Big Bone Lick Hike 07/13/12

We wanted to take a hike somewhere we've never been before, so we headed back over to Big Bone Lick - where we go every weekend it seems like.

But, this time we went to Big Bone Lake(?), and hiked around the lake. We had never been on that side of the park in all of our trips there. The lake is really pretty and the water is clear, we saw a lot of bluegills in it. (should have brought our poles!)

Sydella wanted to lead the way on our hike most of the time, so she is the one who found all of the deer.

We saw a lot of deer in the woods and fields along the trail.

We found some blackberries along the trail but its been such a hot dry summer that they were all dried out already.

It was not to strenuous of a hike, but it was kind of long, so try it out sometime!

Turtle Hunt 07/02/12

After our un-successful turtle hunt the day before we thought we would try looking for them at another location. We only found a couple small painted turtles swimming around, no sign of snappers at all.

Cecille caught this one stuck in a discarded tire on the edge of the water, so she waded through the mud to rescue it out of there. It's a cute little painted turtle.

 Joslyn always has fun hunting for critters, I think she thinks we're crazy!

 Everyone wanted their picture with the turtle!

We also caught a big bullfrog. The girls were hoping it was their prince, but no luck! EEEEEEWWWWW!

Turtle Hunt 07/01/12

We went on a snapping turtle hunt after looking at videos online about how tasty they are and how to clean them. We searched all up and down the creek and did not see any sign of turtles living in the creek.

Allix did find a cool wolf's skull in the creek though!

So we got back into the car to head home. As soon as we started driving, Allix noticed something in the grass out her window.

We stopped and saw that it was a litter of raccoons. There was no mother around, just the babies wandering in the field.

We called for them and they came over by us. Jason caught one of them, and Cecille caught TWO of them, but when they turned around she dropped them both because she was scared she might be bitten. (We've never caught baby raccoons before)

 They were so cute!

One of Cecille's raccoons that she had caught ran up under the van to hide and crawled between the frame rail and the gas tank and wouldn't budge.

Finally it came out with a little coaxing and rejoined the rest of them in the weeds by the creek.

LIVE ACTION!

YA YA YA YA YA!

VBS 2012 at Anchor Baptist 06/29/12

So this is Vacation Bible School pictures from over the summer.We were so blessed to help a local church out with their Vacation Bible School. Our church didn't host one this summer. They will instead do a VBS during Mission Friends. This will be starting in a week or so. It will continue through the school year.

Everyone of these children had a Blast during VBS. It was such a Wonderful week getting to know all the kids. They were each so sweet.

The theme was SonRise National Park, and it was the best VBS curriculum we have seen so far. The kids loved it and it was very easy to communicate to them.

Cecille, Allix, Sydella, Jack, and Sam had so much fun singing and dancing all week long. You still catch them singing their VBS praise songs and doing the dance motions. Its cute!!

Cecille really got into it on the last night. They all performed on stage.

Here is Jacks class...they did an Awesome job!! I really enjoyed watching them sing and dance.

 Jack and Sam are the neighbors that live out back of us. Such sweet well behaved boys.

 Here is Sam's class performing on stage. They too did an Awesome Job.

 Cecille and Sam were in the same class. They really put their energy into praising God!! I loved watching them.

 Sydella is a little stubborn like her mama. She doesn't always follow the rules.lol

The kids really enjoyed the family fun night not only did they get to sing their hearts out to God...but then they got spoiled with all kinds of treats. Nachos & Cheese, Snow cones, Chips, Animal Crackers, Airheads, Hot dogs, Brownies, cool aid. I Love seeing the Smiles on all the children' s faces. Priceless.

Catching Gar 06/23/12

When the girls got back from their mamaw's house they found out that we had went fishing without them, and that there were gar in the river... they had never caught gar before - so they demanded that we go fishing again so they could try to catch them.

So I being the Best Fisher Girl in Sydella's opinion-was the first to catch a gar that evening. Jason tried his hardest to catch himself a gar...LOL!!! So in other words he is still yet to catch a gar. He has had them on his hook but they either chewed threw the line or got off at the last second.

So here you see Jason getting in on this photo with the girls holding their gar. I Love it!!

Cecille, Allix and Sydella love fishing!! Joslyn loves exploring. She isn't yet two years old but can say and identify just about all the common animals & animal sounds. Joslyn loves hollering like turtle man as well. So its pretty Hillarious on Sunday evenings in the Fiscus household.

Catching Drum and Mussels 06/22/12

The 3 older girls went to their mamaws for an overnight stay, so we had the evening to just ourselves and Joslyn. So, what else would we do but go fishing!

The water was way down from where it usually is at, so everywhere you looked there were freshwater mussels/clams, so we picked a bunch of them up that were recently stranded out of the water and tossed them back out into deep water.

When you pick them up they squirt water at you! It looked like racoons were having a feast on these easy treats.

Can you eat these? (Is it legal to collect them?)
How would you cook them? Anyone with information?

Joslyn had a good time playing in the shallow water and rocks while Jason fished for gars. He didn't have any luck catching gars; he was using too large of hooks and the ones he did hook cut his line.

Jason caught a big drum fish, but since we've never caught one before we really weren't sure "what" exactly it was at the time, much less if you could eat it... So, we released it back into the river.

Has anyone you know cooked them? The internet says some places that they are easy to clean and good eating, but other places say that they are hard to clean and nasty tasting! ???

We also saw a huge rock full of fossils that was recently exposed due to the river water level lowering. Jason put his watch in the picture for scale.

The nice part about fishing at the dam in Falmouth is that when you want to night-fish, the bridge has bright lights on it so you can see when it's dark!

Getting goats 06/15/12

Cecille got her birthday money saved up and decided that we were going to get a couple goats. We decided upon Pygy Goats since they were smaller and easier to contain.

We got one boy and one girl goat. Their names were Zaisy and Luke. Zaisy (brown goat) was the sweetest goat ever, she was Cecille's little baby; but was killed when the goat shed door fell on her one night. Cecille's heart was broken for a few days.

Luke (white goat)  is doing great and getting bigger. He's the boss of the goats! He loves to try to get inside the house when he's out ranging.