Apples, Cranberies and Lobster

What a strange title... I am thinking about those things because I just got back from a trip to New England. My husband and his parents and I went to see the foliage . Charles parents have never seen the leaves in color so as a way to celebrate thier 50th wedding anniversary we took them on a guided tour of New England. Charles's dad is a farmer and plant breeder so he was very interested in seeing farms. His only other request was to eat seafood everyday.

I grew up in New England and have many friends in the fishing business. One of first stops was to a small fishing villiage called Pemiquid. Its harbor is full of lobster boats . It was a beautiful calm day but the boats were not out. I asked my friend Ricky who is a part time lobster man and he said that the problems in the economy had trickled down to the lobsermen. People were not eating lobster becuause it is a luxery item and the price had dropped down so low to $2.00/lb that the fisherman could barley afford to take thier boats out. The fish buyers will still marking them up and making a profit. There are no subsidies for lobstermen. I enjoyed the cheap lobster and ate as much as I could. If anyone out there wants a contact for some cheap lobster let me know

Next we went to an apple orchard for fresh apples and cider. My father in law( who is a farmer and a plant breeder) was so excited to see a real cider press and orchard . He had never had fresh apple cider before and it was so cool to see his face when he tried it. The local small orchards have had to change the way they press cider because of all the food contamination scares. Instead of using a wood press they use stainless steel now . Many old presses have gone out of business. Luckily this orchard could afford the equiptment . The cider was great. This cider has a disclosure on it stating it has not been pasturized and it may be unsafe for people to eat raw food. Thank you government for the warning but Ill take the risk Some things are just better not heat treated.

The last day of our trip we went to a small cranberry bog . We were lucky and the owner was there and gave us a tour. We got fresh cranberries and all the csa members will get a 1/2 pound bag this week. Massachusetts used to be first in cranberry production until about 1995 ( mostly small family farms)but when everyone realized how nutritious cranberries were large company owned farms were started in Wisconson and the price dropped from $1.50 a pound wholesale to 60 cents. Many of the small picturesque bogs have been sold for realestate because the families could no longer afford them. It felt good to be able to buy my cranberries direct from a family grower. The cranberries I bought were spray free . The farmer said that becuase she did not spray her cranberries were not as perfect as the ones raised on commercial farms and so she was only able to sell them for juice price. I am glad to know I have spray free cranberries and the look and tast great.

Im sure by now you are getting my point. It is important for everyone to support small local agriculture . Without our support All the things I love to eat that made my trip to New England wonderful could be a thing of the past . I appreciate your support for my farm and I hope you are enjoying the taste of real food.

Speaking of real food. We had a frost at our farm in Edge. The summer squash took a hit and so did the peppers. Luckily I still have some peppers and squash growing in town in Bryan. What was strange about the frost was that My in laws garden which is 5 miles up the road from mine in Edge had no frost at all. So I guess those tomatoes will keep coming for the next couple of weeks. Next week the long awaited Broccoli should be ready . I am so excited. See you at pickup....

Cows and Volunteers

Farming always has its surprises some good and others not so good. In early July I had a beautiful stand of small watermelons in the garden I was very excited about them because there was not much else besides purple hulled peas and okras left to harvest. Well one day as I was sitting in the living room relaxing my husband comes in and says... its a good thing you are relaxed... you won't be for long.... the cows got in the garden.

Well as you could expect 22 cows can eat some plants. I learned that they love little watermelons and overripe cucumbers. They do not like purple hulled peas very much and they don't even touch the eggplants.

So here is the surprise.... they must have stepped on quite a few of the small watermelons becuase in August after we got that rain and I had spread compost all over the garden watermelon plants just started popping up everywhere in the section they were before. Well I let about 25 of them grow and surprise this week after the rain we have little watermelons . They should be ready for the first scheduled pickup next week!!! What a treat. One was ready to pick today so it cut it open while i was working in the field and it was amazing.

Of course now we have what I hope is cow proof fence.

Speaking of cows we have have grass fed beef cows available for sale. We will deliver to the butcher of your choice and you must pay for the butchering separately. Please contact us if you are interested and we will give you the price details.

