working on the farm

We spent most of Sunday afternoon at the Three Birds Berry Farm. This is a local farm that grows blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, etc. All are u-pick and this is a popular summer time activity for lots of people in the NRV. In the fall and winter the owners have volunteer days to help around the farm to earn credits towards berries in the summer. So we went out and helped mulch and build a new barn. We have lots of pics of the barn building, but really we lined up and dug the post holes. Each one needs to be 4ft deep... thats a deep hole. We didn't finish up but got a good start.

Here you can see us starting the barn post digging.

Luckily, Amalia and Camilo were up for the job. The owner has a daughter, Lilly, who is Amalia's age and was a helper too.

Camilo's first job was gathering his shovels.

He kept one shovel for himself and shared the other with Lilly. Amalia was the master of the post-hole digger.

By this point my back was wrecked... apparently sitting in front of a computer all day is not good training for post-hole digging.

Big helper!

Some dirt ended up on his face and clothes.

Very proud of this dirt clod.

Contemplating the actual depth of a 4ft post-hole.

Now this is a perfect dirt clod!

You might notice the butterfly on her cheek from attending BugFest the day before.

Now thats a deep hole!

Yup!

racing!

Haven't posted for a while so here a race update. The Homecoming 5k and 1 mile fun run was this past weekend. Amalia wanted to do the 1 mile so we signed her up. She did quite a bit of training in the weeks building up to the race so we knew she was ready for the race. Her biggest challenge was going to be pacing herself so that she could finish strong.

Pinning on her race number. If you pin on a number, its a race!

Camilo waiting by the pizza table for the post-race pizzas to be delivered. He was determined to win the race to the pizza!

Getting ready for the start. The race started and finished at Amalia's school so that was super convenient for us. The course was mostly on the Huckleberry trail, so Amalia knew what the course had to offer.

It was a beautiful fall day so Camilo brought his trucks and played in the dirt while Amalia raced.

No pics of the actual race but here is a recap. We started out slow and easy as we were aiming for negative splits (getting faster through the race). We were literally in last place of the 24 runners after 100m but we knew what we were doing. The last 1/4 mile was uphill and thats where champions are made! We slowly started to catch people and mover our way up. When we hit the hill on the way back we were moving well and didn't have to slow down at all. We passed lots of people. Amalia sprinted the last 100m to finish in 8:55 with a 9th place finish overall and FIRST in her age group.

Here she is getting her ribbon from the VT Homecoming King and Queen. I'm pretty sure she could have beat them in the race!

Afterwards, the kids got to play with the Hokie Bird.

 The kids thought this was the best part... or maybe it was the pizza.

Amalia showing off her loose tooth!