Hello! Hope this past year has been a good one for all. We're doing just fine. Keeping busy as usual. This year has been a little less eventful than the past couple of years had been.
Allen got a full time job in January at Sumark, a company in Versailles, plus he's still doing side work for Trader Publishing. Keeps him pretty busy. Actually, he's getting rather tired of computers, would like to cut back some way from them.
In May, we got 25 baby chickens. Kept them in the house, in a box, in our spare room for the first month or so, until Allen could get the chicken coop built. We were suppose to get all layers, but ended up with half roosters. Worked out for the best really. We sold 2 roosters and processed 8, leaving 2 to keep the females happy. We are now getting 12-13 eggs a day. We sell some, but have been eating a lot also! A lot better tasting than store bought eggs, I have to say.
We put out our first garden this summer. That kept me real busy. It did pretty good. I put up beans, corn, squash, tomatoes, pickles, red beets, cabbage, spinach...Kept me hopping all summer.
In August, we had a 1/2 acre pond dug. It's 12 ft. deep. Now we're just waiting for rain/snow to fill it up. Got a big sledding hill now beside the barn from all the dirt.
In September, we finally took our vacation. Took the kids out of school for a week and went up through New York, Vermont and New Hampshire. Had a real nice time.Got into some rain from hurricane Floyd. We camped most of the time. Seen some real pretty country up there.
The kids are great. Mark and Nick are in band. Trumpet and trombone. They seem to really like it. Jenny isn't old enough yet and not sure what she wants to play anything, when the time comes. They have a Christmas program at school the 13th. Jenny got chosen with 2 others to sing special parts in one song. They're doing real well in their classes. We're very proud of them.
Well, that's been pretty much our year. If you visit our website.... http://www.bright.net/~howellru , which Mark set up over the summer, you can read monthly little newsletters the boys write and see pictures of the house. Our e-mail address is howellru@bright.net. Hope you have a wonderful holiday season!
Carmen Howell