belle in bloom

twitterpated

I have fallen in love with the animals I work with. I'm completely twitterpated. How could I not be? They are such funny, loveable, huggable cuddlebabies. I love their personalities.

I want to bring Katie the Pekin Duck to live with me forever. She loves being petted, sitting in laps, and being hand-fed. What's not to love?

I also want to bring home Rosie the Donkey, the kindest creature that God has ever placed on this planet. I love her.

And now I've fallen in love with the newest additions: two ridiculously cute baby Holland Lop bunnies. Floppy eared bunnies are cute by definition alone, but these girls get bonus points for having silly cowlicks and the softest fur I've ever felt. I think I might take them home after camp is over. (please don't tell Mark yet....)

My new career path

I've decided that I want to be a pioneer woman when I grow up. I guess nowadays "homesteader" is the proper term. Whatever. That's what I want to be.

Ever since I was in kindergarten, my dream has been to someday have my own little farm with lots of animals. That's still my plan. I already have my menagerie all planned out: chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits, a pair of miniature donkeys, a few horses, maybe a few miniature horses, a Jersey cow, some goats, a llama and/or an alpaca, one or two honeybee hives, a golden retriever, and a few barn cats (spayed/neutered, of course). And look how reasonable I am––I'm willing to throw in a St. Bernard for Mark. Am I not merciful?

C'mon . . . with these kinds of critters running around, who wouldn't want to come visit me?

(adorable baby animal pics after the jump)

Thoughts on a lovely spring afternoon

My house sits at the back of an old estate. Woods border three sides of the house, and the front yard is a meadow. In the summer, my yard feels like a private nature sanctuary. The first autumn we lived here, I was astonished to discover, once all the leaves had fallen, that there are other houses nearby; they were completely hidden from sight when the woods were thick and green.

I'm sitting outside on my porch swing, taking a bit of a breather from gardening. I've got lots of yard work on today's to-do list, but it's lunchtime, after all, and a girl's gotta eat. Yet I can't focus on my sandwich. It's too nice of a day to waste it inside, but outside, I find nothing but delightful distractions from such a mundane chore like eating.

Mudroom + fluorescent shop lights + cheap plastic shelves = greenhouse!

For April Fools' Day, I got the gift that keeps on giving: a cold. Started off on Friday with a sore throat and runny nose, and by Saturday morning, it had evolved into a hacking cough and stuffy nose.

Yesterday I spent most of the day racked out on the couch, dozing off whenever I wasn't coughing up a veritable rainbow of gunk. Fun fact: Apparently, I make pitiful little moaning noises when I'm sick. I was not aware of this until Mark told me to knock it off. (He needs to work on his bedside manner.)

But today, when I woke up and discovered the sun was shining and it wasn't absolutely frigid outside, I somehow gathered the motivation to get dirt under my fingernails. I spent much of the day reorganizing the mudroom, transforming it from a barely-insulated catch-all closet to a barely-insulated greenhouse/catch-all closet with fluorescent strip lights and a space heater.

(pics of my makeshift greenhouse after the jump)

It's spring, dammit.

(I fell off the blog wagon for awhile, but I'm back. Someday, I will make this writing-a-blog thing stick!)

 

Here's the April Fools Day prank I awoke to this morning:

(view of the back yard from the picture window in the living room/dining room)

 

(view from our front door)

 

Ha ha ha. Very funny, Mother Nature.

Now go take Winter home and pick up Spring on your way back.

Thanks.