England in the fall..

There's a nice park to take a stroll in around the town here. Leaves are turning now just like back home. It's quite cool in the evenings, but the walk was very relaxing. I only got a few pics, here are a few more. Things are going well, the weather has been very good until today with rain moving in. The trip has been a lot of fun and very interesting, but I'm ready to get home to the family too. We've had a discussion about homeschooling, that was fun to talk about with them here. I'll have to share more about the conversations later. It's hard to find a "gospel" church here, as they call it. I mentioned Spurgeon in a conversaton but didn't seem to get a big response about him... It's an interesting culture. I look forward to sharing more with family and friends later on. FYI: The fish and chips are excellent..
This will probably be the last post I'll be able to get in, so I'll share the rest at home with all of you.
See you soon,

A few pictures from England.

Things are going well here in the UK. I slept well on the first night away which is unusual, but considering that I'd had 5 hours sleep within the last three day I guess the body was ready to shut down. After work I was trying to stay awake for as long as I could before getting to bed so I took a walk around the small town here and took a few pictures. These are of an old church (St. Matthews)an Anglican church. I actually found out it is a new one, it was built in 1827..



Driving on the wrong side of the road is nerve-racking.. Take a look at the view from the car.



It'll take a while getting used to going around a blind left hand curve on the wrong side of the road! It'll make you flinch when you see the other cars rounding the curve in front of you!

Hope to find time to take more pictures for you soon. Check back.

Stonewall signing off from the UK.

P.S. There was a plumbing problem back at the home front, but thanks to the Lowe's all is well again! Thanks Greg. You saved the day..

I'm in merry ole England!

Hey I watched the sunset at 9:00pm est and watched the sunrise 5 hours later! I did get a hour or so nap between. I was thinking that Mr. Potato head was just getting out of bed by this time and the suns already up here. I've only got a minute, I'll blog more tonight (with pics). This was my first time to fly business first class. HEY, there's a BIG difference here, recliners for seats, and "would you like lobster on your salad sir!!" WELL YEAH! I like first class! I've got pictures of the engineering manager here that picked me up driving on the wrong side of the road, It's gonna take a while to get used to that! shifting the stick shift with your left hand? lots of neat things to talk about.

Talk later.

Tour de Farm

If any devoted readers are still taking the time to look at our long-neglected blog, we hope to start catching up now.

Saturday we went to tour a farm about two hours away, which sells chicken, turkey, beef, lamb, and pork. All the animals are based on pasture and moved periodically to a fresh area. The methods used at this farm are very similar to Joel Salatin's, the Virginia farmer who helped pioneer the sustainable agriculture movement.


The owner was very knowledgeable on his subject- farming- and I learned quite a bit. It was nice to find that he allows homeschoolers to come and help process his birds, as well as having a homeschool daycamp.

The entire farm was quite diverse, with multiple species sharing an area to benefit each other in natural symbiosis. Chickens keep pigs clean of lice, as well as sanitizing the pasture after the cows. Cows keep the grass clipped to a comfortable level for chickens in return, while pigs provide protection, to a degree, for the chickens. A Great Pyrenees (dog) was kept with the turkeys, which are roaming birds, to protect them from aerial predators. Although the dog couldn't catch a hawk, all animals dislike and avoid dogs, including hawks and buzzards.

The owner is very commited to honesty and quality. He had three healthy looking cows that had gotten sick. We never could have guessed that they had been sick, but the owner was selling them at the sale barn instead of to customers due to the fact. He also never sells a bird whose intestinal tract breaks during processing.

The trip was very informative and gave me some new ideas. I'm looking forward to being able to farm myself, hopefully before very long.

~Sherlock