Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you & yours all had an excellent Thanksgiving last week! Our family left the farm for a couple days to enjoy Thanksgiving with Sarah's family in NW Ohio. We, of course, enjoyed some excellent food, especially the desserts. But we also had a good time visiting with family that we don't get to see very often. When this family gets together, we often play games to pass the time when we're not eating. Historically, one of the favorite games has been Jenga. This year, Dennis, one of Sarah's cousins, brought his new giant jenga game that he created/built for his youth group. Each piece is a planed & sanded 2x4, about 10.5" long and, like the real game, starts out stacked 20 rows high. As you can see from the picture, the game very quickly grows taller than several of the participants and can be somewhat intimidating as you're crawling around looking for an easy block on the bottom rows. But it was definitely a fun time and we did very well growing this tower to over 40 rows tall!

Welcome to Ella Grace Peterman!

Apparently, Thursday, November 16th, was a very busy day for a lot of people. Jonathan & Jessica Peterman also found themselves at the hospital giving birth to a beautiful baby girl, Ella Grace! She weighed in at 7lbs., 2oz., and was 20" long. Mother & baby are doing well. Congratulations to the Peterman family on their third addition to their growing family!

Welcome to Greta Hoerschgens!

Last Thursday, while Sarah and I were celebrating her 29th birthday, my best friend, Sven, and his beautiful and patient wife Charle were busy welcoming baby Greta into the world! She was a couple weeks early via C-section, so she weighed in at 6 lbs. 10 oz., and measured 18.5" long. Mother & baby are both doing great. Congratulations to Sven & Charle on this beautiful new addition to their small family, and happy birthday to Sven who celebrated by bringing his wife & 3 day-old daughter home from the hospital!

Stick in the Mud

Or stuck in the mud, if you prefer. Either way, that big, purple, so-called 4x4 wasn't going anywhere. Sunday afternoon my friend David was driving the big purple to the farm to drop off a little firewood for a youth event we were hosting later in the evening. He was backing up to the fire-ring, which is near a spring-head and therefore typically pretty mucky, and thought "it seems to be getting muddy here, I should stop short and we can unload from here." Little did he know how stuck he really was. We tried pulling him out with the tractor from both directions. We tried pushing him out with the tractor, and nearly got the tractor stuck too. We tried cramming rocks and wood under the tires in an attempt to get better traction. But the only thing that worked was a call to AAA and a nice tow-truck driver with a winch. John & David both agreed that a man who owns this much mud should probably have a winch. However, John & I both agreed that a big, purple truck that says 4x4 probably shouldn't just have one wheel spinning in 4-Low. Oh well, no harm, no foul...and we all had a good laugh, eventually.

Over the Rhine

Its probably been about 10 or 11 years now since I first found myself sitting in line in the cold in downtown Dayton waiting to get into the Canal Street Tavern to see them. Oh, the first time we were actually there to see the opening act, Jason Dennie, who was a friend of ours. We'd never actually heard of Over the Rhine yet. I don't know that I can put my finger on what exactly draws me to this band. It could be their amazing gift for poetry, their cleverness with a rhyme, their excellent musicianship, Karen's entrancing voice, the openness and fun they display on stage, or countless other qualities that I can't even put into words. Whatever it is I've been hooked ever since.

And of all the places I've seen them, Canal Street is the best. The room's fairly small, there's seating right up to the stage, and the stage is small and only a couple feet above the floor. When we get there early and snag the front table we can lean over and read their setlist. Its like they're playing in your living room with a couple hundred of your closest friends huddled closely around you.

There have only been a couple of occassions where I've missed 'em when they played at Canal Street, and most years they play there 2 or 3 times. We've enjoyed all kinds of weather in our 2-3 hour wait next to that tall stone & brick wall. But when we waited this past Friday in the cold & wind, it reminded me most of that very first time and spurred me to reflection. And we were not disappointed. They were in excellent form and were accompanied by a great upright bass player & probably the best drummer I've ever seen play with them before. And we were especially treated by the many new songs they played that are coming on their next couple albums. More fine music from a band that has become lodged in my soul. If you ever have the opportunity to see this amazing band, I highly recommend and encourage you to, especially if you're fortunate enough to see 'em at Canal Street or a comparably intimate room in your area.

