Sorry about the photos, they are attached to this copy of the email. This may not be as big as the Cape May ferry, but it is the one that crosses Long Island Sound.

I was writing to Shaunaugh a couple of weeks ago about my commute, weekly or bi-weekly as the case may be, and the ferry I take to get off Long Island; the bridges and the connecting freeways are soooo crowded that the ferry is a real good choice. She mentioned the size of a local ferry asked about this one and the time it takes to get on and off, etc. So here is a photo of the ferry I ride on. It is the P. T. Barnum.

It is one of three ships, they are almost the same, all owned by the Bridgeport & Port Jefferson Steamship Company. They hold a hundred or so vehicles depending on the number of semi-trucks (lorries) and busses that are in the crowd. It takes about 15 minutes to un-load and another 15 minutes or so to load then an hour and 15 minutes for the crossing of Long Island Sound and they repeat going the other direction. With 3 ships on the schedule, there is a about one ship leaving both Bridgeport and Port Jefferson every hour on the hour or the half hour depending on the port. The last to get loaded are the motorcycles; they are crammed into all the knoocks and crannies at the back of the ship.

Some interesting vehicles make the ferry trip, a couple of weeks ago there was young Italian looking guy with a hot Maserati coupe in the crowd, red of course, it was very nice and drew a lot of attention. Last week there were a bunch of antique cars on the ship, one shown here, front and back. I did not get the name of this car written down, but it was interesting and loud, pre mufflers and again red interesting enough.
--

The Doodlebops, yup we jammed out today at the concert. Quinlyn danced like crazy. She even was break dancing on the floor for a bit. Addisson watched but said she had a good time. The concert was in Watertown at the fairgrounds. Afterwards we made the mistake of taking the kids to lunch at McDonalds, along with everyone else from the Doodlebops concert. At least that is how it seemed. It was so busy.

Yesterday was the last day of swim lessons and they had a fun day. The pool was quite cold. The girls had a good time. I swam with them and they had cake and played on the playground. Then in the afternoon it was more cake at Kane's Birthdday party. They all played in the sprinkler at Kane's house then opened presents and had cake. It was a good time.

Tuesday Asa, the girls and I were out in the back field moving the goats when Addisson got stung by yellow jackets. I went in to get her out and I also got stung. She had about 5 stings and I had one on the face. This was her first time she has gotten stung. She screamed. Asa came running out of the trees. He knew this scream was serious. She was very upset and wanted to go back to the house. The girls and I went back to the house, while Asa and Aunt Midge stayed to put up the rest of the fence.

Today the girls had swimming again and Addisson is now swimming under water and has past level 1. She will be in level 2 next year. They only have one session of swimming each summer. They do offer swim lessons in Watertown but with the price of gas we cant really afforde to take her to town every evening for lessons. Quinlyn is doing well also in the water. She is at least getting more comfortable with it. It really just clicked for Addisson this year.

It rained most of the day here. The girls, grandma and I cleaned the back storage room. Grandma sorted all of the toys and I went through more boxes in the back room. We ended up with 5 boxes of stuff for a garage sale. By the time Asa got home from work the goats in the back field had escaped. They went straight for the barn. All I had to do was turn off the electric fence and let them in. It was a fairly easy placement. Now we will need to get them back out into the field again. I went to go check on the peachicks and 3 of them were dead. Grandma accidently turned their heat light off last night when she was unplugging the sander. Grandma felt bad and she cleaned up the dead chicks and when she threw them down on the ground one of theirs eyes opened. She donated her heating pad to try to warm it up but there was no luck. Another one was touch and go. Hopefully it will make it through the night. We put it in the heating pad too. It seemed to be doing better. It was breathing and warming up when we left it. That turned out to be an expensive accident. So it was a fun filled evening between the goats getting out and the peachicks.

Saturday

This morning we had a slow morning. The girls and I woke up about 8 am. I fixed them breakfast then they wanted to go back to bed and lay down. So we were all in bed and the girls wanted to read books but no one wanted to get up and go get a book so we made up stories. I went first and I told 3 or 4 then Addisson gave it a try. It was very cute. We checked on our Peafowl which arrived on Thursday. They are doing well. They are very different from chickens or even the Guinea Hens. They have big feet and long necks, but their behavior is different. They peck at my rings and will perch on your hands, where as the chickens always ran away. They have been fun so far.

Tonight I worked at the Grange booth at the Jefferson County Fair. They served hotdogs, sausages, hambergers and sodas. The booth stayed pretty busy and the time went by quickly. Over all it was nice to socialize a bit with out being interupted a thousand times by Mom, mom mom.

Today the girls had swim lessons again and I was telling the story to my friend about George and his tail. She asked me if I found the other part. When we got home I went looking for it and I found it. It is longer than I was expecting. George seems to be doing just fine. He was playing like crazy this morning. So now we have a cats tail as oppose to a rabbits foot. So if anyone would like a key chain let me know.

This week on the farm we had visitors. My mother, Aunt Linda, Aunt Midge and of course Grandma and Grandpap Reed were here. It was lots of fun. We played cards in the evening and went about town during the day. Both girls at one point were puking from some bug, different days. The goats got out of the fence on the back 40. They all got put back by having them follow the feed bucket. The girls had swimming lessons and preschool. Tonight they went sailing with their Dad at the Antique Boat Museum. They love it.

