My Visit to Avery's Branch Farm

The sunrise over some of the farm's outbuildings

Hey guys! How's everybody doing? It's Sunday night and I am finally getting a chance to slow down and think about my weekend. I got back last night from spending a few days with the Alexander family at their farm in Amelia. I thought that I'd post a quick run-down of the time that we had; along with a few pictures that I grabbed from my video. So here it goes:) I left my house on Thursday in my trusty old Subaru with map-quested directions in hand and my stuff in the back seat. It was rainy and gray out; but I had a fresh load of songs on my mp3 player and expected to enjoy the drive. After stopping for some lunch on Rt.460, I finished the rest of the drive in one chunk and was blessed to see the full beauty of fall as I got farther and north and west. When I got to the Alexander's, their dog Sammy greeted me as I made my way up to the house. Mrs. Alexander welcomed me into the house and called Elliott and Oliver in from the barn. They toured me all around the place and it is a really nice set-up. [If I'm correct, it was a fairly large dairy operation at one time.] After the tour, it was time for the evening chores. They showed me the ropes [and guys, I hope I didn't come off too, too, naive:), and I got to see the typical drill.

Milking time

We had a great dinner and played a card game until bedtime. We woke up at 5:00 the next morning to what sounded like a orchestral fanfare and scared me half to death:) Elliott took pity on me and gave me some coffee to help me finish waking up:) It was actually really cool to be doing a bunch of stuff outside before there was any hint of light in the sky.[seeing as I hardly ever do that]. I got to help with the chickens a good bit [which was neat because it was kind of like the stuff we do for ours- though on a much larger scale and with many improvements]. Speaking of improvements, I took away some really good ideas for waterers and double-checked a feeder design for our chickens. [Thanks guys!]. Oh! Right here I have to mention the attack turkeys. I'm sure it was quite amusing for my hosts, but every time I went to feed the turkeys, they all surrounded me and pecked and herded me to their feeder. I've never seen The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock, but it seemed like this might be pretty close.

The Attack Turkeys-go on, laugh, they're alot fiercer than they look!

For the rest of Fri. we processed 112 chickens and got really cold. Mr. and Mrs. Alexander left [to go deliver milk I think], and us boys made dinner. It was the ideal meal for workers that are tired and wet and cold: ham steaks, chicken tenders, and pork sausage. Actually, Oliver made dinner while Elliott and I sat out on the porch with him while he grilled it all up. The rest of the family patiently waited for our masterpiece:) and we all had an excellent [though maybe a little late] dinner. That night we played Balderdash once Mr. and Mrs. Alexander had returned. Mr. Alexander won, and we got ready to go upstairs. Right them we had a scare because Elliott had what turned out to be a seizure. He had to go to the hospital and didn't get back until 6:30 in the morning. Thankfully he was feeling much better on Saturday after Oliver and I came in from doing the morning chores.[It was good to see you back to more of yourself Elliott, and you're definatley in our prayers]. For the rest of Sat. we didn't really have any pressing thing to do, so we went upstairs and played our instruments for a little while. For the last bit of the afternoon, we looked at some Ray Comfort and Tim Hawkins videos on the computer. I headed out after saying goodbye to everyone and being sent off with some farm's wares to take home.[Thank you all very much, we made the best hot chocolate today with some of the milk!] I had a great trip home and was reunited with my family and sisters who had just gotten back from camp. All in all, I had a wonderful and blessed time [although there was plenty of excitement]. Thanks to the Alexander family for having me out, and I hope to see you all soon!

O.K., I better get going, but here's some other pictures for you:

Here's the barn and cow stalls,

Here's the cows in the stalls,

Here's Oliver outside of one of the hoop houses,

And last but not least, here's little Miss Sheridan with the pillow that she named after me. She calls it her "children":) Can you see the resemblance to me? :)

Goodbye everyone, and have a good week!

Did You Miss Me?