Happy Birthday Sarah!

In the same year that saw the first test flights of the Space Shuttle & the F-117 Stealth Fighter, the opening of the first Star Wars movie (Episode IV), and the launch of the Voyager 2 space probe...and on the same day as the opening of the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind (I'm sure there's no connection here), my wife, Sarah, was born in Wild, Wonderful West Virginia, just across the river from her parents home in Ohio. And the world has never been the same. So Happy Birthday to my wonderful and patient wife (both attributes shown well in this picture). I love you and I look forward to taking you out for a night on the town tomorrow to help you celebrate your 29 years of life.

Too Cute for Words

The State of the Doors

During the cold & wet afternoon we had this past Saturday, Dad & I managed to, by ourselves, get the newly-built barn doors hung. All last week we built and, at least partially, painted them. We ended up hanging the top 2/3 portion of each door and attaching the bottom 1/3 portion after it was hung. With this arrangement we were able to accomplish the feat with just the two of us and no special rigging or framing. The only real tool we used was the trailer we built last winter for the tractor, though that proved invaluable to the task. At this point they are completely hung, assembled and painted with at least one coat. Up close its clear that they'll need another coat and a little caulk to really finish up nice like the others. But that can wait till the warmer weather of spring if need be. All the surfaces are coated at least once to protect from the weather this winter. And, as you can tell from this picture, from a distance they look great! A lot of work and a long and tiring weekend, but a job well done. Thanks Dad!

First Zoo Outing

Grandma Kuhlman and I took our little folk to the Cincinnati Zoo last Thursday. We had an Indian Summer day that was just perfect and the zoo crowd consisted of other moms with little ones in strollers and small bands of elementary school students. It wasn't crowded or overwhelming.

Paul got to see elephants, a zebra, a Stellar's Sea Eagle, alligators and crocodiles, zebras and a polar bear. He seemed to like seeing animals in the water, and gazing up at the big fat baby manatee pulling a head of lettuce in to its mouth reminded me of Julia. Paul liked seeing some snakes, and his favorite part was taking the train ride.

A lot of the animals were tucked away for the winter, so the petting zoo was kind of sparse. As we were walking by one empty fenced in area, we watched another mother chase her son in. She tried to coax him out, but he was having fun stomping on the autumn leaves. Then Paul ran in, ran right up to the older boy as if they were old friends, and both of them started running back and forth in the fenced area, giggling, as if that was what they were supposed to be doing. We watched them go back and forth a couple of times, and then a young girl joined them. And they all ran back and forth and back and forth. You would have thought there was a sign somewhere telling them that this was a pre-schooler running pen.

We stayed at the zoo about three and a half hours, had a picnic lunch and headed home. Paul fell asleep in the car and slept really well for nap time. Julia didn't really notice the animals at all, but she seemed to enjoy all the fresh air.

Clutter Reduction

One of the things that I am really enjoying about being a stay at home mom right now is the opportunity to reduce the piles of clutter about our home. I have also started a garage sale box, and I'm hoping to reduce our coefficient of stuff. But it's not easy.

The other day, in trying to tidy up the spare bedroom for the arrival of Steve's parents, I came across the Audubon Field Handbook of Eastern Landbirds copyright 1965 in a box. And I thought to myself, "Hey, we already have a copy of Audubon's field handbook. It's even a more recent copy. This book is a good candidate for the garage sale box." So I said to Steve in what I meant to be a joking tone, "Do you think I can put this copy of the Audubon Field Handbook of Eastern Landbirds in the garage sale box?" Because who needs two copies, right?

And Steve said, "But we might be in different fields at the same time." I gave him a look.
He followed with, " And look, the book on the shelf is the Audubon Field Handbook of Eastern Birds, but this older book has more detail for Eastern LAND Birds. And the newer book has photographs, but the older book has colored renderings, which are sometimes easier to see. No, don't put the older book in the garage sale box. Hey, look! We have 4 more bird identification books I didn't even realize we had. And all of them have different features. Let's keep them."

