Spiderman...

...or woman, I suppose. Either way, here's a cool photo of a black and yellow spider (Argiope aurantia) I took in our front prairie a couple weeks ago. That morning, I looked out the bedroom window to see huge spider webs covered in dew all over the prairie. I'm not a good enough photographer to be able to capture those images well, but this one was pretty cool, I thought. This spider's body was probably a little bigger than a quarter -- a bit too big for my comfort, but they must have some important job in the prairie or they wouldn't be there, right?

The Great Minnesota Get-Together

We had another fun day at the State Fair a couple of weeks ago. It was a long one, from 10:30am to past 9pm. That's plenty of walking and eating and walking and seeing animals and walking and visiting the 4H building and walking and eating. Here are some photos:

Max at the all-you-can-drink milk bar -- the pipes overhead carry cold milk (regular or chocolate) straight down like a tap at a bar.

Mmmm -- chocolate milk!


Ben on the Sky Ride with Ted

Noelle on the Sky Ride in the rain

An action shot of Ellie, Max and Noelle on the River Ride

Back outside!

We received and installed the electrified poultry netting over the weekend, and now the birds are finally back outside. Yay! It's not exactly "free-range" anymore, but their new range is big enough to at least let them have some freedom to roam, scratch and do other chicken-y things.



One fun side effect of the chickens' relative captivity is that the goats can now share space with the birds. Birds hang out in the goat yard and goats can wander and browse through the chicken "paddock". It took a few zaps for the goats to learn to respect the fence (what the kids attest feels like a "playground shock"), but now Moose and Lily happily co-mingle with the poultry gang. Of course, Moose promptly scooted through the chicken door in the coop and started munching on chicken feed, so now we have to make sure that's closed before any mingling can occur. ;-)

Ben's a kindergartner now!

Ben started kindergarten this week! His teacher is Mrs. Moen, and the class is with both kindergartners and first graders. He seems to love things so far, with his usual favorites of the morning being recess and snack. ;-)

Ben "signing in" in his classroom on the first day

Here is Ben with Ellie and Max in front of the peace pole at their school.
This was day 2 for Max and Ellie. That little girl on the left doesn't look too happy about starting kindergarten, does she?