Simple Math

This....

plus this.....

equals this!!

Add two days, and you get this!

She's fine. There's a big black tire mark on the wooden door though; thank goodness the screen door was flung wide open and her daddy-o was in the basement to quickly come to her aid!

Maple Festival text....

We attended the 51st annual Maple Festival up in Highland County today. Good times! This year we didn't take in as much as we've done in years past, choosing to skip the craft shows and displays over at the school in favor of visiting two sugar camps. We even missed the cloggers at the Highland Center - something Hannah will probably realize around midnight tonight and berate us for in the darkness.

That is, if she ever gets to sleep. We let them each buy their own 100ml jugs of maple syrup and taste them in the car. What was supposed to be a couple of tiny sips turned out to be two big chug-a-lugs by my sugar-lovin' gal. Thank goodness for seatbelt laws - it was the only way to restrain the sugar high she experienced on the way home!

Next year we'll plan more before we go to the festival by reading up on how maple syrup is made. We checked out the only two books on the topic that the Clifton Forge Library had on Friday and didn't get a chance to read them until we were on our way. Since I had to keep a wary eye on Andy's driving and hold on with one hand and shout directions out (slow down! watch that car! they're braking! look over in the field!), it probably wasn't the most effective lesson. And then he got tired of my hollering and made me drive, which really put a damper on learning.

Anyways, we visited the Puffenbarger Farm and Rexrode Farm. Puffenbarger's was a more modern operation - sorry, no pictures - than Rexrode's, but Rexrode's was less crowded (there was a tour bus at the other one!) and we got to talk to the owner for quite awhile. Of course, both farms sold maple fudge, syrup and maple candy, and we freely partook of their offerings. Andy commented that we'll have to expand our Maple Festival Budget next year to accommodate all of our sweet stuff.

On the way home we drove through Blue Grass, Virginia and found ourselves north of Monterrey. It was a bit of a shock when the route we came out on was 220 South - which we wanted - but was named "Potomac River Road." Where we live, 220 is named "Jackson River Road." It was cloudy most of the day, so we couldn't tell what direction we had been travelling. We had been going north rather than south as we'd figured. We must have reached a point where the creeks flowed into the Potomac River, and the river we thought was the Jackson was actually the Potomac. This is significant because we know the Potomac flows into Washington, D.C., and is way off our radar.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy the pictures on the following post*. If you're nearby, the Maple Festival is definitely a fun time for all and a worthwhile destination!

*I typed this blog in Word first and uploaded pictures directly to Blogger second. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to merge the two!

Maple Festival Picutres

Seen along Route 220 in Alleghany County - the entrance to someone's homeplace.

A closer view....

Inside the Monterrey VFD building. Bellies full of hot dogs and maple doughnuts.

At Rexrode's Sugar Orchard. This is the wood-fired evaporator.

Steam going through an open hole in the roof.

Following the plastic tubing between the trees.

A couple of jokers...

Happy girls!

Doesn't that look like a great tree for climbing?

Also at Rexrode's.

It was actually pretty warm. It drizzled a bit, then cleared off and rained some more.

Heading north towards route 220. Excuse the angle, the picture was taken while I was driving.

Scenery....

Beautiful!

Sheeps! We saw dozens of sheep and it seemed that sheep and cattle were the main industries out this way. What a beautiful day for a drive.

Spring Reading List

The winter continues on. There is hope in the color of the birds that visit our feeders, though. The goldfinches are looking a little more gold, the house finches are cranberry and there have even been a few robins grubbing about under the feeders. It's all a promise of Spring. I won't complain about the snow, unlike friends (and, -ahem- family - immediate family members, to be more precise) here and on Facebook. Growing up in Tidewater the anticipation was so firmly engrained that it remains when the skies grow dark and the temperature is below freezing. We have snow on the ground mainly in the woods and on slopes that receive little sunlight. There are also expanses in shady yards and of course where snowplows did their job. But with temperatures being over 40 for the last several days and a sapphire sky, even I have to admit that it is a nice change.