Don't worry anybody! It's OK, it's OK! Settle Down, take a deep breath, there you go, that's it. I AM BACK! I'm sure everyone's been wondering where I went since my last post was last Friday. Well, your worries are over............. Yeah, right. This is probably the first time most people have visited this blog since Friday. [go on, raise your hands.] The uh, statement back up there should probably be for me. What I mean is this. Our Internet provider got some things all mixed up back at their office, and that resulted in our not having Internet access since Fri. or Sat. I haven't been able to check my e-mails, post on the blog, or anything. I think I was getting slightly panicked. I made some calls though, and they finally got everything straightened out. That's why It's such a [sniff] big moment for me to sign back on. Okay, let's get back down to earth here. Whew! So much has happened since last weekend. First and foremost, I would like to thank Katie, Morgan, and Oliver for signing on as followers of these rabbit-traily blogs. Secondly, speaking of Mr. Oliver, I found out that the he, using the best of his secret-keeping and espionage skills to start up a blog [for several weeks I'm told] without anybody finding out. Then, his sister, [you know, the one with the famous blog "Striving To Serve At Home"] found him out and blew his cover all over cyberspace! :) All right, if any of you want to know how paintball went- it was great! The Hauseworth family has turned several acres [I'm estimating] of their woods into a real paintball park! [Minus the admission fees] Over the years they have dug and hammered and nailed and thatched and burrowed to build a veritable colony of different forts, fox holes, and trenches. I think that Aaron K. also had a lot to do with it. Anyway, I Map-Quested the address and didn't really have any problem getting there. We split into teams, and started the war! I won't bore you with all of the really cool, brave, and daring things we did, [nor will I bore you with the much more prevalent uncool, nervous, and clumsy things that I did]. Suffice it to say that it was just what I needed. It poured rain for part of the day, I got my boots soaked, we drank Gatorade, and I did end up actually getting some people out. Yay! I met Mom and the girls at Wal-Mart where they were picking up some last minute camp things, and then I drove home. Which brings me to the next bit of info. Aliens have abducted a great portion of the sisters from some of our close friends and family. Or they're all at Daughters of Destiny camp for the week. Well, they got Rachel and Sarah with the rest of them and I've been kind of lonely for the week. [I have been having fun with the rest of the kids though; I took Leah and Anna to breakfast at the cafe and we had a great time eating and talking and goofing around]. O.K. I'm going to get going because I'm scheduled to go out to the Alexander's tomorrow to visit them and help out with chores and projects and stuff for a couple of days. [maybe I'll try to find out all of the "how to make great blogs" information and scribble it down to sell to all of my friends back home. :) Just kidding! Alright, please pray for the girls at camp, and I'll try to post soon!

In Which The Gentleman From Va. Starts his weekend

Happy Friday evening to the various and sundry! Yours Truly is dirty, dusty, hat-haired, and generally physically tired out.[My mind is just getting going for the night though]. All of the contracted aerating and seeding is done, and the lawns that didn't get seed got mowed today. So that means that our customer work week is over:) Now don't get me wrong with my smiley face there; I believe that work is a very good thing that is enjoyable to do, and we also have some really nice customers; but, there is a distinct "Take-a-big-breath-and-kick-off-your-shoes-after-the-tiring-dusty-day-and-get-ready-to-spend-some-time-taking-care-of-some-things-around-your-own-house-and-spend-some-time-restoring-with-friends-and-family-and-driving-around-with-your-sisters-and-going-to-church-etc.-etc." feeling about a weekend that just is so timely and needed that you can't really beat it. Hence, my smiley face:) Well it looks like I'll get to start off my Sat. by going to a paintball game with some of the church boys that Aaron K. told me about earlier this week. I am slightly nervous though, because as some of you may know, well to put it frankly: I just about can't stand the sight of a snake. "What does this have to do with paint balling?" you might ask. Well, last week the people who's house we're going to found and killed a pretty big rattle snake. Ugh. [not the killing part, but the durn snake itself] So here's what my dilemma is: should I take comfort in the fact that since they've never found one before, the chances should be really slim to see one now that they just killed the only one they ever saw, OR, should I be scared to death because where there's one, there's probably more. Or even a nest of more. Creeps. So, that's my deal. Any thoughts from any of you folks out there? Is there anyone who shares my non-affections for snakes? Oh, well, if I'm here after tomorrow I'll let you know how it went. Or maybe they'd let me use Wi-Fi from Chesapeake General Hospital.

