The Newest Cuties

Here they are, our newest additions to the funny farm!   Oh wait, I take that back-- there are five new silkie chicks that hatched a few days ago.  Oh, how I love spring!

 Strawberry is a good mama, though a bit inattentive at times.  The day after her babies were born, I found them sleeping in the barn and her out in the pasture having a nap in the sun all by herself. 

Now that I think of it, she's kinda like me... "Now, you stay there, you'll be fine.  I'm gonna just go over here and sleeeeep..."

The light-colored one is the doe.  She's very sweet and small and "dairy" looking.

The  darker kid, appropriately, is the buckling.  He's quite a bit bigger than the doe and very masculine and meaty.  Boys and girls are different, I'm tellin' ya.  I absolutely adore their long, floppy ears.  Strawberry is nearly earless, so I wondered what kind of ears these kids would have...  Floppy ears just melt my heart.  Not that I necessarily want my own kids to have them... just animals.  (Trying to erase picture in my head of my baby coming out with floppy ears... aiee.)

They're as yet un-named, so feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments!  I need ideas!

Evan, on Blueberries

So, how would you like to try some nice, yummy, blueberries?

Ummm...

Did ya get a tart bite? 

I'm going to take that as "not impressed".

Playing Catch-up

I've neglected you, yet again, and I'm sorry... But I'll make it up to you with some quick updates and unedited photos (because they're better than no photos!).  Because I love you, I'll do this for you.  See, when it comes to a contest between blogging and sleep, sleep mostly wins.  But not always.

Eh-hem.

In case you were wondering, yes, Strawberry did have her kids!  A buck and a doe (boy and girl, one of each!) around 3:00 in the morning.  Yeah, that was a long night.  Between goat kids and human kids, I didn't see much of my pillow.  I haven't made it out to the barn with my camera yet, but I hope to do that tomorrow, and will share pictures of the adorable new little cuties!

In other news, and speaking of adorable little cuties, we had our first spring day yesterday and we WENT OUTSIDE.

It was marvelous!

That. felt. good.

Much dirt was consumed.

We soaked it up, and it's a good thing because today it's been rainy.  That's also okay, it only takes one day of rain for the grass to suddenly green up, as I noticed (with great satisfaction) on my way home from town today.

I used the rainy day to drive to the nearest small city and take care of some errands.  There was a time when I would have enjoyed that, but not now.  A crabby baby who hangs on my pants and howls while we're in the fitting room (the whole store knew right where we were!) and then falls asleep on my shoulder in the fabric store (necessitating that I carry him around while pushing my cart and shopping for fabric...) just makes shopping less fun than it used to be.

Putting away groceries, however, is a lot MORE fun.  Why would I ever want to do it myself, again? 

At the fabric store, I scored some fabric for curtains for the office, which we just reorganized.  I don't have curtains in my house because fabric is just waywayway too expensive, and, well, priorities.  But I was determined to find something, Lord willing, and I pretty much based my choice on "the most fabric I can get for the least amount of money."  I ended up with some nice Waverly material, of suitable color, but far from what I had in mind.  I had wanted something a little less... stodgy... but for 15 bucks, it'll do.  I could easily have spent 60 (or, um, 100, "easy" being relative), and have liked the results better, but oh well. 

Hey, that's another thing I've been meaning to share... photos of our office project.  Hope you're on the edge of your seat, 'cause they're coming soon!  It was epic, people, epic.   For now, I'm off to bed.  Sleep is winning.

Twitterpating

Our barn is currently a in a flurry of baby-making.  Okay, that's sounds a little odd, now that I re-read it.  No, the barn is not making little barns.  Rather, the animals who live in the barn are making little animals.

It's not feeling all that spring-like to me just yet (still too stinkin' cold for my taste) but the animals all seem to know.  Somehow, they all just know.

We currently have a mama cat with three new kittens.  Then there are two mama ducks sitting on large nests, hopefully to be hatching in early to mid May.  The other duck is laying up a nice clutch, too, it seems.  Sadly, our best mama duck had a mishap in the road, so her nest is, well... a black bantam silkie hen (as in, chicken) has adopted those eggs, which are about four times the size of the silkie mama's own eggs.  We'll see what comes of that.  There's another black silkie sitting on a clutch of her own eggs, and one more who's sitting on... nothing.  I maybe should see about finding her something to hatch, poor dear.  Yet another silkie has been confined to a cage to "get over it" because she has it in her little bird brain that one of the duck nests is hers and is causing all sorts of havoc.  The duck mamas don't care to share (silkies don't mind, obviously) and eggs tend to get broken in the scuffle.  To add to all that, we're expecting layer chicks by mail in mid-May.

So, Lord willing, next month we'll have a whole mess of chickies out there.  Fun and chaos. I love spring (the warm part, that is).