I've been doing a lot of reading in my usual shotgun blast style. This means I have about 4 texts going on at once. I always think you can learn much about someone with their reply to the question, "what books are on your nightstand?" For the last couple weeks my nightstand has held:

The History of Christianity (Zondervan)

Eats Shoots and Leaves (Truss)

An Amish Gathering - Three Amish Novellas (Wiseman, Fuller & Cameron)

Living with Confidence in a Chaotic World (Jeremiah)

The Man Who Moved a Mountain (Chapman)

A Woman After God's Own Heart (George)

The Message/NASB Parallel Bible

and this month's unread Cooperative Living, Woman's Day, All You (for the coupons!) and Southern Living.

I get an idea or a recommendation for a book and, impulsively, get it from the library, E-Bay or Alibris.com and stack it on up. Then I read through it feverishly for a couple nights until another strikes my fancy, and on the stack it goes, replaced by the new text. Eventually, I'll finish them all, become burnt out on reading for awhile and clear off my bookstand for a couple weeks until it all starts back up again. The only book I've recently been unable to finish was Elmer Gantry. It was published in my favorite period of American history (next to our own, of course), the mid-1920s. Updike writes about a narcissistic, unethical, womanizing man who eventually becomes a Methodist minister. It is actually rather depressing when contrasted with The Man Who Moved a Mountain, a true story about a man who dedicated his life to the Lord and ministered in the Blue Ridge mountains in the early 20th century. Besides the uplifting story, the fact that it takes place mostly in Floyd and Carroll Counties, an hour or two south is inspiring. In reading "The Man," I've learned about the culture of Appalachians and have gained valuable insight on the heritage of mountain folk that makes them who they are.

I asked our Associate Pastor, Chris Chesley, if I could borrow a book on the history of the modern church and he loaned me The History of Christianity. Pat Robertson's controversial statements following the Haiti earthquake led me to wonder about the origins of the charismatic movement. Well, I'm stuck in Byzantinium. At least I made it through the early Roman Empire. I have a feeling I'm going to fast forward through much of the Dark Ages, so I can answer my questions. Actually, the sections on the early church movement are fascinating. I had no idea that there was so much controversy - and when you read about it from a historical point of view, it is a miracle that we even hold God's Word in our hands at all. It is a textbook, though, and I tend to get bogged down in the different offshoots of Christianity and 'isms, and besides, it's a pretty thick book and it takes up a lot of space, so I'm going to move it to the top of the stack after I read....

Eats Shoots and Leaves. Are you familiar with this book on punctuation? It's described as "The Runaway #1 British Bestseller." Improper use of punctuation truly irks me and I've often chosen to take the low road and ignore it after getting peculiar looks from friends (like when I recently pointed out to a local coffee shop owner that the proper spelling of the dark Italian coffee is "espresso" and doesn't begin with "ex-" unless it has already been drunk). (And I know that's not punctuation but the illustration is just to give you an idea of what I am up against.) Here again, I've learned that I am indeed right (as I suspected all along) about many of my punctuation choices (it is = it's but the cheese belonging to it = its). But this is punctuation taught in the way I wish I'd been taught in school - the only dryness is the sense of British humor. I'm going to stash it away for a homeschooling text in the years to come.

You might already be aware that I have a thing for Amish and/or Mennonite literature as My Life's One Regret is that I did not grow up in their culture. Sorry mom, but that might actually explain a lot about me, right? An Amish Gathering is on the level of Beverly Lewis' books and was a new fiction offering at Clifton Forge library. I snagged it on my way out, already burdened with a pile of Dr. Seuss and American Indian books for you-know-who, but ja, I would be ferhoodled if I didn't get my Deitch fix.

I'm doing a Bible study with some wonderful ladies (girls? women?) and we're using A Woman After God's Own Heart as a jumping-off point. I really enjoy that book because it touches on so many aspects of a woman's life. From housekeeping (an area in which I certainly need all the help I can get) to being a wife and mother, there are lessons that abound in how to do all while giving glory to God. I'm excited about our Tuesday fellowship. And, due to my short attention span/disorganization/failing memory, I've ordered a second copy of the book. So if anyone wants a paperback copy, please let me know and I'll send it your way. This is how it goes. Told you I was ferhoodled.

Living with Confidence...well, I'm going to get to that review in a later post. Stay tuned.

Finally, I have The Message beside my bed to read Proverbs to the girls and for my own reading in bed. I generally use my Living Bible for quiet time, and I keep that in the kitchen near the rocking chair (and picture window and coffee maker). My NIV "church Bible" is either hanging off the post of my bed in its holder or is in the trunk of my car. Were I a bit more organized, that Bible would be by my bed too and I could make notations like I see in others' Bibles. My grandparents gave Andy and me matching Life Application Study Bibles back when we were first married, making them at least ten years old. It is certainly not as marked up as I'd like it to be. But then, that is not necessarily a sign of a good Christian, now is it?

