"A Poet of the People"

Last weekend my other half and I went to the Carl Sandburg Home in Flat Rock, NC. I had seen the sign for the home on the side of the highway countless times but had my friend not said we should really go, I'm not sure I would have. And I'm glad we did because we had a blast!

The Carl Sandburg Home is a National Historic Site run by the National Park Service. It costs $5 per person to tour the house, but the grounds, trails, and barn are free.

For those of you who are like me and have no clue who this gentleman was, let me educate for a brief moment. Carl Sandburg was a famous (it surprised me how famous!) writer, folk singer, activist, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and biographer (two for his poetry, one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln). He died June 22, 1967 and his wife sold the property with its contents and cultural resources donated to the National Park Service in 1968. One of the stipulations was that the calendar in the house remain open to June 1967. I wish I had taken a picture of it to show you!

Lake on the way up to the house and goat barn

View of the house from the trail

Trail leading up to the house. When we were heading back to our car a lady yells to us, "Is this hike worth it?!" We said, "Oh, definitely." And then Chris and I both look at each other and say, "Hike??" It was .25 mile and 100 foot elevation gain. Funny.

Lilian Sandburg's (wife) passion was goats and one of the main reasons they moved to North Carolina. All of the goats on the property are descendants of her original goats. Or so they say.

I used to want goats. And then I read parts of the keeping backyard goats book they had in their giftshop.

Chicken butts

Of course I had to take a picture of the piano

Every room was full of books; apparently the collection contains 12,000 volumes. This is actually the dining room. They weren't big tv watchers but every year Zenith would send them the latest television set they had made.

I fell in love with this kitchen and now I'm thinking my dream home will be in the mid-century modern style. ;)

Love it.

Love old appliances. Honestly, I don't even know what this is. Stove/oven?

I know what these are!

This guy's GOATee (haha - get it?) is AWESOME

The goat barn. It was a beautiful day to visit the Carl Sandburg Home.

And I will leave you with a fun little video of Carl Sandburg on What's My Line?.

Chicken Run!

Remember that movie??  Well I do...like it was yesterday.  Except it was last Sunday.  And amazingly enough, I have video of it.  Well, of the escape...I was not about to let my husband videotape me chasing a chicken through the woods for an hour.

In watching the video back I learned two lessons:
1.  Only herd the chickens to the backyard when all four are together.
2.  Only herd the chickens to the backyard when the gate is already open.

Here's what happened.  I thought it'd be neat to have a video of me moving the chickens to the backyard for you guys to see.  If we're in town, I always move them to the backyard on Saturdays and Sundays so they can roam around.  I still haven't figured it out but somehow the brown chicken ended up closed up in the coop with the other three chickens outside of the coop (but still in the run) the night before.  That's why initially you only see three chickens and hear me ask, 'What'd you do with the other chicken?!' and the Hubs go, 'I didn't do anything with the chicken!'  Isn't it funny how I automatically blame him?  Anyway, the rest of the video speaks for itself. 

What we didn't record was the HOUR we spent tromping through the briars, vines, and poison ivy back and forth in the 'woods/brush' around the back of the fence.  And finally, the only thing that worked was moving the three chickens from the backyard back to the chicken run so the 'lost' chicken could see/hear them and move towards the coop.  It was ridiculous.  And about 45 minutes into it I got the feeling she had no intention of reuniting with her sisters and just wanted to mess with us.

I couldn't figure out how to edit out the lame parts of this video so here it is in all its glory.

    

Here Chicky Chicky Chicky!

Remember these guys?

Well, here they are now:

(With the exception of the two roosters I switched out.  Sorry it's fuzzy...my camera fogged up from the humidity.  YEAH.  By the way, I've learned it's really hard to take pictures of chickens.)

Watching things grow

My garden then...

Only a few weeks later, my garden now...

I found two gnarly tomato hornworms on my tomato (obviously) plants yesterday.  It was my first encounter with hornworms and I'll admit, I was pretty grossed out.  They make this awful clicking sound and spew out nasty goo when they're threatened.  I didn't think about taking a picture (I was too consumed with getting them OFF MY TOMATO PLANTS!!) but here's a picture of one I found online for your viewing pleasure:

From http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/M1224.html.  This website has some really great info on these guys.

Here are some pictures I took of the chickens this afternoon.  They love chilling behind the wheel barrow.  

Little does homeboy know he (as well as his bro) will be placed in a new home in the coming week.

Thanks for stopping by!