A Snowy Day

We got our first snow of the season the day before Halloween.  In fact trick-or-treat was scheduled for that evening and had to be postponed due to the snow.  The kids didn't mind much though because they had a blast outside.  As soon as there was a dusting the kids started coming out of the woodwork and not long after they were all out front enjoying the weather.  They did it all:  sledding, snow forts, snow boarding, snow ball fights, snow ice cream, snowmen, snow angels!!!

As soon as the grass was covered the sleds came out!

Jack's first snowball of the season

Emily's first snowball of the season

Emily, Joanna and their snow buddy

We ended up getting about 8 inches!  It looked like a winter wonderland.  I resisted the temptation to put on Christmas music (I just can't do it until after Thanksgiving), but did have a nice warm cup of apple cider while making batches of hot chocolate and cookies for the kids. 

Jack's First Kill

This is Bob's account of the hunt:

I was working in the garden Saturday (I should have been bow hunting, but couldn’t because my hand was injured) when Jack came and asked me to take him squirrel hunting. So we went squirrel hunting again just like last Saturday. Sat in our 2-man ladder stand and not long after getting set up, the bushy tails started showing themselves. Jack was concentrating hard on 2 squirrels about 40 yards away trying to get a shot, but just couldn’t get a bead on either of them. Then I happened to turn and look behind us to the left and there was a squirrel coming down a log about 20 yards away. I whispered to Jack and he slowly turned, and I saw his eyes get big and wide when he saw the animal. He got his .22 rested on the shooting rail of the stand and found the squirrel in his scope. Then the squirrel hopped over to another log about 15 yards away and stopped broadside. Then Jack squeezed off a round from the .22 making that characteristic “crack” of a sound in the woods. To my amazement, the squirrel bellied over the log and lay dead on the ground! It was an absolute great moment. One you could never forget. The first kill of a young hunter while on a father-son hunt in the Pennsylvania woods. Jack said “I can feel my heart beating!”

So we got down and walked over to the squirrel. He hit it right in the head where he was aiming. I showed him how to gut it out, then we walked out of the woods with huge smiles on our faces giving each other high fives. As we were walking out we saw another squirrel on a log about 15 yards away. Since I was carrying the gun (Jack was proudly carrying his prized trophy and had no interest in carrying anything else) I went ahead and took the little critter, making it 2 dead squirrels for the day. So we left the woods with 2 dead squirrels and many good memories. Skinned both of them out at home and put them in a crock pot with a bottle of beer, some chicken boullion, some garlic cloves, and salt and pepper. Sunday morning I peeled all the meat off the bones (well, the meat actually just sort of fell off) and added it to the large pot of stuffed pepper soup Tesha had made the night before from all the peppers I gathered from the garden before the squirrel hunt. We all ate stuffed pepper squirrel soup Sunday after church and thanked the Lord for his bountiful blessings!

A proud father with his son

For Jack's version of the story you can read it here.