It was a bit of a push on all of our parts to get ready for both weekends away, but I think both times once we pulled out we were able to leave the homestead (and job list) behind and be present to the people and places we were in.
Jason and Kali worked in every free pocket of time to finish up the duck coop and, other than oiling (which can be done down the road a ways and without Jason's supervision), it is done! In fact Jason and Kali headed out last evening to move two hens that are sitting on duck eggs to the new coop, and literally the moment they headed out I heard rain start pouring down. Before long I looked out and saw two head lamps bobbing up and down in the dark, as they ran toward the house. So that is a task for tonight yet! If all goes as planned, the first clutch will hatch on the eve of Kali's 12th birthday.
The other major pre-trip accomplishment was getting all our onions pulled. As I walked down to join the girls and Jason in the patch, I must say the scene was rather idyllic. There were my three favorite people, happily pulling onions from the ground in the cool of the evening with chickens scratching around the recently disturbed soil. It was a lovely site, and a fun family activity to join. Most of our harvests are not as voluminous as the onion gathering, which filled many large baskets. But most days we enjoy harvesting a wide variety of delicious foods. The other day at dinner we had fun counting the number of different things we brought inside from one of our gardens. We counted over 20: potatoes, parsley, dill, basil, garlic chives, onions, blackberries, wineberries, mulberries, lemon thyme, perennial onion, cucumbers, stinging nettles, raspberry leaf, mint tea, alfalfa, horseradish leaf, grape leaves, sweet potato greens, string beans, purple cabbage, green cabbage, cilantro. If the gooseberries and cherry tomatoes had made it to the house (before entering our digestive track), we would have hit 25! I guess one gooseberry did make it into the house sometime recently for Jason to take his artistic picture with gooseberry in hand!
Our first weekend was a trip to reconnect with Jason's family at the home place in Pennsburg. As is often the case, it went super fast and there was still more catching up to do even as we pulled out to head south again. But we also packed a lot of fun into a short amount of time. A definite highlight for our kiddos was an afternoon dip in the recently refurbished pool. The pool had only recently been filled with water, so it was quite chilly (I think it took me - and Spark - about 45 minutes to fully adjust) and then it felt great! I think Kali would have stayed in all day, but Alida was finally convinced to get out (her lips were a shade of lavender!). Unfortunately, as seems to often be the case at the Benner homestead, I was too occupied hanging out and didn't take many photos to share. The memories will have to stand on their own! Our next planned trip home will be at Thanksgiving with a 4-6 week old, assuming Spark is up for a 5 hour car trip (or we are all up for a 5 hour car trip with a small infant). 
The weekend just ended was another whirlwind trip full of fun family times. We worked even harder to get ready this time around, and left a day early to surprise my folks at a family gathering with Mom's siblings and some other family members. The surprise worked, as Mom about fell out of the car coming in the driveway, not wanting to wait until Dad stopped the car to get out and greet us! We enjoyed times with both Mom's siblings and Dad's, as well as a smattering of cousins. Again the time went so quickly but we came home with sweet memories of reconnecting. Not surprisingly one of the highlights for the girls again included water. This time I shared the highlight! Saturday we spent a good part of the day at Seneca Rocks. All four of us made it to the top (not sure if it was a greater accomplishment for me or for Alida - we were both pretty worn out by the top but one of us was a lot more vocal about it than the other). After a delicious picnic lunch we enjoyed cooling off in the river. Kali is getting much better at swimming and made it across the river a few times with Jason. It was just too tempting and before long Alida and I joined them on the rocks along the other bank. It felt very good to be weightless for a few minutes and this time it was Kali who initiated leaving the river due to chilliness. I had to be convinced to leave... We started dreaming about a possible vacation week in the mountains next summer with Spark, so she could enjoy dipping her toes in the water. Very cute and fun to think about!
We were packed in tight on our trip home yesterday - we had added two roosters and a cousin to the passengers aboard! The roosters are settled into their new home and slated to be breeders next year. And we are enjoying have my niece here with us for a few days before she and Kali head back to WV for their yearly visit with grandparents, and then a number of days later Alida will get to join Kali and another cousin in WV for a few days. She is definitely not interested in missing any opportunity to be in WV at the Mountain House. She even mentioned wanting to live there this past trip. This trip included a lot more musings for Jason and I on the rides to and fro about the next capital project we are getting very interested in moving forward - a screened-in pavilion. We'll see when it rises to the top and the resources (both time and money) are in enough abundance to make it a reality.
Just a moment of back tracking to share one of the most humorous moments of our trip. I often find the messages found on removable-letter roadside signs (typically churches' signs) to be either poorly written, cutesy and not funny, or downright offensive. Well, the Your Cabin Restaurant along route 33 W beat all! On the way over I saw most of it, but could hardly believe I had read it correctly. On the way home we got the last two words of it and verified the rest of it: "Skinny people are easier to kidnap. Stay safe. Eat pie." Really!?!?! Enough of a diversion...
Today the girls and Jason enjoyed an outing to the Luray Zoo to check on "our" goats (for the first time since dropping them off last fall) and a picnic lunch at a park (while I worked from home). I was very relieved to get a text from Jason (when I got curious enough that I bugged him to find out), letting me know that in fact Oreo and Cookie Dough were still there and seemed to be thriving in their new habitat. Kali said seeing them made her miss them a little but not a lot. I enjoyed seeing the pictures, but do not miss them at all!
The girls helped prepare and eat a delicious summertime meal this evening. Thanks to my aunt we had our first two eggplant and returned home to find our first handful of okra. This called for fried eggplant and okra! The girls ground flour corn this afternoon to make crumbs for coating. The procedure involved dipping the veggie slices in beaten duck eggs and then a corn/flax meal mixture, then frying them in coconut oil. There are no leftovers! Alongside those delectable treats, we enjoyed corn on the cob, string beans, tomatoes, dilly cucumber salad and mint tea. How satisfying! The corn on the cob was a precursor to tomorrow's main activity - freezing corn!
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