Here in Bryan and CS we were spared with the hurricaine . The rain was a blessing for us and my gardens look great. However there are lots of people in shelters in B/CS who did not fare so well. . Please consider volunteering at your local shelter. The experience will be as sweet for you and the people you help as one of my volunteer watermelons. NOw that I don't need to be watering everyday I will be giving up one of my days in the garden to help out with the health care needs of the evacuees. They need help badly. Hope you can help too.

Early to Bed

When I was growing up my favorite books were the little house on the Prairie Books. My favorite being Farmer Boy. I learned alot about what it took to be a farmer and some good farming tips. I was fascinated by the way that the whole family worked together and the bounty that they were able to provide for thier family and the people in thier community. They also had alot of fun. That life was foriegn to me because I grew up in middle class suburbia and we did not have a garden except once. My mom grew radishes. I did have neighbors though and i was always asking to see what they were growing. One thing that has stuck with me is that farmers go to bed early and get up early. I have always been an early riser and I used to be in bed by 9pm. Over the past few years I have gotten out of the habit of going to be early mostly because my kids are older and they stay up later .Lately though I have been really tired. School started this week so I decided that we all should go to bed earlier. Well guess what. After 4 days of going to bed before 10p instead of 11 or 12 I woke up yesterday morning feeling great. Whats more I am waking up earlier and having alot more time to plan my day and have time to myself.
This is good for the blog as well because here i am before 7 am.

I am headed out to the garden to hoe and plant. Things are looking really good . I am really excited about the spinich and lettuce . Looks like we should have some in the first basket. The corn ear worms did some damage to the corn but we are not giving up and will be replanting this weekend. Peppers and eggplants are going strong and we will have lots of those.

Have a great holiday

Summer Vacation

I am back....... My husband Charles and I had an amazing vacation to the east coast ( Maine, Massachusetts and Connecticut.) This vacation was the first time that my husband took more than 3 days off of work in years so when we left I was worried that he would not be able to relax but he did . It was hard not to with the beautiful places that we went to visit. I used to live in Maine , Connecticut and Massachusetts and consider New England one of the most beautiful places in the country. Even though Charles has travel on every Continent he had never been to these states. So we started with the coast of Massachusetts .We stayed in little town called Marshfield at my parents ( a block from the beach). Morning walks on the beach, lunch at a seaside restaurant outside overlooking the ocean and lobster dinner at my parents house(complete with newspaper on the table and yummy clam chowder) .

Next Charles and I went for a drive up to Maine up the coast and then onto Millonocket Maine. We stayed at Baxter State park in a little cabin where we hiked the appalachan trail, fly fished, canoed , swam in crystal clear water and cooked over a campfire. Baxter state Park is one of the most Pristine places in US .

It was so great to share this place with Charles who loves the outdoors as much as I do. I would reccomend that everyone who is able goes and visits this place.

We went to Connecticut after Maine where I surprised Charles by taking him to a old playhouse in Ridgefield to see our favorite singer , John Hiatt. Great concert.

We ended our vacation back in Massachusetts for a few more days at the beach , touring around Boston and even visited a farmers market where niece (who has the family green thumb) sells vegtables for a farm she works at .

This farmers market was in Cohassett Massachusetts. It was about the size of Bryans farmers market but on a beautiful grassy common surrounded by 300 year old homes.

Vacation is always a wonderful thing ,but it always comes with a price. I"m not talking about the monetary one. I am talking about the double time ,that no matter how well planned your vacation is , you spend catching up on everything that you forgot about for 12 days. In the case of gardening it is weeds. I will say that I was thankful for rain and everything I planted before I left,got off to a great start.

Well thanks to a tractor, a tiller and some hard work all the weeds are under control . I am happy to be home with my hands in the soil.......

Hard Work , Old timers , and Ice water

I havent had a post on the blog for a while . Ive been working. ...Watering, Harvesting, building fence and irrigation, running after cows , picking okra( a daily job) , weeding , planning, watching , learning and praying.

We have all worked hard these last few weeks, the soil is ready and we have started planting for the late summer and early fall harvest. We are just finishing up the new irrigation system and will be able to water to get those seeds up and started.

I have to say that I am very thankful for all the hard work of my husband Charles, his Dad and my 3 sons Micah, William and Tj . They have all put in some hard work in the sun to help me get the garden ready for the fall.
We have nothing left to do but rest, wait for rain and water if it doesnt for the next couple of weeks.