So, friends, thus ends your visit to Heidi's library for the day. What books do you have on YOUR nightstand? Please comment below!

Snow Baby

One of the things that was instilled in me from an early age is my duty to take care of all of God's creatures and adopt any stray wild ones that may cross my porch as my own. While I wasn't homeschooled, a love for nature is an essential part of Who I Am. And although we lived in the suburbs, I learned valuable lessons about wildlife at an early age.

I learned that sometimes your mother is fast and furious at making peanut butter sandwiches at 11PM because raccoons are scratching at the back door. Often this entails watching the raccoons pull the edges off the peanut butter sandwiches because "we don't liiii-iiike the ed-ges," and as a result you must stand firm in your resolve to love them nonetheless. As a homeschooling mom, that duty has been expanded to actively be aware of any and all opportunities for learning and to jump on them as "teachable moments."

If it means getting the girls out of bed in the middle of the night to have a field trip at the living room window for an impromptu lesson on nocturnal creatures, this, too, must be borne:

If it means not banging on the window when the nocturnal creature with a prehensile tail and more teeth than any other land animal (I didn't know that!) is using those sharp teeth to chew at the gourd you so carefully hollowed out to feed the pretty little wrens, chickadees, titmice, nuthatches and such, then so be it.

If it means being glared at because there are no peanut butter sandwiches on hand and the handmade suet balls are secured tightly in a cage overhead, then it means you must kindly but firmly say good night and rustle your little girls into bed because, after all, then they don't need to be challenged by a pointy-nosed marsupial who was once a staple of southern cookery. This what its all about: Passing down treasured family traditions of feeding wild animals on the porch and teaching your girls essential knowledge like, for instance, that their night-time visitor gets her name from the Algonquian (Indian) word for "white dog." Sigh.

Save the Dates!

Two upcoming events in the Alleghany Highlands:

The C&O Historical Society is sponsoring a train show at the Clifton Forge Armory on Saturday, February 20, all day. For more information, call (540) 862-2210. We went last year and there were model layouts of various sizes, loads of train items for sale, railroad antiques, books and more. This year there will be an appraiser on hand as well as a consignment table. Admission is $4 adults/$2 children and includes the C&O Heritage Center. Dunno if the steam engine will be available for rides; I guess it just depends if we STILL have snow on the ground or not! Click here for the website for more details. Come on out!

If you can't make it to that, put the Highland Maple Festival on your to-do list. We've been 3 years and enjoy it immensely. Its over two weekends: March 13/4 and March 20/21 in Highland County. Most of the action is in Monterey, but there are special events in Blue Grass, Hightown, McDowell and down (up?) on 220. You can go to the Highland County Chamber of Commerce's website here for more information. Stay in Covington, and its a beautiful 1-hour drive north to the festivities.

Snow Pictures

" Somebody help me up, Mama!"

"Mama, come under the trees!"

The Look.

She's not really up to her neck in snow; she's sitting on the back sidewalk that was shovelled out the other day and looking across the snow. Its really that deep, though...

Romping through almost-knee-deep snow...

Backyard...the square thing in the left foreground is our fire pit with the benches to sit on.

Our house - taken from our neighbors' (Heidi & Joe)(isn't it a riot that there are Heidis on either side of Johnson Creek Road??) porch across the street.

The Girl Who Does Not Get Cold. Also: The Girl Who Lost Another Tooth Yesterday.
The Girl Who Does Not Wear a Hat. There will be 2 hats found in the spring thaw.

Cows in the pasture at the end of the block. I stopped the truck and said, "HEY COWS!!" and the (red) bull turned around to glare at me.

The house again as seen from Heidi & Joe's house.

Perspective as to how much snow is on the ground. We got another 4" today. As of noon, it had stopped snowing, but we're forecast for more today, Wednesday, and - rumor has it - Friday!

Standing by the picnic table in the back yard looking north....through my neighbor's yard.

Standing in the road looking southeast. The roads were completely clear yesterday except for a few icy pactches!

And the driveway was COMPLETEly clear :(