Sarah: "Uh...Okay honey. I guess I'll but the Audubon Field Handbook of Eastern Birds on the shelf downstairs for quick reference, and put the rest of the books on a shelf upstairs for deeper research if needed." So I wandered upstairs contemplating the fact that my garage sale box still had NOTHING in it and that my sister, who helps us clean house, probably would have had a stroke if she had been present for that conversation.

And then yesterday I was sifting through our drawer of random kitchen utensils. We have 3 garlic presses. I only ever use one of them, so I put the other two in the garage sale box.

Then I got to the vegetable peelers, also known as carrot peelers, also known as potato peelers. (The proper name of this utensil has been a matter of some debate in our home.) We have one with a handle that is easier for me to grip, so we're keeping that one. We have one with a handle that I know is easier for Steve to grip, and so even though I thought it might be silly to have more than one vegetable peeler (because we so seldom desire to have more than one person peeling vegetables at a time) I decided that we would keep that one too. Going through the drawer, I found 1, 2, 3 more vegetable peelers. I had no idea we had so many vegetable peelers in the house. Steve insisted that we keep one of the other three. Why? I don't know. Maybe he's concerned that we will have more potatoes to peel at once than two people can handle. Maybe he's afraid that we will break two of them and need the third before one of us can make it to the store to replace one.

I'm just grateful that half of our supply of vegetable peelers made it to the garage sale box. I even got to throw out the broken cheese slicer that we've stored for the last 4 years. Now I just need to slip our fourth and fifth wine bottle stoppers into the garage sale box. Shhhh...don't tell Steve.

Gone A' Baptisin'

With both sets of grandparents looking on, and Sarah and I mostly just trying to keep Paul corralled, Julia Rose Kuhlman was baptised this morning. Poor Julia was sleeping on her mom's shoulder, and was still mostly asleep when Pastor Mark was holding her. But boy did she wake up when that water touched her head. Other than a little fussing during the prayer afterwards, though, she did really well through the whole thing. Paul was a bit more of a challenge, getting passed from dad to mom part way through, and then trying to make a break for it during the final prayer. But he did stay pretty quiet through most of it and did about as well as one could hope a healthy 2-year-old boy do. It was a blessing and encouragement to be up there participating in the sacrament of baptism, and we enjoyed a great time of fellowship with the family after church too. Thanks to all of the encouraging words from our brothers & sisters at church and for all the family that made the trip.

Let the Doors Begin

My folks arrived Wednesday afternoon for about a 10-12 day visit. The main purpose of their trip is to watch their newest grandaughter's (aka farm hand #2) baptism, coming up tomorrow. But the main task to accomplish while they're here, is to rebuild the main barn doors. During their summer trip Dad & I rebuilt all of the smaller barn doors, and I must say they did turn out well. But the main set of barn doors we were unable to work on. And boy are these a couple of formidable doors. Measuring in at 13'3" tall by 6'4" wide, these will be the single largest doors we've tackled yet. Today, in our first day of working on them, we managed to get the top 2/3 of one of the doors mostly done. Because of their length, we have to build them in two sections, the top measuring 9'4", and the bottom coming in at 3'11". We're fastening the two sections together with cross boards front & back, which will work fine once they're hung. However, trying to stand these massive doors up while preventing them from buckling at the joint is going to be the real trick. At this point I think we've settled on the plan of building a 2x4 wall-type frame structure with 12' 2x4s. We'll build the doors face-side down on this structure, which is sitting on the trailer. When each door is complete, then, we can simply pull the trailer out and stand the doors up into place. We'll, of course, need a couple stout fella's to help us get them up on the track, but once they're vertical, that shouldn't be too hateful. So this is our task for the next week...here's hoping we can complete it by the end of this coming weekend. Let me know if any of ya'll would like to help, or at least witness the spectacle of, us getting these doors from horizontal to vertical to hanging on the track.