I've learned that 50% chance of rain means 50% of Brazos County might get rain ,that cows can turn on a faucet to get a drink , okra grows in 5 minutes, why they call them Zipper cream peas, that its not the curly cue that tells if the watermelon is ripe , its the thump and the yellow spot, that cantelopes fall off the vine when they are ripe , and that the best dinner in world is a few handfuls of purple hulled peas , a fresh tomato and a melon for dessert while I am watering the garden and watching the sun go down.

Last week I was wishing we would get a little of the rain from the hurricaine I watched it rain on one side of the road and not the other and felt frustrated. Then I looked up in the sky at a double rainbow and remembered to pray and thank God for blessing me .

I am off for a week of vacation to rest up for fall farming... Hiking the Appalachian Trail in Maine and hopefully a visit to a potato farm and Johnnys Seed company. Oh yeah fly fishing and eating lobster too. Have a great week.

6 amazing weeks

Taking pictures of what is going on in your garden really helps you realize what you have accomplished in a short period of time. We started to till the ground up at our farm site for our early planting of potatoes and broccoli and kale in mid febuary . In late march and early april we started putting our tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers , watermelons cantelpes and squash plants in the ground. By late april we started harvesting a little squash ,onions and radishes. Then came the first week of may with a lot of squash and the beginning potato harvest yielding over 75 lbs . The garden has produced over 500lbs of produce in the last 6 weeks. I am totally amazed.

Last week I was pretty stressed out about the heat and the drying wind . I was sure my plants were going to shrivel up and go away. We watered every 3 days and most everything has made it. Only the pickling cucmbers seemed to suffer but even they are making a rebound .

Today was a great day at the market and my csa members got a heavy share this week. There was tomatoes, squashes, cucmbers eggplants and peppers. I was feeling pretty blessed. but i was overwhelmed when i got out to the big garden on harbert road and found that even though i had picked tomatoes and cucmbers yesterday morning there were lots more this evening. To make things even better as I was giving all the plants a drink I noticed lots of watermelons and cantelopes that I am sure were not there a week ago. They have grown so fast that these two melons took up residence in the last 10 days under the wheelbarrow. One is a black diamond and the other a carlolina cross. There are watermelon vines everywhere. I am hoping that everyone will get a nice cantelope or 2in thier basket next week.

This weeks harvest etc....oh yes salmonella free

This weeks harvest : Despite the heat and wind we are still harvesting enough vegtables for a generous share weighing more than 12 pounds. This week share will have; cucumbers, squashes (yellow, spagetti, 8 ball, patti pan and acorn), tomatoes, long beans , herbs, peppers and eggplant.
The squash beetles are back and I am hoping to keep them away with wood ashes and sesame seed oil. If i am successful my second planting of squashes will be bountiful. Squash beetles are borers that kill the plant by boring into the plant base and laying there eggs inside of the vine nearest the root base. I put the ashes on the base of the plant and the sesame oil helps it stick. hopefully this will deter them. If anyone else out there has a people friendly method to deal with these pests let me know.
The news has been full of stories about the salmonella contanmination of the Roma Tomatoes. Buying local seasonal vegtables is the best protection from these kinds of diseases . How did that mess happen ? More than likely tomatoe crops were infected by poor human sanitation practices on the commercial farms . The sad thing about this is it is impossible to find the source as the tomatoes are shipped to a huge packaging plant from many different places and mixed together. Salmonella is waterborn and well ,it is wet in those places . Those viruses will flourish given the right opputunity and enough time.

Local vegtables are picked , sold and consumed in a matter of days versus weeks on the commercial end. They are also ripe and thus loaded with antioxident nutrients that naturally fight off these germs and bacteria. Commercial tomatoes are often picked green sprayed with a chemical to make them look ripe. Because the fruit does not ripen naturally it does not reach its nutrient potential.
I believe that more people die from disease related to poor nutrition including the voluntary omission of fresh fruits and vegetables than the rare outbreak of disease from waterborne transmission to vegetable crops. I am more concerned about people avoiding fruits and veggies altogether because of the fear of contaminated food. I am saddened by this event for all people.

the gift of a garden.

Im not sure what I should compliment first, my husband or my tiller. I think I will start with the tiller.

