Hello, dears!
Today I have something a little different for you. Usually when I post my writing, I post poems, but this time I’m going to show you guys four of my sketches. Not as in light pencil drawings, but as in small scenes from my life written as a cross between a long poem and a short story. I really like writing sketches, but I’ve never posted them before, so I’d love to hear your thoughts! Continue reading
Hello, dears!
We’ve been going on exploratory walks around our farm almost every Sunday lately and it is SO much fun! Also I’ve taken SO many pictures! XD I seriously have way too many post ideas to keep up, so I’m going to combine a few walks into one post. Enjoy the virtual sunshine! 😀
On the first walk, we explored the woods beside Dad’s shop. Fern fiddleheads were unrolling everywhere and bright little violets popped up by tree roots covered in moss… ahh, I loved it. ❤ There were also carpets of mayapple plants, which I’d never seen before. Interesting.
This was about a month ago, when leaves and buds were just starting to come out.
Aren’t fiddleheads adorable? 😀
HA HA for some reason this just looks really funny to me. XD It’s like the tree has a tiny nose. Maybe I should draw a face around it. 😛
I LOVE MOSS. ❤
Ooh, I really like this picture, particularly the lighting! The violet is a little blurry, but I love the golden light. I don’t exactly know how I got this one, but I do know I didn’t edit it.
The roots are so neat, don’t you think?
As you can see, the leaves were DEFINITELY not out yet.
While walking back we saw a deep puddle that was literally TEEMING with tadpoles! There were hundreds if not a thousand. O.o I have never seen so many tadpoles in one place in my life!
The puddle nearly dried up a while ago and left a lot of dead tadpoles in the sun, but it rained just in time to save the rest. 😛 I should go check them again… last time I saw them they looked pretty much like this:
Next we have the walk in which we went down to our bigger stream and Carmen, Jeff, and Megan all swam even though they had regular clothes on and it wasn’t exactly hot. XD
HA HA I love this. XD
They seemed to be having a pretty good time, but I decided against joining them. 😛
Wow, that was a short walk. Anyway, the next one is at our smaller pond. We got a canoe at the auction after we bought the new farm, but it kinda leaked. So Dad and the boys patched it up, we got oars, and ta-daa!
This woods had some lovely beeches, and everything was SO GREEN!
This tree was huge and gorgeous. ❤ We came back to this spot for my birthday and had a dessert picnic with chocolate pecan pie. 😀 Yep, it was DELICIOUS. And then Carmen and I worked on a fairy house in these roots because I’d told her I would. 🙂 It was fun, but got dark really quickly. (Also I don’t have any pictures of that night, sorry. 
)
We also want to make a fairy house here sometime. 🙂
Now, onto the next walk! This is the most recent. Last Sunday, in fact. I think these flowers are called phlox, but whatever they are, they certainly made the side of the trail pretty! ❤
I brought my sketchbook and some drawing utensils along but didn’t end up using them that much. I did get a little sketch done, though. (Also this picture was super hard to get, but I like how it turned out.)
I’m fascinated with reflections and light and water, together or separate. 😀
Mom and Carmen and I (and later Dad) wandered along the smaller creek that we call Little Runny. The air was hot and muggy, so the shade and water felt amazing.
Mom found a few tulip-tree blooms and wanted me to take a picture of it for our house. I was quite happy to oblige, of course! 😀 Tulip-tree flowers are strange: green and orange and lily-shaped, with maple-like leaves. Certainly unique.
Carmen wanted to show me a “swimming hole” she’d found, which wasn’t actually quite deep enough to swim in. XD
While we were there, I saw a little water strider and the ripples it made looked neat, so obviously I had to take a picture. 😛
Ooh, I love this one!
This stretch of Little Runny has sand instead of rocks! The riverbed is a mixture of sand and mud, which feels so good to bare feet. There are also random sandbars scattered like tiny beaches by the creek. The first time I saw them I was really surprised that they weren’t manmade.
Anyway, Carmen and I decided to try and build a sandcastle on one of the “beaches.” I think it turned out pretty cute for only having our hands to work with. (Thanks to my mom for taking this picture!)
