Jay and his horse - Cocoa

Cocoa came to us in early 2012.  He was a rescue horse - actually, he is a Hackney Pony of about 25 years of age, but with lots of spunk.  Cocoa belongs to Jay!
Here is Jay up close with Cocoa.

And here is Jay riding Cocoa:

Oh, how can we possibly forget about you, Fender puppy?

Now here is Jay riding Cocoa:

Amen and amen.

Winter views

Here is the view out Mimi's new kitchen window - she likes it very much.

Farm update

Well, we have spent many months thinking about what name we want to call our new farm.  Many of you have heard some of our thoughts in this area.  We finally have selected it:

Wellspring Meadows Farm

Secondly, we have enlarged our farm this week with the addition of a 2 month old Guernsey heifer.  Her name is Blossom - isn't she beautiful?

This is Blossom with Mimi at the farm in Virginia where we purchased her.  She had been with a wonderful family in the Blue Ridge Mountains who helped us "cow handling rookies" immensely.  The boys made some stall changes in the barn to accommodate our new family member.  

If you are in the neighborhood, drop in and see what we have cooking. :) 

Our house is old, but how old?

When we bought our home, we were told the house was built in 1860.  While we have not yet tracked down the records at the court house to see that date for ourselves, we have been on the search at the house for any clues to the age of the house.  On a later post I will give a more fully elaborated discussion of this, but the oldest date/item we have found so far is this corner piece of a newspaper - from September 1869.

This was found on the wall, just under the plaster, covering a brick, on Zac's wall just below the ceiling.  The metal casing running vertical next to it is wire-guard over his electrical wiring (it has blue painters tape on it.)
Maybe you can see it better here:

Pretty cool, huh?

Quoteworthy

“Roses grow upon briars, which is to signify that all temporal sweets are mixed with bitter. But what seems more especially to be meant by it is that pure happiness, the crown of glory, is to be come at in no other way than by bearing Christ’s cross, by a life of mortification, self-denial, and labor, and bearing all things for Christ.”

— Jonathan Edwards,
in Images or Shadows of Divine Things, 1748

Painting Business

Baker-n-Sons Painting: The painting business that Coy, Zac and I are now running has a newly updated website.  Please feel free to offer any advice or suggestions on improving the website.  Thought you might like to see it.

New House

In May we closed on the purchase of our new home - a farm house with 15 acres, built in 1860 and  located in Ashe County, North Carolina.  See here a picture of the front and back of the house - and the last pic is the barn that came with it.  It has been a long and wonderful journey that we promise to share much more fully later on.  

While these pictures look good (and it is), the inside is requiring much more work - as we restore it (as best as we can) to the original look and construction.

Zac's birthday on the firing range

In the following pic's you can see that we had a good time. Sorry that you can not see the faces of the thrower or shooters (that was my decision to stand behind them). Also, I'm not sure if the boys had more fun throwing the skeet or shooting them. Or maybe it was picking up the unbroken ones.

James on the range with Zac throwing.
Daniel stepping hard into the throw.

John on the trigger with Jimmy throwing. (I think James was coaching at this point.)

Daniel taking aim.
John taking another turn with throwing, and Jimmy showing the relaxed atmosphere we all enjoyed that day.

What form!!!

Justin shooting up the alley.

Jimmy showed us how to convert a standard shot shell into a quick - slug action. By cutting as indicated in the pic, the end of the shell does not blow out, but the bulk of the shot stays in and goes with the end of the shell - and that is what acts like a slug.

And finally, some bump'n... to round out the activities.

Zac's Sweet Sixteenth

Let us begin with the grand finale.

The cake! Made to order as usual.

Zac with his brother and Fender...

Zac's 16th Birthday was replete with fun and excitement. In the early afternoon, Zac and his dad joined a few of his friends and did some skeet shooting, of course it was followed up with some bump'n. Then he came home for some cake and present action. I know you've been told that we scale way back on birthdays, but we try to make a few exceptions for significant ones. First, let me tell you that Coy WAS able to join us. Thanks to the technology of Face-Time he was able to watch all the action in real-time. But he was not able to taste the cake :(

Maybe next time Coy!

Zac with his beautiful mother...

Here is Jay with the horse that is staying with us, named Caspian.

Jay is here "lunging" Caspian.

Merry Christmas!

Hey folks, we moved last month. I know this is a shock to some of you, but most will know that we have moved many, many times over the years. We are now in Boone, NC area.

Here are pic's of our new home and a view of our front yard.

Yes, we have not lost the irony of our blog name "Down From The Mountains", as we have now moved back up the mountain.

If you will be in the area, please give us a call or drop by.

And the front yard... with Jay's golden retriever, Fender.

Coy's Graduation Pict's

Here are some pictures from my graduation party.