Rainy Day

Good Morning everybody! Please do not be depressed by the title of this blog- I love rainy days! I'm excited as I see that Fall has definitely moved in. The air is cool and breezy and the "deciduous"[that's a big landscaper word for "trees that lose their leaves in the fall"] trees are really showing their colors. The Fall and most of Winter are some of my absolute favorite seasons. I know that my birthday's in there, but I don't think it's just that:) Well, here's some updates. "The King's Daughter" let our family borrow some DVDs. One featured Little Bear Wheeler and his talk about the life of William Wallace.[I'm finding some neat people in history that have my middle name for a first name.] That was really interesting, but I can't stand to hear about the way he died. The other DVD was Voddie Bauchum's talk on defending the Resurrection of Jesus. That was a great one as well. Okay, last night was GenJ and Cuccinelli's district campaign manager guy came and spoke to us about Ken and what we could do to help him if we were so inclined. If I can come up with some free time, I may be doing some door-to-door or sign waving or phone banking etc. [However, if you've been to my house recently, you've probably noticed my regiment of signs lining the road front]. Our aerating and seeding is coming along pretty well, and if we go to work today, I think we hope to finish. Hey did I mention that I'm reading the Federalist Papers? It's a book of editorials that were sent in to New York newspapers by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison, during the time that our country was deciding whether or not to ratify our constitution. These were called the Federalist Papers and were in support of the Constitution. Can you guess what the Anti-Federalist Papers were? Hope that you all have a good day, and I'll post again soon!

Hey

Good Sunday evening to you all. [I guess I should say ya'll if I live in the country:) Hope that everbody had a good time at church or whatever else you did for you heathens[hee!hee!]
Well, as for us, we hosted our home church at our house. The trip to church took forever though, all those stairs to walk down and everything:) So all of that went well. Uncle David brought his drum set over for worship time, and Dad played his bass while Katie, Justin, and I played our guitars. I always love that. After church, we had to eat lunch pretty quickly because I ended up taking Matthew, Rachel and Sarah to the Life Chain.[I explained what that is on yesterday's post] Anyway, we got our signs and ended up having enough people show up to line about two blocks of V.B. blvd. on both sides of the street! It was a really great time to pray for and think about the need for God to change our country's heart in relation to abortion. We got to see the Crane family afterwords, [Mr. David Crane is the local organizer of Life Chain and the president of Life Ministries]. It turns out that one of their daughters is engaged to an old friend of ours that we haven't been in touch with for a long time. That was cool. By the way, I think I got the info I posted yesterday kind of mixed up. Life Ministries did not start Life Chain, David Crane just organizes this chapter of it. But hey. So we had a good time with that, and I ended up switching cars with Mr. Larry to take the Wright boys home. He came over later and re-switched cars. So that's my day. I'll keep you all up to date this week, and I hope you all have a good week yourselves!

How Are We?