For the last couple of years I had been getting by with my old small tiller and a hoe. That worked great until we had the big expansion out to the land in Kurten. As you can imagine breaking up pasture land with a tiller made for a backyard garden was not fun. I was determined to take things to a bigger level. So with perserverence and some help from my father in law with the tractor I got the soil broken up. The tractor only breaks it up in rough pieces so then I would go back over it with the little tiller. Lots of time for little results. I started my search for a big tiller and almost got a really nice used Troybuilt horse from Ike's for a great price. Problem was that my accountant(my husband ) was in Australia when I found it and by the time I got the okay it was gone. I was seriously disapointed because they have stopped making them so If you know anyone with a used Troybuilt Horse that is selling let me know. Well my husband who hates to see me disapointed started searching for tillers and the day before my birthday we went to Sears and picked up my new tiller. Now this tiller may not be a Horse but, it is the Cadillac of its kind. The tines go forward or reverse and it is self propelling. It made fast work of the 1/4 acre that needed to be tilled for purple hulled peas and pintos.

Often times I have heard it said that God knows our hopes and dreams but we need to be patient for his timing. Having a garden large enough to feed other families has been a long time dream of mine, one that I have had since I first discovered my passion for gardening 23 years ago. I big venture and one that would require the help of a team . Now through the years I have owned acreage out in the country but the not everyone wanted to play on the team so 5 years ago I put the dream aside and moved into the city minus the oldest team member. I had resigned myself to the single life with kids and a small lot in a nice subdivision. Well the time came that I started dating , I met people through friends and of course joined a dating web site . Now I met lots of nice men but noone that had my interests .Besides that I wasnt having much luck with that rock hard clay in my backyard. So, One day I laid my head in my hands and prayed to God and asked him to send someone into my life who liked kids and shared one of my interests. The next day I saw him on the dating website , his profile said "enjoys gardening" lives in Bryan. Now the pic was'nt that great but what the heck... at least he might be able to tell me what grows in Bryan soil. So my first correspondance was about gardening and my need for help. Well when people share a passion a friendship develops and a month later we had our first date and about 2 weeks after that I had my hands in his soil and was securing barbed wire on t posts out in Kurten. We got married in his backyard garden ( now ours) 15 months later. I thank God everyday for my husband , who shares my dreams and buys me romantic gifts like a tiller and a pedicure to clean up those garden feet.

Birthday Equipment

Today was Vicki's Birthday. I could tell you how old she is but I think she might kill me!!! Anyway, one of benefits of getting a year older is that you get PRESENTS!

For the last two/three years the bulk of the work at Long Bean Farm has been done with a combination of a tractor (basic land prep) and a hoe. Both pieces of equipment are very useful and have their place. But the farm seemed to be missing something.

Mostly more hoes!!! I say that in the most polite way....but you just never seem to have enough hoes around when the spring and summer grass starts sprouting.

How do we fix this issue??? This has been a question that comes up almost every weekend. The answer seemed to be that we needed something smaller than a tractor but bigger than a hoe. It was decided that we would get a tiller that would be big enough to make rows yet narrow enough to till between rows. The decision was made.....

After hours and hours of surfing the net and mucho phone calls to equipment sales people we were more confused than ever! It seemed like there were 100's of choices. All had benefits and drawbacks. The project would require more thought! Well, the discussions continued...and the grass continued to grow. At some point you just need to close your eyes and hope for the best.

So, this week for a "not so romantic birthday present" Vicki got a tiller that is self propelled and can put up rows.

Ok, we all know that birthdays for your wife require a "romantic present". Too many of us husbands buy practical gifts for our wives birthdays thinking that we are doing something to make their lives easier and that our wives will really like that. But, we very soon find out that we missed the boat entirely and we should have just bought something soft, lacy or chocolate.

Well, I hope I didn't fall into that trap....but you never can tell. So, to hedge my bets (really the tiller) we made an impromptu stop at the nail salon after the farmers market!

Once Vicki gets the hang of her mechanical hoe I'll post some photo's and a review of the equipment.....

Got any Bread man...

We wouldn't want you to think that all we do is farm...that would be boring. Not to say that farming is boring but if that really was all we did then we would be boring!

For the last few years I have been on a quest to learn how to make 3 breads.

• Homemade "light" bread like my Grandma
• French Country Bread
• Ciabatta Bread

The "light" bread was not that hard to get a handle on. It is a simple yeast bread that you can make and eat every day. In our house we now make almost all of our daily bread using this or a variation of my Grandma's recipe.

