flotsam and jetsam

Hi there.  Just some snippets of what we've been up to lately.  

:: Obviously, we rented a sod cutter.  Juniper goes around picking out "wormers", stretching them like rubber bands, then lovingly tucking them back into dirt.  Also, she straddles the piles of sod and announces she's "riding a forsie" and if you ask the horse's name, it's Cactus.  Yep, just like Cowboy Small.  

In my mind's eye, our backyard is lush and green, there is a shading maple in the middle, our sunny, overflowing garden and greenhouse to the right, the chicken coop and mote just beyond and to the left is a corner of blooming fruit trees...apple, crabapple, plum, pear, cherry, peach (peach?), some berry bushes, grapes, oh, and a black walnut tree.  We have *heard* all of these things will grow and produce in our area.  I am still awaiting a call from the expert who can tell me for sure.  (Peach!???  What was that person on?)  Oh, and just beyond the backyard fence are our dairy and pack goats and perhaps a sheep for all that wool we will shear, card and spin...right?  Somewhere in the middle is a trampoline, a sandbox, a kid's playhouse and a bunch of toys strewn about.  (In my mind's eye, the trees are all twenty years old, but our kids are still two and zero.  That's possible, right?)

Hazel hangs outside too, but she is particular about timing and weather, and she's harder to capture.

I have been trying to employ child labor in rock pick-up, but it's slow-going.  

:: We went to the zoo with friends.  And while you probably didn't peg me for a zoo-goer (except J bug's first zoo trip in DC), it wasn't as creepy as one might think.  Juniper of course loved it.  No polar bears on prosaic here (although I can't speak for the black bears, lions and tiger).  Juniper skipped along the boardwalk singing (to the tune of The Wheels on the Bus): "The duckies on the bus go quack quack quack, quack quack quack, quack quack quack...."    

^I don't play favorites with many things, but pelicans truly are my favorite bird.  And I'll admit it was fun to see them swallowing whole fish just a few feet away.^

At the Vietnamese Pot Bellied pig pen Juniper said, "Hi piggies!"  And, bending at the waist, leaning closer she sincerely asked, "Piggies, you wanna say oink oink?"  (In case you're wondering, Hazel was at the zoo too, asleep on my chest for all but the last five minutes.)  

Although she doesn't give me as many near-heartattacks as she used to, June bugs is still unnervingly brazen at times.  At the zoo, she took off after a rogue peacock.  I had to chase her down (before she grabbed his tail) and tell her to be kind and just watch the peacock.

At the time, it seemed the kids were wholly obsessed with the lion-mouthed water fountain and didn't reserve much interest for the actual lion.

But...two days later, Juniper had her first bonafide nightmare.  One that addresses our primal fears, one that cannot ignore our animal instincts.  That night, she awoke wide-eyed and crying for her daddy.  She told him, "Woar."  He thought she said "war" but she corrected him, "lion woar."  And then, as my husband puts it, he took her to a higher branch and rocked her back to sleep.  

^She is brazen one minute, wanting to "be a baby" the next.^  


:: How you might catch us on a warm spring evening before bed:

:: What Hazel is generally doing when you don't see her in the photos:

:: What I have been making when the contents of our fridge turn to flotsam and jetsam:  

Pot pies!  Yum!