Hey guys, how's everybody out there this afternoon? As for me, I'm doing pretty well. I stayed up late and got up early. Dad and I ate breakfast at the little cafe in our little town. We got there before it opened but they let us in anyway. We left there and had 3 lawns to finish in V.B. Then we went by the Music and Arts store to get strings for Dad's bass guitar and while we were there he bought me a capo. [I'd had one, but over the summer it disappeared] Then Dad wanted to see if a tire place could put some tires on the trailer. I wanted to get home to get my chores and things done[plus maybe have some "weekend" time] but we decided to just go by and "see if they had a waiting line or not". Once we got there [and there was a bit of a line] we walked up to "see how long the wait was". Of course we ended up waiting and getting the tires. I did want to get home sooner than we did, but now we know that we won't have to worry about one of those tires blowing out on the road.[They were really quite bad]. So all in all, it was probably worth it. Once we got back, I did end up getting all of my stuff done. Sarah helped me clean out and wash the Subaru until Mom and Rachel got back from a nutritionist appointment. Right now I'm trying to figure out something fun and "weekendy" to do. Any ideas? Hey, tomorrow is the Life Chain event. I haven't really mentioned it on here, so I'll give a brief run-down. Life Chain is an annual event started by Life Ministries to pray for the end of abbortion= the legalized murder of the children of our country. It's also trying to raise awareness about the issue of abortion in our community. It's held on the sidewalk at the corner of Va. Beach blvd. and Independance blvd. We silently line the sidewalk holding signs that say "abortion kills children". It's not a demonstration or a rally. It's a time to pray about this issue and for our country's repentance and forgiveness in this area. It lasts an hour and then you pretty much head home. I haven't recieved the final word 0n if we're going or who's going, but we've done it in the past and it's really neat. So that's that. By the way, the picture at the top is one I took in D.C. [no foolin':) I just thought that the capitol looked cool in the fog. Well hey, I'm gonna sign out for now. Hope you're having a good weekend!

Ciao

Does anybody know what that means? If it means goodbye that's not what I meant to say. I meant to say something that would mean "hello" but sound fancier. So, to be safe, if I've welcomed you with a goodbye, I'll fix it by saying hello. Hello. Now that that's settled, let's get back to work. First off, I'd like to thank "The King's Daughter" for becoming a follower of this blog. Here at Unscripted Inc. we want all of our readers to feel welcomed and appreciated, but we try to give actual followers a written recognition on the blog:) Okay, what's next? Well, I guess I'll mention that we got home at 9:30ish tonight, and we still didn't get every lawn done. [Thurs. and Fri. are our lawn days]. But, we'll hopefully be able to finish the last 3 pretty quickly tomorrow. Oh yeah, we got to finally watch "Expelled" [the movie by Ben Stein]. I really enjoyed it. Actually we all did. It's a documentary, but so well done that you end up getting into it at least as much as a drama [script- based] movie. I would say though, that there's a certain level of maturity that's needed to understand all of the information and dialogue. [There's also a few disturbing images from WWII prison camps]. It was very tastefully done though; and does a great job of pointing out the fact that Darwinian science and a great many scientists, are deathly afraid of and angry at any attempt to question the "Great Oz" of Evolution. It is a subject that begs and deserves our attention. By the way, I have a GenJ meeting this Tues. and it looks like the district director of the Cucinelli campaign is going to speak to us! That should be really interesting. We've been asked to bring any and all of our questions and I'm working on my list.[mentally at least] If any of you readers out there haven't heard of Sen. Ken Cucinelli, he's a home school dad that's running for Attorney General in our lovely state of Virginia. I've had the opportunity to hear him speak several times and he's really a genuine, grass-roots, back to the principles our nation was founded on kind of guy. Anyways, if anyone has any questions for Sen. Cucinelli's guy, I'd be happy to ask them if you'll leave them as a comment. Then I can post all of the answers. [For all the hunters etc. out there, I believe he got the highest possible rating from the NRA];) For the record I've been hunting before, but so far I'm not a hunter. I'm a shooter. [i.e. I shoot at things deer, etc, but miss.] I'm a pretty good threat to clay pigeons though:) Have you ever tried field-dressing a clay pigeon? I can tell you it's not as easy as it looks. Can't say that they taste like much either. Got any recipes? Well, I guess there's nothing left to say but "Ciao!"