In early July, while turning the big compost pile, I found a clutch of snake eggs. Laura and I decided to try to hatch them, and she set up an incubator. After about 2 months, one of the eggs actually did hatch and a pretty rat snake baby emerged. We got her some frozen pinkies […]

From August 26 to September 8 this year, Laura and I went on a little adventure to Iceland. First we spent a few days with my dad and his partner Marion exploring the area around Reykjavik, then Laura and I went on a 6-day horse riding tour on the Snæfellsnes peninsula. Finally, we drove South […]

A couple of weeks ago we had several days of warm weather, with high temps around 70F (21C) and the pear trees started budding! So when the inevitable cold-snap came I fully expected them to loose all those buds, but several night of lows in the 20s did bot keep them from flowering. Nice splash […]

We got about a foot of snow on Jan 18 and Patou loved it! She romped through the white fluffy stuff for hours with true puppy exuberance.     The snow was deep for her, yet she plowed through it tirelessly.             Patou had her first visit at the veterinarian, […]

Auf DEUTSCH hier … Last week was crazy cold here … this morning RDU recorded 3 deg F and it was 6 Deg F at the house at 7 AM. Almost the entire week, temperatures stayed well below freezing, and the on the only slightly warmer day we got snow! Taking care of all the […]

Saturday, we drove to Kittrel, NC, to pick up Patou. Here she is, this morning on her first day of training. She was born October 26 to a pure-bred Great Pyrenees dad and a mom who is half Great Pyr and half Akbash.  She was one of five pups for sale and with her slightly […]

In September, I went on a 10-day Trip back to Germany to visit family and friends. It had been a couple of years and it was time to go back an re-connect. I flew into Frankfurt via JFK and arrived on a crisp Friday morning. I picked up my rental car and drove to Bensheim […]

Last weekend, Laura and I rented a cabin in Uwharrie National Forest. A weekend away from the farm (and  the kids) was just the ticket for us. The cabin was a couple of miles from a trailhead for the Uwharrie trail and a 5-minute drive from the Badin Lake Recreation Area. We drove the truck […]

After temperatures in the 70s last week, a cold front moved in yesterday and we got some snow this morning! Letzte Woche waren die Temperaturen schon deutlich über 20 Grad, aber Gestern kam eine Kaltfront und heute Morgen schneite es!

A few weeks ago, my favorite bar in Durham – Dain’s Place – celebrated their 10th anniversary. They had a big party on Jan. 29 and Dain presented me and two other regulars with our own, personal mugs. Vor ein paar Wochen feierten wir das 10. Jubiläum meiner Stammkneipe, Dains Place. Als Teil der Feier […]

Meet Azi, the cat. She is a tortie and an energetic trouble-maker. Laura found her behind a dumpster at work and she was probably born there sometime in the spring of 2016, and she had one litter of kittens there, as well. We had her spayed and vaccinated and she has been settling in quite […]

Today’s high temperature was 68°F (20°C). Julia’s glorious snowman is melting …

Julia’s elaborate, home-made Halloween costume this year: a Kelpie (mystical Scottish shape-shifting waterhorse)

Last weekend, I got some shit done. This is the “mother of all compost piles” … 25 wheelbarrows of manure with 100 gallons of glycerin from my biodiesel production. The pile in the back is the biggest one I have yet built. The one in the front will be ready in the spring. I also […]

This is Mel, our new emu. Mel ist unser neuester Emu. Mel the emu She is still very young, maybe 2 1/2 years old. We got her from a friend in Seagrove, NC. They took her in when they found her wandering their neighborhood. Now she is settling in with the boys – Sidney and […]

View post on imgur.com Last Saturday, we picked up our mare Cleo from her “vacation” with her stallion Apache. The two of them had been “getting it on” for most of the week while she was in heat. Saturday she was at the end of her cycle, so it was time for them to part […]

Every spring, I find a copperhead snake near the house or the hay storage and have to kill the animal. This one was under our deck, and I had a shovel handy, so its demise was quick. I hate to do this, but a bite from a copperhead is not trivial and I am not […]

My Christmas present this year was a little Syma X5C RC quadcopter with a camera from Amazon. This is a fun little quad, as long as it’s no too  windy outside. With a little practice I managed to get some pretty nice aerial shots of our little farm without crashing the quad into the trees. […]

Meet Adjo, our newest and youngest family member. Adjo is a Lynx-point (Tabby-point) Siamese we got from the local animal shelter in August. She is about 10 months old at this point, so she is still very young and playful, which is (partly) why it took me so long to post a picture of her. […]

  This is the newest photo of Pluto’s little buddy Charon, shot by New Horizon and published today by NASA. Remarkable new details of Pluto’s largest moon Charon are revealed in this image from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), taken late on July 13, 2015 from a distance of 289,000 miles  (466,000 kilometers). […]