The girls ride a stallion!

The girls each took a turn riding Magic Alixer at Amethyst Acres in Buchanan VA. I was so impressed with this straight Egyptian Arabian stallion. He was so well mannered and looked after my girls as they rode him outside of a round pen with mares in nearby stalls. What an incredible ambassador of the types of horses we breed...intelligent, athletic, can put on a "wild" show, and yet so gentle with children. Thank you Mark and Deb Burke for letting us ride your stallion!! Mark Burke told the girls they had great hunt seats...thank you David and Becky Olmstead our horse riding instructors!!

Show Halter with Shawn Crews

We met Shawn Crews in Virginia at Amethyst Acres. She flew in from Texas and graciously taught us how to show halter. Shawn is the farm manager from Arabians LTD and is world reknown as a trainer, breeder, and Arabian horse expert. She was such a great teacher and the girls and I just LOVED it. Mark and Deb let us practice with their stallion, Magic Alixer. I had to keep pinching myself as I watched my girls hold the end of the line of a stallion. He behaved well and the girls grew a little taller in confidence and admiration for Magic and Shawn. Shawn pretended to be Kenedi's steed to help Kenedi.

Stripping Sorghum

Jaxin demonstrates how each stalk of Sorghum was stripped by hand. We (the girls, Jaden, and mom with baby on back) stripped all 2 acres of our Sorghum crop. It took us 20 hours. YIKES!!
We start at the top....
Then slide our hand down the stalk, ripping the leaves.
And TADA!!! the stalk is mostly bare.

Look Mom the Sorghum is so tall!

Harvesting Sorghum

I cut each stalk of Sorghum with a Machete and the girls followed behind gathering the stalks. We then loaded them onto a wagon.

The Sorghum Press

Jordin and Papa Buzz (family friend) feed the Sorghum into the Press.

Jaden and Daddy watch the Sorghum juice run out the side and the waste of stalk come through the opposite end of the press.
Papa Buzz keeps feeding the Press more sorghum.

Sorghum syrup!

Thomas poured the green goo into the big vat that is sitting on a fire pit. The Sorghum juice is heated until it reaches a certain temp. It darkens into a molasses color and gets thick. This took about 4 hours. It's a delicate process. The first batch we made taffy out of it as we didn't get it off the fire fast enough...and the second batch was perfect in every way but had an undesirable greenish tint to it...we needed to cook it just a few minutes longer. However, I've used it to make the best gingerbread we've ever tasted. YUM!!

The Sorghum Principle

Well the harvest is now over and we are exhausted. We were only able to harvest 10 rows of Sorghum roughly 50 gallons of molasses before the frost hit. We did not get to convert it to ethanol as planned. We simply ran out of time. The drought this year meant we couldn't plant until it was too late and thus the Sorghum was not ready to harvest before the frost. So in the end we tilled under most of the cane we had stripped. I wasn't too happy about that! After a long 2 weeks of harvesting, I came up with an new anology for life....alas it is called "The Sorghum Principle"--and it means "anything that reaps little harvest after sowing forth much effort". I've since used the "sorghum principle" to determine if I will commit myself to investing time or energy into proposed projects. It has helped me say "no" politely to many people. So in the end, I've learned a great life lesson and thus the Sorghum harvest this year was more fruitful than I ever imagined! Sticky but sweet memories.
Here is Jaden after a long harvest day....zzzz!








Emma and I are trying to keep warm.
Kenedi is glad to be done with the harvest!

Costume Design

Each of the girls had to design their own Halloween Costumes this year. Most of it had to be hand made as they had a very limited budget. I think they did AWESOME!!
Jordin Hood
Jaxin is Zorro
Kenedi is the Lone Ranger

Costumed Riding Lessons

The girls took their homemade costumes
to the barn costume party. The Olmsteads provided the horses to complete their
costumes. What a fun way to celebrate Halloween!










Jaden was the only
"donkey" allowed into
the barn!
HEE-HAWWW!

Empanadas

Jaden and Kenedi read a story from Mexico. In the story the family made Empanadas. After reading the story we dug up a recipe and made Empanadas together. They were not only fun to make, but very delicious. These were made with sweet potato filling. We even grew the sweet potatoes in our garden!

Mask and Mime

9 Kenedi and Jaden learned about the use of masks in theater and dance today. They each made a happy face and a sad face and danced what they were "feeling". We laughed more than cried however...especially as Jaden would giggle so much it was hard to think of him as "sad" on the "sad" songs.