Seeking Justice

May18

Today as Clara, Piper and I were napping upstairs and Ivy was watching a movie downstairs, I awoke to the sound of purposeful footsteps.

Small purposeful footsteps that came stomping through the house, up the stairs and into my room.

I kept my eyes closed hoping it would go away.

When Ivy yelled, “MOM!” next to the bed in what could only be described as an “outside voice” I lost all hope.

“Yes?”

In a tone of indignation: “Piper ate my dinner.”

I responded without opening my eyes with some mumbly half asleep line about how the dog shouldn’t have done that but you never ate it and you didn’t put it away when you were done and it’s been sitting out for 3 hours so should we be surprised by this?

Ivy was quite for a moment, and then: “Mom…. aren’t you going to say something to Piper?”

I opened my eyes and looked at Piper who was cuddled up next to me also faking sleep. I gave her a very half-hearted, “Bad dog, don’t eat Ivy’s food.” and closed my eyes.

Apparently satisfied that justice had been served the little footsteps left my room, headed down stairs and climbed up on the counter looking for a snack.

When Chickens Fly

May16

When the girls and I do the chores in the morning one of Ivy’s jobs is to let out the chickens.

Notice how Ivy hides behind the door after opening it.

I used to think she was kind of silly.

I’ve changed my mind.

As I was taking pictures one chicken started flying straight at me. Foolishly thinking it had control of it’s flight I ignored it.

Bad idea – it crashed directly into my camera, and then on into me.

Make a note, chickens are really bad fliers!

This was the picture that resulted from the collision.

Also notice that Ivy is still behind the door, not so silly after all!

When the flow of birds slows to more of a trickle that’s when Ivy starts to peek around the door. Smart girl.

Wallowing

May11

The sudden temperature jump into the 90’s has been a bit of a shock.

The sheep have been panting in the shade.

The dogs have been panting in the shade.

The chickens have been panting in the shade.

The pigs on the other hand don’t pant so we made them a nice mud wallow to cool off in.

They seemed appreciative, as far as pig appreciation goes.

Ivy watched them roll in the mud, became inspired and shed her clothes at a run to the nearest puddle.

She convinced Clara to join her as well, sadly Clara was a bit too concerned about belly button cleanliness to fully enjoy the experience.

Please Send Earplugs

May3

Last May Clara spent most of the month looking like this:

We eventually discovered that she had a dairy allergy, changed her diet and she stopped looking quite so sad and pathetic.

A whole year later there have been so many changes – she walks, she talks, steals toys from her sister, helps feed the dogs, cooks with me, throws objects in the toilet, identifies poop in any location and no longer has that sad and pathetic look about her.

Nope, now when we have days of extended screaming for mysterious reasons she just looks mad.

What a difference a year makes!

Thank Goodness For Grandma!

May1

Once again we were hit with a nasty flu bug here.

Except this time it was really nasty and it got me the worst.

Without my Mom to step in to take care of me, and the kids, and the pigs, and the sheep, and the chickens, and the other chickens, and the ducks, and the dogs, and the quail I’m not sure what would have happened but it would have been really ugly.

I know this for sure because by Friday I was feeling well enough to brave a few hours of the day on my own.

They didn’t go well.

During rest time Ivy didn’t rest.

Instead she gave a lamb a bath in the yard.

There are so many things wrong with that I can’t even talk about it.

I’m just thankful we seem to be back to normal.

I’m pretty sure the sheep are grateful as well.

Jellybean Worthy

Apr25

Clara’s got a priority problem.

Or perhaps, more accurately, a poop fixation.

She’ll show you her face full of ashes…

…but all she wants to talk about is the poop on her boots.

As the mother I know full well that she’s got poop on her boots and where it came from.

A face full of ashes on the other hand could use a bit of explaining.

Miraculously this girl did not further morph into reason #956 we do a lot of laundry.

So I gave her a jellybean –

after I got the ashes out of her nose.

Our Life

Apr20

Once again I’m being reminded that it has been many days since I’ve had something to share, but there have been reasons for this people, many reasons!

There was a horse fair, and a ballet recital and a trip to visit Sarah, that included a birthday tea party for her daughter. Once that was all done and we were back home it was Monday night.

At this point I did at this point attempt to put together a little post of our weekend fun, but then Tuesday night happened.

Tuesday night, was quite a night.

Things happened.

Lots of things.

All at once.

From what I can remember, though not necessarily in this order, it included things such as: peeing on the floor, breaking a glass, dogs barking, cars honking, chasing ducks off the road barefoot, Kamikaze kids jumping off the couch, false starts on dinner, missing ingredients, the cook being locked in the kitchen for protection from the kids and dogs, messing up recipes, John announcing that he was “OUT OF PATIENCE!”, some pee in a potty chair but mostly on the floor, dinner eaten, bath time, blueberries eaten- everywhere, and finally the real reason why there has been no updates since Friday. Pee in the surge protector that the computer plugs into. It was chaos, and through most of it I was cooking dinner in the kitchen laughing so hard I was crying.

Laughing with John because this is our life.

It’s a great life.

But some days….some days you’ve just got to laugh.