A walk in the woods with Cyclone, Twister, Tornado, Hurricane and Tsunami!

     Back in November I was out working in the yard getting ready for winter, raking leaves, covering plants and getting all my gardening tools put away when Twister looked at me and said " Mom , can we go for a  walk?"

I really had a lot to do and taking the "boys" for a walk takes about an hour since they fool around a lot. But Twister was nice and said "please"????

So we went off for a walk in the woods, my Husband and I own 11 acres in the woods of Vermont and we've made some great hiking trails, its really neat how the little goats will follow me where ever I go so they really are fun to take for walks.

Tsunami was soon munching away at all the yummy stuff he could find!

"Thanks Twister , that was a GREAT idea to go for a walk!"

Hurricane, my little butterball, (or as my daughter likes to call him a toasted marshmellow) He wasn't so sure, he had plenty of hay in the barn he looked at me as if to say "You know this green stuff is getting lots harder to find!"

Tornado was quite happy though! "Mom, this stuff is really yummy!"

"Aren't I CUTE Mom?"

Meanwhile Tornado was bragging about how he tricked me into taking him for a walk when he really only wanted to go as far as the nearest patch of brush in the woods!

Hey! make room for me!!!

Cylone is a bit older than the others and he decided to get away from them fooling around and went to find his own patch of weeds to eat! 

Tsunami found some that everyone else missed!

I love walking in the woods this time of year, the leaves all have that great crunch to them and the steady swoosh, swoosh sound can be heard with every step!  Meanwhile I enjoy being able to see further into the woods, the trees are so beautiful, I'm really glad that Twister wanted to go for a walk!

MMMM MMMM MMMM Munch, Munch, MMM I, mmmucnch, Love munch, munch, you mmmmmm Mom!!! Munch, Munch!

Twister decided to show of his acrobatic skills and practice his balance beam routine.

"So how did I do Mom? How many points do you give me?"

The Sun was starting to head down behind the mountain and soon it would be getting dark in the woods so we started to wander our way back down the hill.  "Mom, can we PLEASE stay out longer? "

Goats are just like deer pretty much ,  when they hear something they freeze then run!

"Wait, what was that?" ....... "Oh, it was just one of those silly striped things"

Hurricane thought it was funny that Tornado was scared of a Chipmunk and he started running around laughing at him! 

Cyclone had to come back with the bunch to see what was so funny.   But he told Hurricane it wasn't nice to laugh at Tornado even though it was silly to be scared of a Chipmunk.

Hey Tornado come on look at all these good ferns! MMMM they are yummy!!

"I'm coming Hurricane! ...oh , wait, what was THAT?"

" Tornado, it was just another Chipmunk, come on! We still want to have fun before Mom makes us go back in our fence"

Its fun to watch the goats as they try to reach all the leaves on the pricker bushes.  The reach like a giraffe with short legs! Tornado was still looking for that illusive chipmunk!

We were almost down the hill when the boys discovered a newly uncovered pile of logs.

"Hey Hurricane, wanna climb up here?"

"Okay Tornado, I'll go first"

"Push over Tornado, I'm going next"

"Hey! That was fun! Tsunami are you coming!?"

"Yep! Watch OUT! Here I come!"

"That was so much fun I want to do that again!"

"Well, maybe not that was alot of work, I'll just pretend my foot itches instead"

"I'll just go down this way instead"

The boys were having a really good time nibbling this and that and then running back to me , I'd get just so far away from them and they would just run as fast as they could to catch up. They are just so much fun!

Twister was going to eat everything he could find.

Hurricane was doing his best to clean up all the dried leaves he could find.

" Oh geez Mom really?? Do I have to ? Okay.....*sigh* "CHEESE" 

So we were back to the bottom of the hill again I picked the boys some yummy berry bushes for them to nibble on inside their fence, they could munch on then until Dinner time later on.  It was a nice walk, nothing better than being out doors and having someone to go for a walk with!

Mrs Captains Pumpkin Bread

 Mrs Captains Pumpkin Bread

Share

 Today at 8:10am | Edit Note | Delete

Occassionally I intend to share some of my favorite recipes with you !  I love making bread! This reciepe makes two yummy loaves , one for now , one for later!

3 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
3 cups white sugar
1 cup applesauce
4 eggs
1 can pumpkin
2/3 cup water


Preheat oven to 350 grease two loaf pans

combine flour, soda, salt, baking powder and spices and set aside

in large bowl blend sugar , applesauce and eggs, stir in pumpkin, mix in flour mixture while adding water. Pour the batter into the pans and bake for 90 minutes.

let cool at least 10 minutes before removing from pan .

This bread is soft and very tasty heated up in the toaster and then spread with cinnamon butter!

