Frozen grapes

Frozen grapes are a treat for us.  I have discovered that our kids love to chew on all sorts of frozen foods, grapes, blueberries, peas, strawberries, peaches, pineapple...  they are an easy snack and can be frozen in large batches.  
We got our first picking of our fall lettuce last night.  Our carrots are still very small.  I added a lot of compost into the carrot row, we usually get very stumpy carrots, maybe because our soil is mostly clay.  Maybe this year will be different, you can always hope.

Rural Life Museum

 D and F are watching a lady spin wool into yarn.  Children their age would have done this as a chore.

 D and F are digging in the dirt to make mud bricks.

 Here we are waiting for the paraffin to melt so we can dip candles.  After half an hour and much patient dipping we finally got a half inch diameter candle!!  I do like to just flip a switch.  When my kids say they would have liked to have lived in the time of candles and horses I tell them they may be going back to that again!!  It's not such a simple life, people worked really hard.

Here we are at the brick making table again.

Leaf Men

 G with one of her teachers.

G was the thunder and lightning.  This is the end of the first nine weeks for us.  It'll be nice to have a break for a couple of days.

Mr Spots

F got to bring Mr. Spots home this week for being "student of the week", good job!

Tunica Hills

Tunica Hills is about an hour away, just over the border of Mississippi.  This is as much vertical as we can find this close to home.  We've been coming here for ten years and it keeps changing every time there is a big storm.  The rock is very soft, more like packed clay.  The kids found different colors of clay to bring home as well as a collection of leaves. 
We topped off the hike with some ice cream at the pond store just down the road.  The store has its original cash register as well as many other antiques inside.

Pumpkin field trip

 H is showing off her pumpkin

 D grabbed the biggest pumpkin he could find.

 J was a little scared of the pig.

Learning about the past

 I am so glad for seat belts these days!!!

 J enjoyed trying to bounce on this piece of farm equipment.

 The lady with the yellow backpack is D's teacher.  D is rescuing J from inside the tipi.

J and H got to milk a cow.  Good thing it was a wooden cow since J would have gotten kicked if it were a real one.

At the zoo

 So much fun to be in a small space.

 J with some giant turtles.  They were very lively, maybe because it was cool but warm in the sun.

 H is showing off her giraffe in front of the real giraffes.
Now that the weather is nice it's nice to get out and visit the places that were too hot during the summer.