Hey look what we went to see! Who ever thought that throwing pumpkins with ancient castle siege technology would be so fun!

The Yankee Siege is located at the Yankee Farmer in Greenfield, NH.

Camping is one of my all-time favorite vacations. It's not because of the marshmallows, or the rock skipping or tent sleeping. It's because of the sweet, delicious, juicy bugs! If you go camping in a nice wooded area you won’t believe the variety of bugs you can find right around your site! Hundreds and hundreds! I know you might feel a little differently than I do about bugs, but if you're camping bugs are one thing you can't avoid. I thought I would walk around the campsite and tell you about the different bugs that I see.

We had a new friend come visit us the other day...a porcupine! We asked him to come inside (we were playing gin rummy) but he declined, ate lots of clover, and then wandered off in search of more food. (F.W. was making his famous oatmeal chocolate chip pancakes but the porcupine left before they were done. I guess he wasn't a pancake kind of guy!)

Porcupines are amazing creatures and often misunderstood. Their most obvious and unique feature is their quills. It might look like they are wearing a jacket full of nails, but porcupine quills are actually modified stiff hairs and their body is covered in thousands of them!

Ni Hao class (do you remember what that means?). Kiweenie Lao Shi here again with part two of my lesson about the Chinese language. We learned how to say a few helpful phrases in our last class and I hope you've been practicing them. We've been using them a lot here in China! As you've been touring Beijing with us you've probably noticed that the spoken language is not the only part of Chinese that is very different from English.

Lesson 1

Ni hao class! It's me Kiweenie Lao Shi (teacher Kiweenie). Since we've been in China I've been really interested in the Chinese language. I've even begun picking up a few words and phrases. Because you’re traveling through China with us I thought it would be important for you to learn a few words of Chinese too. Don’t worry, I’ll go easy on you because the Chinese language is very difficult!

Happy New Year! What, you think I'm crazy because it's way after January 1st? Well, I'm not talking about the end of the western calendar year kind of new year, I'm talking about the Chinese New Year!

You see, in the western world, we go by a different calendar than the Eastern world. We consider this year to be 2008, but in China they go by the lunar calendar on which the year is 4706.

Hello class! Please take your seats. I have a question for you. What did you eat for lunch today? Chances are some of you had a sandwich. A sandwich is a perfect lunch food because you can make it ahead of time, add many different types of ingredients to it, and eat it without any utensils.

Did you know there was actually a time when people didn't eat sandwiches? It's hard to imagine, but it's true! Of course bread, meats and cheese have been staples of the human diet for many thousands of years, and it's very likely that people ate them together, but putting your favorite ingredients between two slices of bread wasn't something that was commonly done until the late 1700's.

Hello class!

I don't know what the weather is like where you live, but where I live we have a whole bunch of snow. I don't like snow because it means all the delicious buggies are gone for the winter and I'm stuck eating bugcicles, and bug preserves.

I'm just glad that it's only snowy here for three or four months. In some colder parts of the world, the ground is covered in snow for much more of the year. Have you heard the famous saying about the many Eskimo words for snow? Well, it's commonly said that Eskimos have dozens (or hundreds) of words to describe snow because they have to deal with it much more than most people. Well, that's kind of true and kind of not. I'll explain why.

My nephews & nieces are growing up before my eyes! I've been taking pictures of them as they change from little motionless fuzzballs into fully feathered flying machines. Here is one picture I took when they were two weeks old. They had already lost some of that cute baby fuzz and were peeking out of the nest more.

Check out that crazy hair!

Hellooooo class. Guess what? I'm an uncle! That's right, the Phoebe family chicks hatched!

Welcome to professor Kiweenie's blog…um…class! Since I can’t see you I’ll have to trust that you all have taken your seats so we can begin.