Thursday

Thursday was the kind of day that would make even the gloomiest person to stand up and take notice of it, it was a nearly perfect day. The sun was out, which after many, many, many days of constant rain, made for a delightfully warm, bright, sunny day and then the wind! Oh the glorious wind! Wind is a necessary element for me to have a day of perfect weather, a wild, rugged and independent wind to whirl around you commanding everything living thing in it's path to bend at it's whim. It causes the tall, lush, grass in the fields to sway; the branches to bob, leaves to dance and laugh, it even causes the pine tree to exhale as it blows through it's branches. I mean honestly are there many sounds as soothing or comforting as wind in the pines? You cannot ever see it but you know it's there. There are so few days like this that it even beckons us humans to be outside in it to soak up the nearly impossible beauty and to fully appreciate the effort of a day like Thursday.

eating ice cream

Yesterday was a beautiful day and one that was made for being outside, so I spent most of it raking and doing yard work with my family. Ron was leaf blowing, Faith having not felt well for a while sat and picked rocks off the lawn and ate popsicles, more than I thought she would do. Andrew took turns picking up the piles of rocks I was raking; the downside of having the gravel drive way plowed, and leaf blowing when Ron took a break. At one point during the day Ron and Andrew grabbed a pole, tackle box, the dog and headed out to see if they could catch anything. They did not, but had a nice time trying.

The animals are being weaned onto the grass now that the last bit of the snow officially left last week, yes, I'm serious! I do it slowly so as not to upset the stomachs of my beloved animals or the delicate root systems of the grass. I think Garlic's best week is the first week he's let back out onto fresh pasture, he hops, kicks, bucks, farts and tosses his head around like a spring colt! It's simply delightful for both of us. As the day wore on and I was loosing steam and my body was aching from cleaning the goat pen out after a long winter of deep bedding and a day of raking I walked out to Garlic who at that point was being brushed by Ron and said how much I'd love to go for a ride. Ron continued brushing and said "Well, in the words of Pam, (a family friend who just lost her courageous battle with cancer) 'Life is short, eat ice cream!' do it." For about half a second I considered it, but the rocks on the lawn beckoned my return and I obliged and continued raking. Afternoon turned into early evening and I had gone inside for something to drink and on my way back outside I walked past my husband; who was sitting in a lawn chair after his final turn with the leaf blower, and said, "I'm going to go eat ice cream!" Then I went to get my boy, (Garlic) brought him to the barn for a quick brush down, slapped a saddle and bridle on him and took off. It felt wonderful and was just what I needed.

So for those of you who've never galloped down a country road or eaten ice cream this video is for you! I hope you find it as delicious as I did.

a spring evening

I walked out of the barn tonight after the evening chores with two pockets full of eggs and a nearly full milk pail, as well as some much needed (all to myself) "barn time" after a less than wonderful week; looked up into the most perfect clear spring night sky, heard the soothing sound of the spring peepers, felt the kiss of a cool breeze on my cheek, took a deep breath and smiled. This is my favorite time of year and if I live to be 100 I'll only get to enjoy it 100 times, so I'm savoring each one.

It's here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spring has FINALLY arrived! Welcome glorious Spring!

40 days, 40 bags Challenge starts NOW!

A fresh new spring season is upon us and with that comes a challenge from a fellow blogger that I'll be participating in. Stuff is everywhere in all aspects of our lives in our homes, cars, lives, bodies, heads etc. What this challenge does is gives us a fresh perspective to look at our homes and challenges us to see if all the stuff we have is really stuff we need, love or even want any longer. I for one am looking forward to participating, if you are interested in taking a look or interested in doing this yourself take a peek over at this blog and join in! But here's how it works in a nutshell, from now until Easter -for forty days, our goal is to go through every room in our homes and touch everything, decide if it's something you can live without or if it is something you love and to really pare down, to get rid of the clutter that takes up space in our homes. Then once the clutter is gone and our homes are decluttered we can put a 'spit-shine' on our homes and have a fresh new look for Spring. Let's all see if we can get 40 bags in 40 days!

it must be spring

Queen took the chicks outside and wandered all over the yard with them, Ron commented that that was a lot of walking for those little legs. I was thinking she's trying to wear them out she's tired of being up all night with the peeping! They are all doing very well and expecting cousins any day now. Knit, the other broody hen should be a proud momma within a day or two I suspect.

Handsome B

This is one of my favorite pictures, it's uncropped, unedited un-anything. It's just how I took it. It's very hard to take a good picture of Blackberry, his fiber doesn't usually show up as beautiful as it actually is and his eyes don't come out nice, but not this time!

A welcome sight!

As I opened up the curtains this morning to let the sunshine in I was very surprised to see a flock of about 12-15 ROBINS in the driveway! It's only February 1st, I'll take it! I'm so ready for Maple Syrup season, (a favorite season) then a nice warm spring! I'm so tired of being cold! My frozen feet aside I was thinking about the robins, it's supposed to be 9 below tonight. I'll bet they're thinking, "So what if the early bird gets the worm, it's freaking cold here!"