Let's all wish Joey a happy birthday today!  You may not have the same fond memories I do of walking on the train tracks on the way home from school, a book under your nose and your big brother on the rail in front of you.  But we all owe Joey a huge thank you for making the technical side of this blog possible.  Most recently, he coded a plugin to allow you to sign up for email notifications of responses to your comments --- have you noticed?

We celebrated Joey's birthday a couple of days early with a picnic at Natural Tunnel State Park.  The wildflowers are currently in full bloom on the trail above the tunnel, and if you live in the area, this is a walk not to be missed.

Three turkey vultures treated us to a shadow light show that's impossible to describe, but was breath-taking in person.  I also spent far too long peering through the zoom lens of my camera (since I forgot my binoculars) to figure out what those strange birds were roosting on the cliffs.  Yup, those are aptly named Rock Doves...aka the kind of pigeons you see in city parks.  Boy was I embarassed when I realized I hadn't recognized pigeons (but intrigued to see them in a semi-natural habitat).

Joey went on to embrace his Hobbit side while we zipped on down the road to pick up chicken feed.  More photos of cute livestock soon!



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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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