Went to the mill today. Too hot by far. Interesting, though. Top left is the sluice leading to the water wheel. Ben with lump of coal on his nose (waiting for tour to start--blacksmith demo too which is where the coal came from). Top right--beams are hollow and have belt with little cups that rise up to the 3rd story--they take grain from basement up to the chutes above the millstones. I.e. "grain elevator". Daniel wanted to get in the grain scale (they wouldn't let him. Scale is also interesting because it lifts up to weigh with a balance, but it also is a funnel and there's a hole in the floor underneath to dump the grain into the holding pens in the basement). Old millstones make up the wall. It's a 200 year old mill, built all of peg-joined wood and all moving parts are wood too. They had three grindstones that operated 10-12 hours a day, six days a week for 150 years. Amazing. The tour guide said it was ironic because when it was a working mill the only day they had off was Sunday, and now the only day they operate is Sunday because that's when they have the most visitors. I thought it was really interesting. The boys just liked feeding the ducks.

Boys went fishing for the first time last night. The weather was beautiful. The fish weren't biting, but that was OK by me...

Day at the Loudon Animal Park

Sigh. I really don't like to blog much. Goes along with that whole "she doesn't like to write" thing. Still, I'm going to try and at least update with pictures more regularly. Here are some summer pursuits (and yes, I really am that red. It was darn hot!)