Reading The Night Before Christmas

Nice warming fire mid-whitetail hunt

About 20 degrees but we have fire and snacks...

Fall chores with the boys...

Article: Why It's Crucial to Get More Women Into Science

For my fellow parents of strong, smart girls...

Why It's Crucial to Get More Women Into Science
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/11/141107-gender-studies-women-scientific-research-feminist/?sf5658031=1

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Prize Winning Entry!

Finn's orthodontist held a pumpkin contest this Halloween, and we just found out that Finn's hardware-heavy entry won a $50 mall gift certificate!   Woo-hoo!

Happy Halloween!

From the kangaroo, Jedi, and ninja

Happy Birthday, October!

Family picnic up at Pattee Canyon

Caring for a yellow-rumped warbler that flew into a window; climbing a Maple tree

Fruit harvest

We've been away in Missoula most of this week, and this healthy black bear has been feasting on plums.  Apparently it has a regular circuit, because the time stamps for 3-4 nights in a row show it coming in just after 9 PM and again sometime around 3 AM.  We saw it last night right outside the cabin on the early buffet.  The neighbors' dog comes over and barks at it, and the bear just turns to face it and huffs once or twice.  That shuts the dog up and the bear goes back to gorging.  Electric fence going up today, as it is now showing interest in not just the deadfall, but the plums on the trees.  The little trees are pretty stout, but couldn't stand up to this weight when the bear climbs up.

Elias (4) to Maille on her 11th birthday

"I love you infinity, unstoppable, keep on counting."

Makin' hay... Here's the photo

Makin' hay...

We just finished with the second cutting of grass/alfalfa hay. With the drought elsewhere, hay is bringing a good price. About half of the proceeds go to the family account for costs, about half goes to the kids who took on the summer job of moving heavy irrigation pipe with me and October near every evening during July and August.

EO ready for his first day of preschool!

This was Elias' eye this morning....

It's opened back up just a little a bit now, and it doesn't hurt, so it looks like the active swelling is over. We will stick with ice packs and benedryl for now! It was at least one, probably two yellow jackets that stung his left eye yesterday afternoon. And now we have epi-pens in case the next reaction is worse.

Quite a week, with Finn going missing for a couple hours at sunset on Saturday, then splitting his lip and doing an all-night ER trip for that on Sunday. Oh, and trying to prep for the move... Ugh.

Fwd: Beautiful day

This just in from October, at home with Elias....  It's sunny and 60's today.  Awesome, all the way around!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: October Moynahan <moynaclan@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, May 8, 2014 at 1:55 PM
Subject: Beautiful day
To: Moynahan Brendan <moynahanb@gmail.com>


Elias got sent outside for a time-out for being surly.  When I went to check on him, he was stretched out, nice and calm and he said, "ya know mom, this time-out is actually 'the life' ".  What could I do but get him a nice cold beverage.

Happy Easter!

We had a great day... Planting seeds in the sun, several egg hunts, and topped off with helping the neighbors down the road feed a bunch of week old lambs...

Well then.

Maille has locked herself in the bathroom and gone on strike.
Thankfully, she let us know that she has a good supply of air, food,
water, toilet, toothbrush, soap, and toothpaste. We may have failed in
most ways as parents, but at least she has the good sense to take care
of personal hygiene while she strikes.