(Heh heh, once I started using this filter it was hard to stop. Oops.) I love this picture too! Isn’t it so cute and aesthetic? It looks like a summer beach photo instead of a spring creek photo. 😛
Maggie also came along with us. She loves to wade in the streams and puddles, even though she never swims in deep ponds and stuff. Isn’t she so cute?
And now let me end with this cool, refreshing picture. 😀 I love the colors in this one!
And there you have a small sampling of my many spring pictures. Going outside at this time of the year is quite dangerous for me if I intend the pictures for my blog because I JUST CAN’T. KEEP. UP. But you know, I think that’s rather a good problem to have. 😉
Do you always take an excessive amount of pictures in spring too? Which is your most photographed season? And do you have a favorite or favorites of these pictures? I’d love to hear!
Thanks so much for reading, dears, and have a lovely day! ❤
***Allison***
Hello, dears!
I’m super excited to finally show you guys this post! I must warn you, though, it’s quite lengthy. I recommend getting something tasty to eat or drink, finding a comfortable spot, and reading on. 🙂
Ahem. Our new farm was founded in approximately 1777 (so it’s not exactly new, ha), and we’ve found some really neat old things while exploring it. These include but are not limited to a very old graveyard, a fairly old house + schoolhouse/cabin, and approximately 100-year-old postcards, books, and handwritten letters, one of which was written in Germany in 1922, and which I laboriously (and not so skillfully) translated. ARE YOU EXCITED? I AM.
First, the graveyard. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s not far from the big house, as you can see. And no, that doesn’t really creep me out, in case you wondered. XD I hope you guys don’t mind it… 😉
This one is from 1777, approximately when this farm (and country) was founded! :O At the bottom it says “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.”
Wow, a soldier that fought in the Civil War… O.o (Those blurred out spots are place names. 😉 )
This one is so sad. 😦
Is it weird that I like this picture?
And this one too…
Some gravestones aren’t even marked, which is also sad.
Let’s move on to a… nicer topic, perhaps. 😉 I don’t know how old this tree is, but it’s huge and GORGEOUS.
I love this picture, maybe because it looks estate-ly to me. XD
Next we have an old broken down log cabin. So exciting. XD But this was most likely the original house! After that it may have been the kitchen, then it was a school, then a garage, and that’s where it fell down – the guy that made it into a garage a long time ago just chopped a large door in the side of the wall, which weakened it so that it finally fell down completely about the time we bought the farm. I can’t wait to clear it away because it’s kind of an eyesore. :[] We’re hoping to clean off and keep the chimney and make a patio with a pagoda there!
One day Mom and I went inside the rubble and found a dilapidated cardboard box full of old letters and pamphlets and envelopes and such! It was SO neat! Here are a few of the more interesting things we found.
A vintage postcard from 1922…
And one from 1940…
Look at that little typewritten note at the top… XD XD IT WOULD BE GOOD TO KNOW YOUR RETURN ADDRESS FOR SURE, AHEM. 😛 Also oh my goodness, I just now noticed something – the stamp is a one cent stamp! And now it costs 50 times that… for a letter, at least.
And look, some neat old pictures! This was had “Dan, Walter, and Myself” written on the back.
BAHAHA I don’t think this guy liked to have his picture taken, do you? XD
The last sentence… 😦 Still so true.
Sickness and suffering seems to be a common theme in these letters, actually.
Okay, this is tragic. It’s some school paper or other but I don’t know if the student wrote it or just copied it. Nevertheless…
What?! They used triple exclamation points back in 1897? I thought it was a modern thing…
We also found some later typewritten letters. Read the second line up from the horizontal crease in this picture. O.o
The typewritten letter was addressed to “My Dear Darling Sweetheart” or something like that. I thought it was a love letter at first too, but look how it’s addressed:
We even found some old checks! Too bad we can’t cash them in. XD
I believe this is a bank statement. The writing is so pretty, isn’t it? We’re hoping to frame some of the nicer-looking letters. 🙂
And now… *drum roll* I’m proud to present the old German letter! It was SO much harder to translate than I thought, because some letters like the r’s and s’s looked practically the same, there were ink blots and faded parts, etc. I’m sure I made tons of mistakes, but at least you can get the gist of what it says.
Since this post is long already, I took out a few of the most boring/badly-translated/unnecessary parts, re-formatted it just a bit to make it easier to read, and added notes in brackets. Ahem.
Dear Aunt! Wednesday, March 16th, 1922 // Marburg/Lahn, Germany
We have received your letter from February. Brother Heinrich is now quite healthy; he has already gained 12 pounds and is very rosy in the face. [HA HA. XD] We have cared for him well, even in winter, and every evening we warm the bed because he gets very cold. His things are all in good condition – I have washed and mended everything. […]
It was a nice sight when Heinrich arrived here. Crooked, half-tied shoes, old blankets over his arm, frozen through and through, and then the dirty rags of a poor soldier. [Goodness gracious! Also I don’t know if I translated “soldier” right, but isn’t that intriguing? Maybe he fought in WWI!] […]
Before the brother came, I had a family of tailors do the work. But when they saw him, they said, “No, no, we don’t need that, we must take care that nothing happens to him, and we have no time for that.” [I think the writer means she used to have tailors make new clothes, but for some mysterious reason, they didn’t want to work for Brother Heinrich. Do you think maybe his being an American soldier had something to do with it?] […]
And now he [Heinrich] thinks that if he had enough money, he would buy a greenhouse in Charlottesville and sell flowers. The houses here are so high in price that we can’t buy even one for a few dollars, not to mention the high taxes. […]
We cannot keep the brother, I’m sorry to write to you. […] It is better that he goes back to Charlottesville again, where he is used to, and where they sing to him in his old age, and care for him. Here in Germany that is not possible because only locals are admitted [to nursing homes] and he is an American. He has now had his way and has been to Germany. […]
My people do not want me to take on such a burden again as I bore for 40 years – I fed my father for 40 years, and the brothers lived freely and didn’t care about him. [she mentioned how hard it was to care for her father several times. It must have been quite a job.] […]
You meant very well, but now you’ll understand we cannot keep him [Heinrich] here. I am always bound to him and cannot go my own way, which I should and must. So, dearest aunt and cousins, I would like to politely and urgently ask you to send Brother H. a ship ticket very soon, […]
[Okay guys, the next part is where things get interesting:]
The cost of living is almost impossibly high here. The meat is reduced by 2 marks each week: it costs 50 marks per pound. [I researched how much this would be in U. S. dollars today, and it would be $240,806. *horrified look*.] Butter costs 42 marks [$202,193] all winter. A feather bed costs 5000 marks [GUYS. THAT’S $1,600,000. :O :O :O]. You can now imagine how trying it is to have the brother in my house, and once again I ask you to release me soon from this burden. I knew in advance how everything would come about and that was why I was against it. […]
The constantly rising inflation has an appalling effect on the minds. You wrote that you wanted to do something for the brother, so I would like to ask you once more to put him in a retirement home, where he has care and company – here he knows no one.
Dear Aunt, I hope you’ll soon help me sort out this matter and send the ship’s ticket to the brother, because our stock of potatoes will only last until August and there are no new ones to be found. […]
In the hope that this letter finds you in good health, […]
Auguste Hoof Schwaner
_______________________________________
So I looked it up, and in the first half of 1922, when this letter was written, the German mark was worth 320 marks per U. S. dollar. O.o In the SECOND half of 1922, the mark went into hyperinflation and plummeted to $7,400 MARKS PER DOLLAR: you had to use 7,400 German dollars to buy something worth ONE American dollar! Oh my goodness.
Auguste, unfortunately you haven’t seen anything yet. I sure hope they got Brother Heinrich out of there before Auguste’s family ran out of money or potatoes, don’t you?
We’re actually planning to take down the log cabin at some indeterminate but hopefully soon date, and I’m sure we’ll find a bunch more fascinating things underneath the floorboards! Did you enjoy this post enough to be interested in another on what we find when we take down the log cabin or is this stuff kinda boring in your opinion? Do tell!