And you would think that with all this laying going on, that I'd actually be getting some eggs to eat.  Not so.  My six layers sit on the feathery duffs all day, eating bon-bons and watching soaps, as far as I know.  I might get two, or at most three, eggs from them each day.  Boo.  Guess who's heading for the canning jars?

But the biggest thing is that right now, I'm trying hard to keep my eyelids from rebelling so I can stay up and keep checking on a Strawberry, the goat, who should be producing some kids any minute (or hour) now!

Back out to the barn...

Jonah's Thoughts on Birth

I just had an interesting little exchange with Jonah.  Out of the blue, he said to me, "Mom, I'm so glad you stayed home when Evan was born.  You didn't go to the hospital, and that's just so good.  And you'll stay home this time, too.  I'm so glad."

I asked him why he felt this way.  "Just... because.  It's good."  was all he could express.

So I thought about it while I finished loading the dishwasher.  The only thing he knows of doctors and hospitals is that I went to one and had surgery when I had appendicitis.  He was four and, while he was well taken care of, it was traumatic for him to be gone from me for nearly three days, knowing that I was sick and at this mysterious "hospital" place.  So it makes sense that he is afraid of having me go to a hospital.

It occurred to me that this is a very logical conclusion, even for an almost-6-year-old.  He knows that people go to hospitals when they're very sick or hurt and the situations are dangerous.  He's heard that some people go to hospitals to have babies, and to him, the two situations just don't mesh.

These Days...

 

I don't think I really have anything profound to share today, or maybe not anything to say at all, other than to share a few cute photos.

My energy has been, um, limited lately (and now you know why!), thus the sparseness of my blog posts.  (But you will notice that I finally updated my masthead for spring!  No more snowflakes!)

I have a list about three miles long of things I would like to get done.  I really should start a baby book for Evan, since I'll be extra behind when the newest little person arrives. (I did actually buy supplies!  And got a good deal on a nice scrapbook album, too!)  I have curtains to be made, trim to be painted (it's bugging me!), spring cleaning to tackle, and I want to paint this big front door that is a wretched shade of green.  And it won't be long until we're outside all the time and I won't want to be doing projects in the house.

At least, I hope it won't be long.  It's almost April, and still too cold to do much out there.  There's no end in sight as far as the forecast goes, either.  I'm so ready for some sun and warmth.

I'll just have to live with the dirt-eating.

 

So if I'm too tired to sew, paint, clean and paint, I'm certainly too tired to cook, clean, and of all things, do laundry.

Good thing I have helpers.

 

Actually, Jonah is turning into a fantastic helper.  It still takes a lot of creative motivation on my part, but he's extremely capable.  For some reason, I tend to forget that I can ask him to do certain things.  I'll be going along, completely overwhelmed by my to-do list for the day that only includes basic necessities, and then suddenly remember that I have this capable helper.  "Hmmm... what can I give Jonah from my list?" And as long as I present it right, and I'm working alongside him, he can really help me a lot.

Evan, well, he "helps" by emptying laundry baskets and the dishwasher (onto the floor) and hanging onto my pants as I move around.  He's also turning into a first-rate vacuum cleaner!  Who needs to take a broom to that kitchen floor?  Not me!

Sigh.  It's a good thing that babies usually survive their first year one way or another.

(Oh, stop-- don't look so horrified!  I'm being facetious.  Mostly.)

Right now, I wish I didn't have to make food.  I told Nathan (and am now shamelessly reporting it here!) that I wish I were at Mom's house (or could go whenever I wanted to) because there's always good stuff to eat there and I usually don't have to make it.  (Sorry, Mom.  It's... true.)

And believe me, right now I pretty much have to eat nonstop.  At least, it seems that way.  Pregnancy and nursing (of a baby who's not eating very much solid food, yet) at the same time requires a hurkin' lot of calories and nutrition on my part.  Yikes.  I actually love to eat and I love good food, but this is a bit much, especially when I have to think of things to make.  I just don't even know what to cook!  Can't think of anything, and don't feel like spending time in the kitchen.  It's so much easier to cook when there's stuff in the garden, and it's gonna be a while till then...

But I must be doing okay, 'cause this kid doesn't look like he's wasting away, does he?

And everyone usually has clean clothes to wear, even if they have to dig them out of a laundry basket.  And we do lots of snuggling and reading on the couch.  And no one's perished of dust-inhalation.  And there's usually something to eat, even if it's just cheese and yogurt and apples.  So... we'll make it.

He Was Once My Baby...

But now...

...he's almost...

...a man.

(That's how they're hauling maple sap in from the woods, by the way.   They go about a quarter of a mile on the road that way.   And when Jonah came in, he was a little cold, so he warmed some milk on the stove and made some hot cocoa.  All by himself.)