It’s good to have big sisters on Easter morning.
That way they can help you out when you aren’t quite awake and not sure what this whole Easter Bunny business is about:
Then, by the time they manage to find their own baskets, you’ll have your eyes open, a bucket of treats to yourself and life will be great!
Happy Easter!
A Friday ritual . A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week.
A simple, special, extraordinary moment.
A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
Flavia is back!!!
Of course to be fair she’s been back before this in I Am Half-Sick Of Shadows but I see I didn’t manage to write a post about that.
Sorry.
Would I recommend it? Yes! I’d recommend all five and this one I liked better than the last two.
If you haven’t already please, do yourself a favor, read The Sweetness At The Bottom of the Pie where it all starts.
The answer is “NO.”
Always.
In the last few months Jane had been shaking her head “no” when she was really excited and meant “yes.”
Cute but confusing.
Now this quirky little trait has grown up along with her and transformed into verbal communication. Which is a great developmental milestone – not so charming.
But, she is learning and with a bit of prompting, we can now get a giant emphatic head nod along with the “no” when she really means “yes.” Of course this means that you have to either be able to know when she actually means “yes” or do a convincing enough song and dance about the whole thing that you change her mind.
It’s all very confusing to the uninitiated and not much better for the rest of us.
Good thing she’s got enough natural charm to make up for it! 
Have I mentioned how she takes after her dad?
Clara imposed a game of guess-the-bird-I-saw on me as we were driving.
Clara: “I saw a bird, guess what kind!”
Me: “A crow?”
Clara “No.”
Me: “A red-winged blackbird?”
Clara “No.”
Me: “A red tailed hawk?”
Clara: “Yeah!- No. Do you need a hint?”
Me: “Yes, please.”
Clara: “It had a beak.”
Me: “So… it was definitely a bird then?”
Clara: “And it was red!”
Me: “A cardinal?”
Clara: “YEAH!!!!”
Me: “Wow, that must have been pretty!”
Clara: “I don’t know, it was too far away I couldn’t see it.”
Me: “Oh.”
Some times it’s good to have a book that will be just exactly what you are looking for. No big surprises, just comfort in reliability and happy endings. This book fit that perfectly when I needed it to.
Would I recommend it? It’s not high class literature, but if you are, say, sick in bed and can barely focus and just need to get your mind on something else, it’s just about perfect.
I’ve got great news!
No, really, it is great – my kind of great.
Ivy is reading books!
While Ivy has been reading all sorts for the last months, it wasn’t until very recently that she realized that if it was the right kind of book she could read the whole thing, by herself, the first time, with only a little help on the extra tricky words.
It’s awesome! Ivy’s reading confidence has grown exponentially in the last two weeks as she picks up book after book and reads them out loud to us.
All of course providing that the reading happens in a proper setting. A proper setting according to Ivy is one where nothing is too hot, or cold, or soft, or hard, or there are too many sisters, or dogs, or box elder bugs, or she is too tired, or too awake, or too bored, or too interested in something else… If any of that is the case, all bets are off and she will forget how to read the word “the” and everything else she has learned. At that point it’s better to smile and put away the books until another day before you end up contemplating selling her to the gypsies.
But that’s not my problem.
My problem is that my girl is too smart.
(It’s a pretty good problem, I admit.)
Ivy reads a book once.
All further “readings” are just memorized recitations using the pictures and occasionally, checking out a word for a beginning sound.
While this is impressive it’s causing us to go through a lot of early reader books. A LOT of early reader books.
We need more books.
This is where you come in.
For almost three years now I’ve been letting you know what my book recommendations are, now it’s your turn. I need help!
For all the talk I’ve heard about having a hard time finding books for boys there are a seriously lack of girly early reader books at our library. As you may or may not know, Ivy is girly. We need books with cute things, girls, princesses, silly stuff and fuzzy animals!
Right now Ivy has been reading the early reader Dr. Seuss books, Puppy Mudge, Biscuit, and a smattering of random things involving bugs and trains that she doesn’t enjoy near so much. So, my wonderful readers can you help?
What’s your best early reader recommendation? 
-Also, I’d like to note before anyone see’s fit to unnecessarily reprimand me that she rereads the books, practicing and gaining confidence many times before they head back to the library. I’m not a book reading, slave master that won’t let her succeed we just need some new material to mix in!
For most of my life I have been around chickens and their eggs. Therefore I am no stranger to odd eggs; the double yolkers, the “wrinkled” shells, the eggs with no yolks, the shell-less eggs… But today Clara found a duck egg that was a first for me.
As she handed it over, she told me that it was bad and we should get rid of it. At first I thought it was just a shell-less egg. Which, I must say, never fail to give me the hibijibies when I’m not expecting them. Just imagine. Reaching into a darkened nest box to pull out an egg, expecting a hard, smooth, warm, shape that fits just perfectly into your hand – and touching instead a cold, squishy, leathery feeling, blob. Uuughh, it makes me shudder just to think of it. After I recover from my split second of panic, when I think I’ve actually found a small alien in my chicken coop, I think they are fascinating – all wiggle and squish! Fascinating or horrifying they are nothing more than a regular egg that didn’t “cook” long enough to get a shell. I see these shell-less eggs most often in the young, the old and the severely startled birds.
In any case -this duck egg went beyond shell-less, it was shell-less with a tail.
The tail is a tube, about three inches long, that is open on the end and leaking out a bit of egg white.
Weird.
Fascinating.
I took pictures
I’m so glad I have a blog so I can justify(?) my pictures of weird eggs.
It makes me feel less crazy.
Once we brought home Cows to the Rescue, which was pretty good, but nobody seemed to love it.
Chickens, on the other hand, now we are talking!
Not only do I just like chickens better but there is something really great about everyone shouting:
CHICKENS TO THE RESCUE! 
It flows off the tongue in a very pleasing way.
Would I recommend it? I would indeed.
Now I think I’ll go read it to my chickens- I’m thinking they are under-performing.
There is nothing like a good paper flotilla to brighten a foggy day!
Welcome to Mud Season, may all your puddles be filled with paper boats!
Behind the Willows 