Tonight I was mowing the lawn and I stopped to make dinner and I parked the lawn mower by the porch. Later after dinner when I went to go put the mower away; I started the mower and backed up a little, about a foot or two, before I started the blades. As soon as the blades kicked on a black kitten came screaming out from under the lawn mower. It was George. He appeared OK. However, when I was walking back to the house Grandma had come out and asked what was all over the porch? She asked if it was blood and if the kitten was bleeding. As she looked closer she noticed Georges tail was missing. YIKES. The lawn mower had severed its tail. All but 2 inches of it. I sprayed blue coat on it and with in a few moments it had stopped bleeding. Addisson started to cry because George is her favorite now. He was mine too. Poor George! We are now thinking we may call him Lucky instead. The lawn mower could have cut much worse than his tail. I will try to get a picture posted of Georges Tail. We named the kitten after Curious George because he was the most adventurous and was always curious. So now instead of curious George we should call him Lucky George.

Monday Grandpap took the girls to swim lessons and Grandma thought he would need his swim suit. She stated that she forgot to bring his and maybe he could borrow Asa B's. He said he thought it might be too big. Addisson was in the room listening to the conversations and she piped in and stated well Mommy has one she wont mind if you borrow hers. It was too cute.

Addisson and Quinlyn started swim lessons today. Addisson is doing very well. It takes Quinlyn a while to get used to the water but she is doing ok. Afterwards we played at the playground for a while and then came home. Olivia came over while her mother took the dog to the vet. The girls have been making snakes out of paper plates.

Tomorrow they both start summer school. Quinlyn is really looking forward to it. We will also be interviewing for a new teacher for in the fall. We are very sad Mrs. Simmons is leaving but we hope to find a good replacement.

The view of the crowd from the boat.

Fireworks from the coast guard boat.

Everyone climbing to the upper deck to watch the fireworks on the Coast Guard boat.

The kids liked climbing on the big fire truck.

This boat is call Last Chance. It is one of the Fire Rescue boats. It looked really neat with the sunset.

This was the Coast Guard Cutter Tug we watched the fireworks from in Clayton. We were on the upper deck and had a spectacular view. It was really fun. However, I think I spent half of my time going to the bathroom with the two girls. The cutter was out of Cleveland

The farmers market/Redwood Community Day, went very well. There was about 20 venders. There were animals, alpacas, goats, puppies, rabits and chicks. I wanted to buy the chicks but I didnt get back to the lady before she left. It was very nice. We had several people purchase our goat meat and most people who tried the goat sandwich stated they liked it. It was a beautiful sunny day. The temp was about 80 degrees. I did get burnt on the face and arms. I forgot the sun screen. The girls were there to help out. Addisson and Quinlyn took samples to people. At about Noon Asa showed up and picked up the girls. At first Addisson didnt want to go with him because her friend Rebecca was also there, however once she found out they would be going swimming she didnt hesitate to go with her Dad. Over all I think it was a success.

Last night the Smiths were over for dinner. We had Goat meat Gyros. They were good. Addisson really liked them. Asa got up very early this morning to go fishing on Butterfield Lake. Today is the Farmers Market. I have the car loaded up and I am ready to go. I am just waiting for the meat to get a little warmer in the crockpot. Both girls are up and dressed and working on getting breakfast.

Today the girls were something else. They were constantly bickering and hitting. They were both in time out several times today. At one point Quinlyn decided to unwrap 3/4 of a pack of gum and then shred it into tiny pieces and throw it on the kitchen floor. I wasnt too happy about that. She did pick it up eventually but it took a while for her to complete the task.

Today, July 4th, Addisson woke up with a loose bottom tooth. It is not very loose but it does wiggle a little. We spent all of breakfast discussing the tooth fairy. How big is he/she, where does it come in the house. Does it come in thru the chimney like Santa?

Another little funny story; The other day I walked into the bedroom and saw a bunch of black chunks on the floor. I asked "What is that" to the girls. They stated "We dont know". I said " it looks like cat hair". They replied " yeah Tackle ( the mom cat) was shedding alot". I said " really, because it looks like you may have been giving one of the cats a hair cut". They just giggled. So after they cleaned it up I asked " so which cats were the lucky ones to get their hair cut". They said "Lily (Addisson's favorite kitten) and Ariel (Quinlyns favorite/chosen one)"
Late that evening I saw Lily, she had a hack job done on her. I think most of the fur was hers. She is a long haired kitten. And she had a few scabs on her back where she must have gotten poked with the scissors or they got too close to the skin. Poor, Poor kitties.

When I told Asa that evening he laughed.

Happy July 4th!

Last weekend was the 100th Anniversary of Fort Drum Military Base. They had a two day Air Show. We attended on Sunday. It was great. It was busy but because the air field is so large, you didnt feel crowded. Addisson and Quinlyn loved going in all the helicopters and air planes. The refueling planes, jets were impressive. They had many WWII planes as well. We were there all day. It started at 11am and didnt finish until 4:30.

Asa has to work tomorrow on the 4th but he will be off Sat and Sunday. On Sat we are going to watch the fireworks with the people we went to the airshow with. They were able to get us seats on the Coast Guard Cutter and we will get to watch the fireworks from the river. We are all excited about that.

Also Saturday is our first Farmers Market in Redwood. This is a trial market, if it goes well they will try to have it every week. It is also our first farmers market we will be at selling goat meat. We will be sampling Greek pita sandwiches. Asa and the girls both loved the meat. I had made shrimp for dinner and everyone wanted the goat meat I was pulling off the bone from cooking it on low in the crock pot all day.

I am glad the girls like the goat.