Yard and Family Stuff

So one of the things that happened earlier this year was that we purchased a used truck.  We've realized over the few years that we've owned our 16 acres that we needed a large vehicle just to tow stuff and be able to do general things that you have to do with a lot of property.  Move cut up trees... move large tractor implements... accumulate rocks for our rock wall we're building.... get wood chips...

Pretty much everyone with a larger piece of property at some point realizes they need a truck.  This is our red beast:


We were happy to get a used truck as it will simply be used for hauling junk all over creation.  We didn't want to worry about putting the first scratch into it... and we aren't since it had a lot of scratches when we bought it!

One of the first things we did was finish clearing out brush and junk bushes from an area that we use to go from the driveway to the back portion of our property.  We wanted to stop driving the tractor across the grass, so we cleared a path and then used wood chips from the town to keep the weeds down and prevent the area from turning into a mud path.


With the trees greening up, the area looked really nice (and still does).  It provides a good transition between the yard and the woods.


Last but not least, in early June, some of my siblings and I participated in a 5k race in our hometown.  The race is dedicated to a student (he was a senior when I was a freshman in high school) who was killed in a car accident.  He was a very dedicated runner on our cross country team and had always wanted to go to school for physical education (he had a running scholarship to St. Lawrence University) and to be able to come back to the town and improve things there.

When we were in high school, we didn't have a track to run on.  The only track we had was an old cinder track that you'd be more likely to break your ankle than to set any records.  So we practiced by running laps around the parking lot.  We had a total of four hurdles to practice over for races where you needed to clear 10 of them, and yet, we had one of the best track teams in the state.  The race has been held for 21 years now, and the town has one of the best track and field facilities in the entire state thanks to the participants of the race and the donations that have come in as a result of the race.

Anyway... I digress a bit...

Last year, I participated in the race by walking with my younger sister (the one on the far left in the photo below).  After we did it, my other sister (the one on the far right) said she wanted to do it this year.  We also roped one of our brothers into doing it with us as well this year.  The three "dry" looking people walked the race and carried umbrellas since it was pouring the entire time.  I ran the race and got completely drenched.  We had a great time though, which was the whole point of it.  I also ran a personal best of 33:55, which was 3 minutes faster than a 5k I had run a month prior.


We ended up with a fun weekend of the siblings getting together.  The rain didn't damper our spirits at all.  I hope we can all get together to do it again next year!

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations