T'was the week before Christmas

 It took me a long time to get the tree lit this year. For one thing it is extra tall -- 9ft or so, and secondly I had to get some technical training in electrical engineering in order to light it with these 3,000 beautiful little white lights. I put the first 1000 lights on the tree and off again twice before I realized what the problem was. The short version is that I tried to connect too many strands of lights together and kept blowing fuses in the earlier strands. I learned that no more than 500 lights can be strung together,  to connect everything back to a couple power strips (only way to have enough outlets for that many lights), and how to replace the tiny fuses in the plugs of Christmas lights. Several people have already told me that switching to LEDs would solve my problem, but they are about 5 times as expensive and would have been 400$ for the 3000 bulbs required.  I know. I almost ordered them from Home Depot after the second day of wrestling with this project!  Looking at it every day has made the effort worth it. And now I know what to do for next year.

  I was in charge of decorating for the church Christmas party this year and we had some extra greenery leftover.  I put it to good use on the banisters:

 Christmas in the dining room:

 Freehand copy on on my chalkboard of something that I saw online:

  
We had some rainy days this week-- wet dogs.

 It is fun to play in the rain with puppies:

We made our traditional visit to Brookeside Gardens Christmas train exhibit:

Big sister A had some friends over for a "Late-Nighter" -- everyone has decided that sleepovers are not safe so we just let the kids hang out together until late. They had a lot of fun holding bunnies and crafting. 

Early Christmas: Great Pyrenees

Christmas came early in so many ways this week. Our family had one big present planed for this year: a farm dog.

The kids have been praying nightly for two years or more for a dog. A fellow farmer and veterinarian at church bred her two Great Pyrenees this year. She selected them carefully and this will be their only litter as she just wanted a couple more of them to handle her large property. I knew that one of those puppies would be a good choice for us.  That was the breed that I was hoping for and having the puppy come from someone I know so well is a blessing.

The Great Pyrenees is a "Livestock guard dog = LGD" breed. They are mellow, not like herding dogs, and very intelligent.  They are also independent minded, a trait they need when left alone in fields to guard herds of sheep or cows, but that makes them a little harder to teach things that they don't know instinctively.

We were surprised on the day that the puppy, Ice Bear ("Icy" for short), was to arrive. Their were TWO puppies in the car! My friend said that she had decided we should take the two girls, not just Icy. She said that they work better in pairs.  She did not charge us for the second one. I was shocked. She said that she just wanted them both to have a home as wonderful as our farm. Wow! and Oh my!  I liken it to expecting a baby and then finding out that you had twins. It's great and a little overwhelming at the same time.

 We installed the same kind of radio fence that my friend has at her farm so we only had to walk them around the boundary a couple times and they know (beeping noise when they get too close) that they will get a shock if they keep going. We are keeping leashes on them for training purposes though.  They are only about 9 months old and about 3/4 of the size of their parents. Even though they learned a lot from staying with their parents, LGDs should do that for at least 6 months, they still have much more to learn. They are the opposite of the stubborn beagle hound, Pokey, that I raised and trained as a kid though.  They are very good at coming when called, but still have to learn sit and stay. They are still very playful and silly.

The other Christmas surprise this week was a bunch of snowy weather. They kids were spending all their time outside with Icy and Shark anyway, but now their is snow to play in too! Double the fun.

The puppies love being around us too. For our situation it is the ideal mix -- half fierce guardian and half teddy bear. We are still working on bonding them to our farm animals, but they seem to already be bonded to the kids. 

 Icy and Shark wilstay outside exclusively.  They love the snow and often nap right in it. It is only in case of 100F degree weather that we might need to bring them in the basement or garage so they don't overheat.

Thanksgiving in New York Part 2

  I don't have any pictures from Thanksgiving dinner.  We ate one of these handsome fellows.

The next night we had pizza from the best pizzeria in the world -- Anellio's Pizza.  We all loved it. 

We watched "White Christmas" and surprisingly, it mostly kept the kids attention:

We did a lot of fun craft projects.  Big sister A made a potholder.

 Brother S put together several puzzles. He loves doing them.

 We made ornaments and decorations for Goomie's room at the nursing home.

 Big sister A carefully made some sand art jars.

Everyone had a great time and was sad to leave. Thanks Dad!!

Thanksgiving in New York: Hiking in Ithaca

Growing up in upstate NY I never really appreciated the local scenery and hiking opportunities. I am trying to make-up for it now. Watkins Glen is a beautiful place to hike, but we have been there several times.  Ithaca has a lot of great trails that my family has not seen yet, so we went on a short (2 mile) out and back hike to Taughannock Falls. It was chilly, but we all enjoyed it.

 Having Grandpop with us turned the hike into an opportunity for more great pictures from my talented dad. All the pictures in this blog post are from his camera.

 

It was also an excellent botany and geology lesson for my homeschoolers.  We learned about shale and limestone (and collected rock samples) on one side of the gorge. We saw how the water washed it away over time. And we saw a mini dessert ecosystem on the dry sunny side of the gorge where cedar trees were growing.

 

 Miss L was not in the mood for photography this weekend. Grandpop still managed to sneak some beautiful shots.  I like this one of her peeking out. 

 And this one:

Beautiful scenery:

 

 According the the Ithaca Gorges and Waterfalls website: This waterfall is the tallest single drop waterfall east of the Rocky Mountains. It is a 215 ft cascade and is about 3 stories taller than Niagara Falls.

 The kids had a lot of fun playing around on fallen logs. It's ironic because we have many of these in our back yard too.