ourselves, though of course with Aiden. Ducky threw hatchets through the widow wile Aiden kept the skunk in place and I finished it off with a metal fence pole. We didn't get sprayed but Aiden did. But after it was all done we walked through the stink. Our coats stunk up the laundry room though. The skunk was kinda cute though.