Also. What was your favorite “old thing” in this post? Have you ever found neat artifacts like these? Thanks for reading this long-winded post, my dears, and please have a lovely day!
***Allison***
P. S. GUYS, GUESS WHAT? WE HAVE FAST INTERNET NOW! (*Update* Okay so it’s supposedly unlimited, but after we use up our high-speed data it cuts us back to slower internet. Not as bad as before, but still…) That means I don’t have to drive 10-30 minutes to a library to use their Wi-Fi, and therefore I can make posts more often! *grins hugely*
Hello, dears! I was hoping to do a “Recent Art” post or maybe a post about the old letters, but unfortunately I don’t have enough time (or Wi-Fi) for either. But don’t worry, hopefully those will be next! Until then, I have some more spring-y pictures for you! I absolutely LOVE this photoshoot and I hope you will too. 🙂
There are a ton of redbuds at our new farm and the surrounding country. Sometimes the side of the woods looks pink with all the blossoms! We also have two gorgeous redbuds in the yard of the big house and the one especially just looked perfect this year… maybe it usually does? But this is the first year I’ve seen it, and it’s gorgeous. ❤
AHHH IT’S SO PRETTY.
I got a few pictures with my macro lens. This one is one of my favorites from the whole shoot!
It’s neat to see how complex the tiny blooms are close up.
The look kind of like slippers with huge bows on top or something. XD
There were absolutely a ton of bees buzzing around the blossoms, which was a bit, um, scary, especially when I used my macro lens and stuck my camera inches away from my subject. O.o But no worries, I didn’t get stung. 🙂 I think they were too focused on the nectar.
Their wings are so delicate!
Heh heh, this guy looked a lot less delicate than the rest of the bees.
You can see the pollen sac super well in this one.
I don’t know why there’s a spot in the middle of its “fur,” but I thought it was interesting.
I love how you can see the bee getting ready to land in this one!
The 50mm lens I have makes such amazing bokeh. ❤
I tried to crop this, but it ruined the nice composition, so I didn’t after all. Oh well. 🙂
And we’ll end with these two pictures. I don’t know WHAT happened with this photo, but I think it looks kind of neat? Too bad I didn’t get a clearer picture of the bird, though.
Ahh, so pretty, don’t you think? ❤ I can’t WAIT to move in!
And that’s all for now! Thanks for reading, dears, and I hope you enjoyed the photos! Do you have redbuds or other blooming trees where you live? What’s your favorite part about spring?
***Allison***
P. S. Speaking of photography, you guys should check out Kalea’s blog! She has some beautiful spring photography on there as well as a review of the macro lens I used for part of this post. 🙂 (Also if you’d like to see my macro lens review, click here.)
Hello, dears!
I hope you had a great Easter! I sure did. 🙂 We had a great time going to our old church again and seeing friends, as well as having family celebrations.
Once Easter is past, it seems like it really ought to be spring, heh heh. So today I’ve compiled some recent farm photography from various rambles – mostly springy ones, but a few from the last bits of winter too. I hope you enjoy “walking” around the farm with me!
I love how the soft light polishes the smooth gnarls of this twisted tree.❤
If you peer into the woods here, you’re bound to see drifts of pale leaves on small trees all over the place. We didn’t have beeches at home, so it’s fun to see leaves here even in winter!
There’s a little island of trees in the pasture behind the Cedar House, some of which are pines laden with cones. I think pine cones are just so satisfying and pretty to take pictures of and hold. 😛
I love finding bright spots of color among the gray!
Another common tree here that isn’t common at home is the sweet gum tree. The seed pods always have bad hair days, heh heh. XD
Plush cushions of velvety green moss make me happy. 🙂
Now we get to the wintry part, but it’s just a few pictures. 😉 Quite a while ago, the smaller pond was frozen enough to walk on, so of course we did so, hee hee. Don’t you love finding things frozen into the ice, like this oak leaf? Such a cold bed for the bright little thing to be sleeping in.
