Hurricane Farm

Anyone remember that game "Hungry Hungry Hippos"?

It seems as I get a little older and look for games for my kids I find myself missing my childhood games more and more.

In fact, just after Christmas I purchased a "Crossbows and Catapults" game because I remembered spending hours on end building castles and walls, and then hurling plastic checkers with the crossbow and catapult trying to knock them over.  My brother and I had some pretty intense and fun games in our parents' hallway.  I still say hardwood floors are the best for this game!

At the time (being just after Christmas, I guess) I could only find one store with the game in stock.  It must have been popular last year.  So I looked on eBay.  Whoa...$150 for the original edition.  Man, what did I DO with all my old games?

So I ordered the new edition...It's sort of like the one that I used to have.  Only not as well made.

I guess my point is that things should be saved, re-used, and passed on.  Right?  What is all this about buying new things all the time?  Especially when they are not anywhere near the quality that we used to have, use, and love.

Someone should tell this to our hogs...They seem to LOVE my new drill (another new product that pales in comparison to the older ones...).

Will pig drool void the warranty? 

I can see it now:

Customer Service Rep:  Is that a bite taken out of the handle?

Me:  Yes sir.

Customer Service Rep:  Who would do such a thing?

Me:  Well, sir, my pigs, sir, prefer Mexican food.

Erica's friend gave us her old truck and it is a great addition to the farm.  It arrived rather noisily, but a new exhaust clamp and gasket took care of that.

Now Erica can take the kids out and about on farm errands.  Since this has an extended cab, there is actually room for us all.  We won't be hauling cordwood in this one, but we still have the big truck for such jobs.  We were able to get farm plates at a reduced price (they still do that here in CT) and we ordered a new logo for the sides.

I spend a lot of time looking for exactly the same font as on our other truck, but this was the closest that I could find.

We've already put the truck to use picking up the pork from the butcher's, picking up our pig feed, and gathering maple syrup.  We use three 36 gallon totes to haul the syrup sap (oops) back from our new sugar bush.  The totes fit in perfectly and we can drive the truck within meters of our evaporator for easy access to the sap.

It was pretty cold when Erica and Violet put the new logo on the doors.  I am glad that this is a job that Erica takes.  I have no patience for these vinyl stickers and would probably end up with the "C" stuck to the "R" below it.

You can see that Violet has a glove off...moments before she took in a rather large splinter. 

After a few minutes off to remove the splinter, the truck was finished. 

Here are the aforementioned totes full of fresh sap brought in from the sugarbush.

Finally, Liev takes a little time off from making mud cakes with his sister to lend a hand filtering the sap:

We've finished off this past weekend's batch and have about 3 gallons of syrup or so.