Next on my list was French Country bread. I have great memories of the fresh baked Country bread I picked up every couple of days from Valentine's Bakery in Albury, Australia. I don't have any idea how they made the bread and still today they will not share any of their secrets.

This crusty bread with a light and somewhat airy crumb has proved to be my biggest challenge. To this day I have not been able to master this loaf! I can make bread with the right crust but the wrong crumb. I can make bread with the right crumb but not the right crust. But, never have I been able to combine the two! If you have any good recipes LET ME KNOW. Don't get me wrong....I am not giving up.... But, I needed to try something else for a while.

So, bring on the Ciabatta! I tried a half dozen recipes. But, none of them were just what I was looking for...nice crust with a light and holey crumb. Then I saw a recipe on "The Fresh Loaf" website. Here is the link... ciabatta. I couldn't believe how simple this recipe sounded!!

I started the bread in the morning and it mixed just as was stated. Believe it or not it really does take about 20 minutes of mixing in my Kitchen Aid for the pancake batter you start with to become a dough. After the dough came together I poured it into a bucket to grow!

As you can see there wasn't a lot of dough. But, the recipe said I could expect it to triple in size....so, I had high hopes!

Well, after the dough was packed away for the rise I went to work at the farm. Oh, right I am not talking about that in this post.

When I returned from a very hot morning with my hoe.... Ok, i said I wasn't going to talk about farming in this post but that time I was! Much to my surprise the dough had MORE THAN TRIPLED and was full of bubbles!!

So far so good... Now came the hard part. That was to get the dough out of the bucket. But, as the bucket was well oiled that was not an issue and the dough slid right out onto the counter and settled in on top of the flour. I looked at the dough and it was FULL of all sizes of bubbles. The recipe wanted me to cut the dough into 3 pieces...but as we had already planned to make a fresh tomato sauce and salad with veggies we collected that day from the garden I figured 1 big ciabatta would work best. Also, I was a little worried about killing all of those great bubbles!

I made a couple of light folds to shape the bread and drizzled a little olive oil over the top and put it on a section of bakers paper for the final rise. The bubbles were still intact and it looked like this just might work.....

The oven was pre-heating and all was on schedule for a nice dinner. After the oven reached it very high 500F I slid the bread into the oven closed the door (that's right no extra water for steam) and hoped for the best.

After 15 minutes the house was beginning to sell like bread and I had my first look. It looked GREAT!! There was HUGH spring in this dough!! But, it didn't look done yet....so I let it go another 5 minutes. After the 20 minutes I pulled the bread and sat it on the counter. Maybe this was the one. Maybe this ciabatta was the one I had been searching for!

The crust was right...light brown, a little hard but not thick. One test to go....the crumb...would it be too dry, too wet, NO HOLES!! Only one way to find out and a by now the fresh salad and tomato sauce was on the table. No turning back now, just cut the bread!!!!

Amazing!! It was full of holes of all sizes. It was light, not too wet or dry. The crust held the crumb but was not over powering. But, how did it taste? Again...Amazing!! It was flavorful without being to yeasty. This was going to add just the right touch to our fresh meal.

I was hoping there would be some bread for me to have with butter and jam (peaches from the farm) for breakfast. But, that was not to be. I guess that is a positive vote from the family! During dinner we all talked about the veggies and about the bread. We all agreed this is something we should make at least once a week!!

Two down....one to go......

Dig This!

For the last few years we have tried to grow potatoes. Each year we have tried different approaches and if I were to be honest the results have been disappointing each year. However, as this is a learning project I will add that each has been just a little better than the year before!

Just like in years past we prepared the soil and added compost to the tops of our planting beds. As in years past we bought our seed potatoes from the local farmers Co-op. Lastly, like the other years we planted on February 14th. Ok, planting potatoes isn't very romantic but at least you get to spend time with your "hoe"....LOL....

Well, now we get to the changes....we planted the seed potatoes about 6 inches deep and then covered them with compost. NOT soil as in the past. We also added (as a side dressing) all the ashes from BBQ joints we could find. We figured that since potash is good for root development this should help with the potatoes development. After all, they are roots!

Ok, I won't bore you with photos of plant development, etc. But, let me just say that we had good weather in general between February and April. There were only a few frosting nights and not too much rain. There didn't seem to be any insect issue, at least above the ground.