The ice crystals were GORGEOUS. I love the delicate, fleeting strength of ice.
Jellyfish bubbles floating, frozen…
Isn’t the crystallized texture so fine and pretty? At the bottom left I think it looks like an ice feather.
The very top of the ice melted, but it was still solid underneath, don’t worry. 😉 The reflections… ❤
Alright, enough of the cold. How’s this for a warmer picture? That little ridge is a cow path. It always amazes me how straight and narrow the paths are, especially for such big, clumsy animals. XD
AHHH THE LIGHT. How could anyone not love golden hour? Hmm… maybe everyone does.
It looks like the foxtail head is floating. 😛
Okay, we’re switching topics again. XD Now we’re walking down to the big pond, which is NOT frozen, as you may notice.
The deep sapphire blue water contrasts so nicely with the pale cattails, don’t you think?
Here’s a different kind of blue. For some reason there are SO many vultures floating around, and even though I don’t particularly like the birds themselves, I like to watch them glide (or wobble, on windy days XD).
The fields are neon green on sunny days and it looks like SPRING, YAY. Except there are still no leaves on the trees…
This really reminds me of the default header on… the Hemingway theme, is it?
SO. PRETTY.
And here’s the big house… which is still being worked on. *sigh* The moving date is getting pushed further and further away, and right now it would be great if we could even move in before my birthday in the beginning of May.
Goodness, this post is all over the place… here’s a random photo of those strange cedar apples again! O.o
Next I have a few pictures of our smaller creek, which we have nicknamed “Little Runny.” 😛 I absolutely love it! The twisted roots of overhanging trees, tiny sandbar beaches, mossy stones, and clear bubbling rivulets weave together an enchanted atmosphere. ❤
I really want to make this into a fairy house. Isn’t it perfect?
Look, it’s a little rainbow lens flare!
Water fascinates me. Always moving, always changing, always twisting and rippling under the light. I think water and light together are especially beautiful and interesting to watch.
We found several pools along the creek that are pretty heavily populated with minnows and crayfish. (What do YOU call them? Crayfish? Crawfish? Crawdads?) We didn’t have a net, so we made do with a colander and metal strainer bought from Dollar General. XD
HA HA, it looks like he’s raising his claws in surrender. XD
My cousin kindly allowed me to take a picture of her, splendidly modelling the colander as a hat. 😛
And last but not least I have a handful of black and white edits that I quite like for different. 🙂 This one is pond ripples, but I think they look like tiny sand dunes too.
❤
I really like this one too! I always find pictures of hands, by themselves or holding something, appealing; I don’t quite know why.
I love how the round clusters of sycamore seeds hang from the branches like ornaments.
Apparently I think trees look really good in black and white. 🙂
And I saved one of my favorites for last. ❤ The vultures and cows together look so rural and free.
I hope you enjoyed this longish, scattered post, dears! Which picture was your favorite? Which was your LEAST favorite? Are you ready for spring?
Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful warm day!
***Allison***
goodbye…
hiding in the hollow tree that somehow still lives on, half-destroyed;
green truck rides through buzzing goldenrod and tangled berry brambles;
skipping up to Gram’s to get flour because we ran out… again;
sunsets leaking burning lava over the mountain ridges;
creaming corn days, warm cardboard boxes dripping with the smell of pizza for lunch;
treasure hunts for crystals by the side of the thorn-ringed pond;
building forts and holes and towers in a barn full of fuzzy cotton seeds;
climbing the hill to get fresh eggs, crossing the road to get fresh milk;
family gathered around a crackling bonfire by the creek overhung with mint;
the farm rolling out from under you at the top of the tallest hill;
art parties, tables laden with shared supplies and traded ideas;
walking under the majestic, white-boned sycamores under a clear blue sky;
church potlucks that are feasts, where we know each face at the tables;
the succulent sound of cows tearing off mouthfuls of grass in the pasture;
selling rusty metal parts and cow bones and broken bottles for pinecones at the island;
playing with friends in the grain bins, jumping off the ladder into the yellow corn;
capture-the-flag games and ATC trades after church;
finding litters of soft, tumbling barn kittens and watching them grow;
sledding down Gram’s hill with cousins and sipping hot chocolate afterward;
firefly-catching contests; flashing bits of flying gold captured in hands and jars;
club meetings: crooked stairs, dusty seats, shouts and laughter pounding the low rafters;
rambling nature walks all over the farm with friends;
eating picnic suppers on the flat roof outside our bedroom on a calm summer evening;
everyone gathered at the last chicken house, talking and laughing, relieved to be done…
goodbye.
