I've been very busy for the past couple of days, but it is time to Spring into action as the weather thinks about getting warmer....lol...there really was snow on the ground when I woke up this morning! Really!?! It's April 9th! In VA!!! I love snow and all, but this is ridiculous...SMH...
We don't let snow slow us down though...I got another cake mostly done, packed up for a fun weekend of building and a nature center visit, plus we got 10 jars of Strawberry Jam done and we finished a floral blend that is pretty good too. More Lilac juice is ready to be turned into jelly and things are looking good. We are ramping up for a great season at market and hope that many of you will try our jams, jellies or marmalade this year...once you do you'll be hooked! We are still working out the plan, but I am voting for mom to go to Farm-to-Table in Roanoke, VA on Thursdays at Greenbrier Nursery and occasionally on Saturday when they are having a special event. She won't be ready to go to market until she comes home in June, but until then we will be working on stocking up the inventory. The floral jellies are some of my favorites, but you can never go wrong with strawberry jam on buttered toast...mmm mmm mmm.....
After prepping strawberries for jam you are left with a lot of strawberry tops...
...ducks and chickens looovve strawberry tops...
...Aiden was still out of school on Friday because of his fever and he was very excited to join in the fun of feeding the birds...
...Sweetie and Stubborn are the Alpha birds when it comes to feed time...
...In the afternoon we headed to Christiansburg again so we could go to the Lowe's Build-and-Grow and visit the SEEDS nature center in Blacksburg Saturday morning. Things didn't go quite as we hoped on our ventures, but the kids had fun and were good for the most part...
The theme for the weekend was birds and we started by getting our bird feeder kits from Lowe's. We got there at about 10:20 and they had run out of hammers so instead of waiting in line we went up to the Build-and-Grow display and bought 3 hammers @ $2.98 each. After that we decided to go ahead and head to the nature center to see what they had going on and build our birdfeeders at home.
I had seen an ad on Facebook for the SEEDS Nature Center in Blacksburg VA. They host a variety of programs and have a Nature center with free admission and simply ask for donations if you are able to. The girls started with a pine cone bird feeder project while Aiden checked out the animals.
They had four snakes, a lizard, two turtles and three blue gills representing some of local wildlife...
The kids also loved the chance to get a close up look at what real wild life looks like, without the danger. Though they were disappointed that they could not pet all of the animals, they were happy to find that there were pelts that they could feel and plenty of hands on stations. Aiden really liked the mystery boxes that you reached in and tried to identify objects by feeling them. I was excited to be able to show them a coyote and a bobcat and they were most excited about the beaver and the bear.
Josh really liked the tree display showing how long that tree had been around and what had gone on during it's lifespan.
I was particularly moved by the bug display. Though I don't care for many live bugs I will occasionally play with a praying mantis or a lady bug. When I was little we used to visit my grandparents in MI and my Dad's Mom had these shadow boxes with butterflies in them. I remember looking at them for hours and admiring the colors and designs on the butterflies. The nature museum had an extensive collection of bugs from the area on showcase and it made me think of the butterflies from my youth.
We had a little time to kill once we were done at the nature center so we went ahead and built our bird feeders we had gotten at Lowe's earlier in the day.
This is one of our finished bird feeders. Now we just need a little rope and some bird seed and we will be in business.
Once we were done building we grabbed a bite to eat and headed to the auction house to say hi to some family and to get some hugs. The kids aren't quite old enough to sit down and not sit on us and it was a full house so we didn't stay long. There were some really neat things and enough variety to have something to everyone.
It was a long day for the kids so we brought them home and got them in bed early so that they will be ready for Scout Sunday tomorrow. I am fixin' to get a good night's sleep here and then drive to Bedford to put the finishing touches on Scout Sunday and enjoy the day with our church family.
No comments:
Post a Comment