Birthday month!

Alida is more than excited to have a birthday later this month!  She has picked out her clothes for her birthday multiple times.  She is beside herself with enthusiasm for the doll cake she is making with Grandma for her birthday - the colors of icing keep changing, but it will definitely be colors.  She is hoping to make a birthday chain today, which I think will help all of us communicate to her the amount of time remaining until that special, long awaited day!  I can't get her to tell me anything she wants for presents, as she always just states things she already has or that she wants two stuffed dogs (that is because her big sister has them so I need to navigate that request rather carefully since her big sister is not always enthusiastic about Alida's interest in following in her footsteps - maybe Kali would like to get them for her so she has some say in what they look like?!).  It's fun to see her excitement not be dominated by her hopes for new "stuff."  I think she is eager for the fun of a birthday celebration with the people she loves most - how fitting that it falls on a Tangly Woods night and that one set of grandparents will be in town!

It doesn't look like egg hatching will coincide exactly with Alida's birthday but her birthday will likely kick off the season of celebrating new life springing forth all around us!  Jason is collecting hatching eggs for multiple breeding projects, and the most exciting news is that after a long hiatus, Kali's ducks have started laying again.  They have also gotten over their intense fear of their new plastic nest box and one of them even dared to lay her egg in it today.  Kali takes after her father in her passion for breeding her feathered friends, and she also has some very specific ideas of the combination she is looking for.  So I don't think the right duck has started laying yet, the one she hopes to hatch offspring from.  But there are hopeful signs that she might be able to raise some ducklings this year after all.

It's hard not to feel excited for spring when our windowsills start being jammed packed with seed starts.  We've got onions, shallots, cilantro, parsley, and wheat grass (and whatever else Jason planted that I don't know about) sprouting.  It looks like we are going to need to restrain ourselves for awhile longer before moving anything outdoors as yet another winter storm is on its way bringing snow and subzero temperatures.  It seems fitting that Jason has spent the last few days restocking our woodshed.  It's not time to pack away the fire gate and clean the woodstove up, that's for sure!

Jason's been having a lot of fun spending time up in the garage filling seed "orders" for friends who are happy to use some of the extra Jason has stored up.  There is no way we can plant all that he has saved and so it is very satisfying to share from our abundance and contribute to more of it being used for its intended purposes!

We are also excited to have our first ripe lemon on our lemon tree (thanks, Anna and Mark!) and some other starting to turn.  We are trying to decide what is the most special way we could use our very first lemon!  Suggestions?

Well, I must be on vacation to get two blog posts up in two days.  I don't expect it will continue, but it is nice to know that what doesn't get done today can easily be pushed off to tomorrow.  So the coming week will be another staycation, with a little family jaunt to Staunton for one day.  I've got more ideas than I'll need to fill the space this time out of the office will provide, and am looking forward to soaking up some extra time with the girls and Jason.  I know that one of the things I must do is go through Alida's clothes and weed out all the 2T (and probably most of the 3T) clothing. She's not letting up on growth yet!  She's also enjoying hanging out with all the kids we have enjoying having in our home this past month with the Keezletown potlucks. The picture here was one very sweet (and about the only calm) moment at our last potluck of the month.