_
new is a crackly word, an uncomfortable word –
it takes breaking in, like a fresh pair of shoes.
the old is familiar. it may be torn and falling to pieces, but it is love that made it so.
you know, don’t you?
when what we’re used to becomes what used to be,
the touch of change is sharp, its hold is slippery,
but oh, how can I bear to let go?
I know.
so,
goodbye, old farm, goodbye, old friends. goodbye, old life.
I’ll miss you.
I already do.
❤
***Allison***
Eeeeek, I’m so excited to show you guys these pictures! 😀 It snowed 6 or 7 inches while we were up at the new farm, and it was GORGEOUS. ♥ Good thing I brought my camera, heh heh. I also brought the macro extension tube set I got for Christmas and it worked splendidly for taking pictures of individual snowflakes! Sooo pretty.
Anyway, I guess I’ll let you see for yourselves now, huh?
I love this little snowdrift sculpture on the roof. 😛
Isn’t this neat? It’s kind of hard to tell, but it’s snow on a wooden staircase.
Dripping icicles are great fun to take pictures of. 🙂
I think this one’s neat too. ♥ It kind of looks vintage to me – does it to you?
There were some cute birds by the hay rebaling barn and I got some… okay pictures. They wouldn’t let me get too close, and I was only wearing tennis shoes in the snow so I didn’t WANT to get too close or my feet would get completely soaked. XD
Ohhhh for some reason I love this picture. ♥ REMEMBER THOSE DOUGHNUTS?
Snow + Cows = Photogenicness. Sadly I took this out the car window so it isn’t as photogenic as it could be.
I quite like how you can see the snow falling so clearly in these pictures!
The falling snow… the wooden fences… the covered trees… ahh, I think I can safely say snow looks even prettier down there than up here, and that’s saying something. XD
Alright, now for my favorite part – the close-ups!
Look, you can see the invidual snowflake(s)!
Snowflakes are incredibly beautiful. ♥
And now for my pride and joy… ta-daa!
Isn’t it so beautifully delicate? I just LOVE zooming in and being able to see the intricacy of each snowflake. ♥ So far this is definitely my favorite part about that lens set. I’ll hopefully do a review of them once I take more photos with them and figure them out a bit more, but they’re quite neat so far!
One thing I will say – you have to use manual focus which is difficult when taking such close-up pictures. Even a tiny movement can make the subject blurry. But other than that, I love them!
I hope you enjoyed these pictures, dears. 😀 Which ones were your favorites? Did you get snow where you live too?
***Allison***
P. S. Guys, if you love photography too, you should definitely check out Roxanne’s photography challenge! I probably won’t be doing it since, as I keep saying, we’re pretty busy with the move, but it looks super neat and I’ll bet it will be great fun!
The other day when we had our little Labor Day adventure I did a rather cute photoshoot with my little sister Carmen, if I do say so myself. 🙂 I just love how the pictures turned out, and I can’t wait to show you guys!
When I saw all the pretty pink smartweed flowers, I knew they were just begging to be in a photoshoot. Heh heh. I asked Carmen if I could take pictures of her and after a few tries she reluctantly agreed… and then once we got started she didn’t want to stop. XD If you love photography and have siblings, especially younger siblings, a photoshoot is a really fun thing to do with them!
Ahem. And now for the pictures (and there are a LOT). XD
“Oh, Carmen, you look creepy!”
*laughs* “Yeah, I meant to.”