First Hike to Eagle Mountain

My son and his wife has asked us to take them to the start of the Long Trail in North Adams Ma and they spent a week hiking the long trail before we picked them up the following Saturday in Danby, Vermont.
Zachary had given me his old Long Trail Guide so I enjoyed looking at it everyday imaging where they were hiking and what they were seeing etc.  It was wonderful when we picked them up to hear about their adventure and it really got me itching to start hiking again.



My birthday came up in a few months and I got a Long Trail Day trip guide along with some spiffy new hiking poles! Oh I was excited! So on my actual birthday I found a short hike to start with in the general area of where Anders and I were planning on traveling for the day.  I picked Eagle Mountain because they said it was good for kids so figured since we hadn't hiked anything other than our back yard slope in along time so this would be a good place to start.

Eagle Mountain is on the shore of Lake Champlain and over looks the islands. Its a 2-3 mile hike with a 560 ft accent. They estimated the hiking time to be only an hour up and a half hour down.  A great place to start as its only a little bit more than hiking out mountain out back behind our house!

We arrived at the mountain and both were very excited as Anders signed the traditional Long Trail Guest book at the Trail Head.  We read the sign as to which trail to take and we were off on our way with my handy Day trip guide and hiking posts in hand.  The signs were a bit confusing as the text at the bottom of the hill said one thing and this guide post said something else.  We went to the top First , honestly expecting a view but only thing up there was a few old stone walls, it was a beautiful hike though with well maintained trails and being in the woods was so peaceful, we talked the whole way up , not like Anders and I are ever at a loss for words..:)

After we did the summit we wandered our way back down to the guide post again and started our way to Hoyt lookout hoping to see a view of the Lake . We weren't dissappointed.

It was really wonderful to just sit and look at the lake, bringing such fond memories to me , since I basically grew up here.  Looking at the islands that we came up to see many times on my Dads boat.
After having a snack we wandered back down to our car again stopping now and then just to take it all in, it might have been a short little hike but we sure did enjoy being in the arms of mother nature. Vermont at its finest and look forward to another hike in our beautiful state!

A Learning Experience

So I've discovered that after living 4 years in the Southern Penninsula of Ontario Canada ( where the land is flat like its been ironed) that my legs don't really remember what its like to go up and down hills! I've got some work to do! Back in Ontario I would walk 3 miles a day and last summer biked over 250 Miles. Now the walking maybe easy but the biking its different as even though there are no hills to pump up, there are no hills for coasting down either so its a constant pedal , pedal, pedal. Not to bad with a heavy 15 year old mountain bike!

So now we live on the side of a mountain, I've been walking 2 or 3 times a day on the trails Melissa and Kyle have made on the land out back so figured okay, I'm going to walk to the post office down at the foot of our road. Sounds easy right? Hecks its probably only 2 miles max , could be less, I'll have to measure it just for curiosity now. I headed off on a cool afternoon with my camera in tow incase I saw some interesting things to photograph. Its so beautiful here with all the green coming in on the trees and the birds singing. I walked down the road and soon noticed that at one point I had to really lean back to walk down the steep part of the hill....hmmm what would this be like going up?

So it took me 1/2 an hour to walk to the post office, thats with stopping to chat with a neighbor and taking a couple shots with the camera, I visited with our friendly Post Master John for a bit and headed back home, my legs immediatly


 noticed that something was different in the terrain, as I started back up the road, it looked flat but for "flat lander legs" I could tell it wasn't indeed flat! :o)

I complained to myself and said " oh right Donna, and you said you were going to do this everyday! ha! yeah right!  But I was really enjoying the walk though, its so wonderful to be back in the Mountains again, even as good as being on the lake... :o)Shortly after turning around to go back home I noticed the grade going up hill a bit more after awhile but I just took a few stops "to take some photos of course!" :o)
So yep the hill turned into a bigger hill, and It came to mind that this winter we most always put our Jeep in 4 wheel drive to get up it and occassionally Kyle couldn't make it up the hill with Melissas little car....
I was really glad that Melissa got a magazine in the mail so I could read a bit after walking up the really steep part...:o)   Finally could see the top of the hill , I was enjoying the coolness in the wooded shade of the woods.
And then finally I could see the end of our driveway...:o)   And there was our house, yea! Okay, I'm not proud of it but it took me 1 and 1/2 hours to walk back up the hill! Yikes! So thats a goal for the summer! Course I did stop several times to take photos though too. :o)



 Before we actually moved here and I was still living in Ontario, I was worried that I'ld really miss living on the lake , I saw some amazing sites while living there and glad I got to experience the storms on the Lake. Now that I'm here I realize this truly is my home, Vermont is something that gets in your blood, the peace, the beauty, the comfort I get from being in the Mountains. Then of course its so wonderful to be closer to Zach and Melissa and Viola and Kyle too! Now alls I need is for Anders to get his butt home! Nice thing? As I am typing this thats just what hes doing, driving our Jeep to Vermont for a months holiday here at our home in the Mountains of Vermont.
mmmmm this is the life!