What Made You Move?

9th grader: So where do you normally like to go on vacation?

Me: We like mountains! We normally go places such as Montana, Alaska, Oregon, West Virginia, or Washington; anywhere we can hike and be away from people. We aren't really big into beach vacations.

9th grader: Did you like grow up on a farm?

Me: Yeah sorta.

9th grader: So then what made you move to Jackson township?

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First off, I still don't know how that conversation went from vacation talk to farms in one sentence but the ending made me cringe as much as laugh. I then explained to her that YES I grew up in Jackson (and in fact STILL LIVE on the same street as I always have). Just one drive down our street and you can see dairy cows, giant pumpkins, turkeys, chickens, pigs, peacocks, goats, 4 barns, tractors, and much much more. She must not get out of her little bubble often. LOL.

Youth of today just don't really have a concept of local history. Only one generation ago, this township was nothing but farms. No mall, no Strip; just a small farming community. Well today there is less than one dozen farms left. Definitely more multi-million dollar homes than cows. I feel lucky to have grown up the way I did. It is my goal that my kids grow up in a similar way someday. In the meantime, I will continue to try to educate the youth of this community!!

Exciting Day

Today was one of the most exciting days EVER: we measured my pumpkin and it is officially "estimating" over the current state record!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG.

I can't help but keep thinking: If I'm doing this well, how many OTHER people will also be showing up with monsters this year?

EEK EEK EEK

So my pumpkin now estimates over 1400 lbs and it is only late August. What does that mean? A whole more month of me being nervous about something going wrong!!! EEK!!! But on the plus side, it is a whole more month of potential growth. :) What a wild ride. I've never seen anything like this in my life; nature is awesome awesome.

In other news, we were presented with a "golden ammo can" for 1000 geocache finds. It was full of goodies and the guy who presented to us got so much stuff he had to put it all in a separate bag too! He did a really cool presentation and had researched us very well (bells, pumpkins, frogs, etc!).

School started this week and it has been a blast (but very tiring). I love the early parts of the year because the kids are still afraid to talk. LOL. Excellent.

Patch Update

This summer started slowly but August came with a bang. High temps and plentiful rain have given me some record growth rates. My largest pumpkin is 51 days old and over 1100 lbs already. (To compare, Nick's biggest last year didn't break 1100 until day 71). I'm praying it doesn't split; often if pumpkins grow too fast they basically blow up and split open. Then it is all over! My pumpkin grew 80 lbs in the last 2 days. EEEEEEKKKKKK!!!! If it does go down, well, it was one heck of a ride!

And in other news, school starts for me tomorrow. *tear*

Camp

Last week I spent a week with over 100 teenagers at cross country camp, Camp Shaggy XVI. Yep for 16 years this has been going on and I think it is the reason our team is as big as it is. I've gone to six Camp Shaggy's and it is just not the same now that Shaggy has died and we moved camp locations (no longer camp in tents!!!).

One awesome part of the new camp location: I CAN GO CANOEING EVERY DAY!! And I do go everyday. :)

This year the adventures included jumping off a large tree, going to the spring (as always), getting rescued by pirates in a thunderstorm, interacting with Amish fisherman and visiting the Green band at a neighboring camp. FUN FOR SURE!

I'm only posting pics of the "storm" since I don't really have authorization to use the pics of runners on this blog.

Family Tradition IV: Trip to Kidron

This tradition isn't really the whole family but more of a "grandpa and me" tradition. Sometimes a cousin joins us and on this day my sister went for the first time! In fact now that I'm thinking about it, my fav memory was when I was in about 3rd grade and my 2nd cousin went along. The feed mill had free bulk peanuts and we ate them the whole way home. Weird how you remember certain things like that.

The tradition is heading out to Kidron, Ohio to buy pigs at their weekly auction. It is held every Thursday and is quite the experience! There are Amish people everywhere so I didn't actually take pictures in the auction barn but it is neat to see. We go once per year in the summer to get 3 or 4 pigs to raise for butchering the next winter. If we are lucky, Pa-Pa stops at the Dalton Dairyette (my ultimate fav summer place) on the way home for ice-cream!!

Gotta get in line to pick up the pigs.

Stopping at the bulk store to get ThermFlo for pies! YUM!

Lineup of buggies.

I figured since you can't see her face it was OK to take her pic. Too cute not to. She had 2 super cute kids in the wagon behind her bike.

Morning in the Patch

Getting bigger!! Average of 37 lbs per day for the last 6 days :)