I took a lot of pictures with Carmen in the background because I thought the lighting and bokeh made it look lovely. 🙂
Oh my goodness, isn’t the setting perfect for these? The lighting… the flowers… ahh!
Carmen found a hollow stump and wanted me to take pictures of her in it.
Okay, now these next few pictures are some of my favorites from the shoot!
“Allison, you should take a picture of me bending down, like I’m finding something on the ground.”
Ha ha, so she wanted me to take a picture of her on that long, horizontal limb in the last picture, and I agreed. But we had quite the struggle to get her up there. XD I hung my camera on a branch and tried boosting her up, then letting her climb on top of me, and after several tries and much laughter we finally succeeded. XD
I forget if Carmen or I had the idea for these next pictures… I think it was me. Anyway, they turned out so cute!
She was a bit uncertain of how to pose without jabbing herself on the barbed wire fence, but she figured it out. 😉
And we shall end with another of my favorites:
There we go! I hope you had as much fun looking through the pictures as I did taking them. 🙂 Which was your favorite (if you have one)? Have you ever done a photoshoot with a younger sibling? This one was quite fun and if I started to run out of ideas, Carmen gave me an ample supply. XD
Thanks for reading, my dears, and have a lovely day!
***Allison***
This Labor Day we did something a different than an ordinary picnic or cook-out. Since Dad and the boys were out harvesting corn, Mom suggested that we girls pack a lunch and just go out and walk around the farm. So we did! It was quite fun.
We packed some sandwiches, mint tea, chips, and a couple other things which I can’t remember (XD), and took along backpacks filled with books and cameras.
This is my cucumber sandwich. Say hello. I didn’t want to waste the bread crusts after I cut out the sandwich, so I flattened them with a rolling pin, spread some cream cheese on, and rolled them up into roses. 😛
First we headed past a place we call “The Sycamores” because… there are a lot of huge sycamore trees by the creek. 
I found some lovely periwinkle morning glories along the path. Aren’t they charming?
We finally settled on a pretty, peaceful corner of the pasture filled with smartweed – a dainty little pink flower. We spread out a blanket, hung the hammock, and relaxed.
I did a really fun, cute photoshoot with my little sister here, but this post would be insanely long if I included all those photos oh wait it already is, so I’ll save it for later. Anyway, this was a great spot for taking pictures of little things. My favorite! 😀
The scenery was more scrubby here than the rest of our farm, but still pretty.
Trees are nice.
After we ate lunch and read for a while, we decided to move to a different spot. We crossed the barbwire fence (no easy feat in this pasture), walked over the field, up the hill, down a lane, and up another hill to a beautiful hidden spot behind a pasture. We’d never been there before, which is something rare since we’ve walked pretty much everywhere on our farm, and it was delightful to explore it.
Unfortunately I didn’t get many pictures with my camera because it ran out of battery, but Megan lent me hers.
HA HA cows are such funny creatures. XD
I had the idea to play mancala while we were there. (Have you ever played that? It’s really fun!) I dug out some holes in the dirt with a stick and used corn kernels for the marbles. It actually worked!
It’s really hard to see on camera, but Carmen and I built a great fort around this perfect square of trees. There were huge logs scattered everywhere (one pile was in a huge sinkhole O.o ). They made great walls but were exhausting to carry. We didn’t finish the fort, but we did make a good start.
Mom and Carmen and I also built this little campfire area in a pretty shaded nook. We stacked stones for a firepit, hauled in some rocks and stumps for chairs, and made benches from logs and rocks. 🙂 It was fun.
Mom also found this really odd-looking spider. O.o (She’s for you, Clara. 😉 )
In the evening our whole family came up and had a picnic with us, and a bonfire too.
So that’s what we did for Labor Day! It was great fun, even though the mosquitoes practically devoured me. I got over 40 mosquito bites (yes, I counted XD). O.o Anyway, the memories will last for much longer than the bites will, so it’s all good.
I hope you enjoyed this loooong post, my dears! Which was your favorite picture? Which was your least favorite? What did you do for Labor Day?
***Allison***
Allison Marie 