We had a great time as usual at the candle making playshop on Feb 13th, 2010. There were so many people! We melted tons of beeswax from Willa's bees, and people brought their own eggs and cartons. We had lots of wicking for straight candle dipping too.

Here's how we did it:

After breaking the top off the egg and pouring out the gooey insides, we washed out our eggs. Then we set them in the egg cartons, and carefully filled them with hot wax. While they were cooling, we prepared our wicks by dipping them briefly in hot wax and straightening them with our fingers.Then we car

efully lowered in the prepared wicks into the eggs, and let them harden and cool. When they were cool, we broke off the outer egg shell and viola! !!!! We had egg shaped candles! It was so cool to make these.

We are going to have three sessions of Little House on the Prairie Summer Camp this year, so stay tuned for those dates. There will be one camp each month in June, July, and August. We hope you will join us for this full-filled adventure back in time! And don't forget about those homemade ice cream, fiddlin, square-dancin hoe-downs on the last day!

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Knickers Coloring Contest! We have a winner:

Weston Bosworth!

Congratulations, Weston. Here is the winning picture:

And Willa, our judge, sent this message to all participants:

"Thank you for entering! It was very difficult to select one winner. There were good points about each entry. Weston Bosworths drawing was selected for the first place award.

We felt that it represents Knickers new freedom to run and play again. She had been living in a dark stall and was so undernourished that she could no longer run about. She now lives with her new friends, Jet and Trigger, where you will find her grazing in the field and trotting up to the barn every evening for her dinner.

Thanks again for the great drawings!"

The Alvord Family,
Willa, John, Savannah, Tyler, and MaryAnn

Here are our runners up:

For all of you who were holding your breath with excitement, here is a photo I took a few weeks ago of Knickers, the new horse who has joined the farm. She was rescued from an abusive situation and now she is running free and happy on the pasture with Jet and Trigger. Welcome, Knickers!

She is an old Roan mare and has been getting used to the farm and her new friends. Our coloring contest winner will be announced tonite and will win a special trip to come out and see Knickers and pet her.

Thanks for all the wonderful entries! We will post them here.