Fast forward to April 26 and it is dewberry season. The potatoes have grown to near waist high and have great foliage and you can even see some of the potatoes pushing out of the soil. As you can see the plants are healthy and seem very happy.

I didn't mention this before but we planted 2 types of potatoes. One was a Red skinned and we planted 10lb of this one. The other was a White skinned one. We only planted 5 lb of this type.

It looked like all the plants had grown very well..... If you are not familiar with potatoes they are the plants to the left of the lime green "greens".

We let the spuds go for another month. They had flowered and the plants themselves had started to turn yellow and seemed to be dying. We had already harvested a few plants just to get a taste of what was to come.... So we knew that most of the plants were indeed ready.

May 17. That was harvest day! We were all very eager to see just how many potatoes we had

gotten. Even my brother from Vega, TX was here for the event!! As you can see the digging was manual. We started at the East end of the garden and moved West. Little by little more of the tasty spuds were brought to the surface. It was a nice cool and overcast day so the work wasn't that hard but boy was it humid!!

As made our way down the rows we laughed about how we would prepare our favorite potatoes recipes. Baked with all the fixin's...boiled and then pan seared with fresh herbs. Broiled with fresh garlic and onions...soup...french fried...it seemed like the list went on and on and on.

As you can see we go all sizes! The crop was MUCH bigger than we had expected!! It was MUCH bigger than any other potato crop we had ever had!!! We got big ones, small ones (which we are saving for planting in the fall), round ones and long ones. Oh, that reminds me...we planted some fingerling potatoes in our back yard. They yielded great too!!! We even got some cool purple ones.

Ok, not all was good in spudville. As we went down the row we noticed that we were only digging up red potatoes. So, it appears that we don't have what it takes to grow the white potatoes. OH well....

Anyway, when all was said and done we harvested a HUGE 71.43 pounds of potatoes. What was the return?? well, we planted 10 pounds of seed potatoes so, if my math is correct that would be 7.143 pounds of harvested potatoes per pound of seed planted. Would that be a 714% return? Maybe I should have invested my retirement in potatoes and not Tech Stocks!!!

Needless to say we we were pretty happy about what we dug up......and we will now have a farming practice for future production! I do have a question...does the amount of BBQ consumed during the growing season have any relation to the total production of potatoes or is it only the amount of potash applied???

Who's Hoeing Now?

I wanted to let everybody know that not only Farmer Vicki works out at Longbean Farm! That's right we all (the family) get to help. No, I'm not complaining. I enjoy hoeing weeds....it gives your brain a chance to wide down and put all the worries of the day behind you.

I am sure hoping those peppers in the foreground start flowering and setting peppers soon! I am looking forward to some of farmer Vicki's fresh stuffed peppers! It is one of the many things that make the work that much more worthwhile.

If like me, you like peppers let us know. We would be happy to hear what kind you like and how you like to fix them.

The Cucumber Scamper

For the last two years despite having great looking cucumber plants with lots of flowers and little cucumbers, we have harvested very few cucumbers. I have tried everything ...extra compost , bone meal to decrease blossom end rot , extra water during dry times and nothing seemed to increase the harvest numbers .

Then today as I was inspecting the response of my plants to the wonderful rain we had yesterday our yard squirrel "Roger" as he is called by the boys decided to visit me in the garden . Usually he just watches from the power lines but my little teacup rat terrier "Baby " who likes to chase him was inside sleeping ,so he ventured right in with me standing just 10 or less feet away. He watched me pick the radishes and then ventured over to the cucumber vines. I thought he was trying to hide and tried to get him to come out for a radish. Roger has eaten pieces of cantaloupe from my husbands hand and even took an ice cube one time.

Well, anyways he wouldn't come out . I noticed that he was nibbling on the cucumber blossoms. I'm willing to share and was kind of tickled to see him enjoying the blossoms so much. I decided I would go in and get my camera. Obviously Roger must have better eyesight than me because even though I had looked closely at those vines for fruit , when I came out he was on the fence with a 3 inch cucumber in tow. Mystery solved...The good news is the garden out back is just for test and family / squirrel use. The big garden is a few miles away with lots of cucumbers and not a squirrel in sight.

Roger has been a part of our family for for about 3 years now . We have some great pictures of him. He even attended our wedding ceremony on the rock patio garden in December 2006 watching. Enjoy these pics . Roger will be featured in future blogs as he provides lots of family entertainment.