And then we got home from West Virginia and it feels like the winter projects are going to need to wrap up fast to make way for the spring ones - which is officially upon us tomorrow! Jason is outside, as I type, prepping the ground for peas, lettuce, dill, parsley, kale, beets onions and oats - all of which we hope to get in the ground before he takes off for his 10 day 40th birthday trip with our dads next Saturday!
...and that was as far as I got before Terah woke from her afternoon nap!
We've had a fun and full hosting weekend - kicking it off with friends on Friday evening for a green St. Patrick's Day meal here, complete with a surprise beautiful snow shower (with flakes that looked more like little snowballs falling from the sky)! We then enjoyed a 24 hour visit with a contingent of the Benner family :) and now are enjoying a visit from Jonathan, friend and former T.W. resident!
So, due to wanting to focus on the visiting still happening for the remainder of this weekend, here's some visuals from the homestead in recent days:
The seed shelf is full! It's that time where we need to get the onions in the ground so we can get the tomatoes starting. It's always a little like dominos around here - one thing has to give before another can.
Sweet potato slips - they are so beautiful AND we have a lot of them!!
Speaking of beautiful - I have yet to stock the top, but we are using and loving the wood storage!
And more beauty and cuteness - she likes meal times a whole lot (at least for the first few minutes until she has satisfied her hunger and is ready to move on).
So much for Lent being a time of sacrifice. Our "no grocery shopping" commitment is really not creating much hardship anymore. Here pictured is a recent breakfast of Kali's duck eggs or Jason's chicken eggs, fresh steamed spinach and a potato corn saute with homemade hot sauce. Yum!
Another cutie pie - happy on her planned family night - dinner out, a stop at the library to stock up on books, and ice cream cones and a game back at home.
We are fans of Las Chamas, especially the fried yucca and tostones. Another yum!
Keeping Terah content in a restaurant is a bit of a challenge, but having Grandma and Grandpa along on our family night was a big help.
I considered our dinner out to also be a celebration of my dad's pending retirement - THIS FRIDAY!!
This trio is too much sometimes...and Kali puts up with an awful lot with so much grace and patience.
Cousin time on the front walk - Marcie's first experience of sidewalk chalk (it was very hard to convince to join us for lunch inside)...
And more cousin time - Terah is a huge Ivy fan (that feels like a major understatement)!
Ok, so we have a number of Ivy fans in this house!
Ivy tried her very first food at our home last evening - a Tangly Woods sweet potato (which she downed pretty expertly and seemed to enjoy thoroughly - if her mommy kept shoveling it in fast enough to satisfy her).
And the first chicks have hatched! A great broody mama hatched 8 out of 9 eggs (and the 9th was infertile so hardly her fault!). One chick died, but there are 7 cute fuzz balls in the compost coop.
I love how she is looking at them!
And, the picture isn't quite enough, as hearing a mama and her chicks is so fun for me. She clearly is communicating with them. I love watching them bury under her:
And I'll end with some of the bedtime fun happening at our home the other evening. Don't be deceived by this - this was a somewhat rare and very pleasant end to the day. More often than not tiredness takes over for the two littlest and the strung out mommy in this household. But this night, we all enjoyed hanging out for awhile and Terah was getting a kick out of laughing heartily:
ps. forgive any typos please; this one is not even being read through for a quick editing...
...enjoyed five days at the Mountain House in West Virginia with Grandma and Grandpa Myers!
After initially being a little scared of horsey, by the end she was mounting and dismounting by herself (and not so impressed when Alida decided to take a turn).
We were joined in WV by Alida's opossum (Maggie) and doll (Ashley). Terah was impressed with the stairs (if she left the room and it got quiet, it was a good time to go check on her whereabouts - very possibly heading up the stairs).
We called the small snow we enjoyed "Kali's snow" as she has been yearning for snow and missed the larger snow that Alida enjoyed during her week in WV. While it didn't last long and wasn't deep, it provided hours of enjoyment!
A snow walk (or ride for Alida) to the labyrinth was enjoyed by all.
Games, games, and more games were played! The marble racer was a bit hit. And, of course, WV state parks monopoly was Alida's favorite (what she was thankful one evening at dinner when we all said something we were thankful for).
Kali wanted to make a snowball that would last until we left. She was successful!
Kali didn't even want to take the week off cooking, but made a delicious dinner for us to enjoy in WV!
Time with Grandpa often ignited the giggles, especially this stint involving "Da," Terah's new baby opossum.
We ventured to Canaan Valley to go hiking and I didn't even bring the pack for Terah. She wanted to be held a little but mostly wanted to be a hiker too!
The highlight of my week was having more time to enjoy hanging with this trio!
There was just enough snow left on the ground along the trail for snowball fights and throwing snowballs into the river. Thankfully we got through our hike with only snowballs falling in the water - all children and adults were dry!
Terah was so interested in everything - the rocks, the snow, the water...I love how much our girls love the outdoors!
Three generations!
Terah was impressed with Kali's snowball!
I benefited greatly from two grandparents who were happy to read stories, play games and otherwise entertain and be entertained by the girls.
On the last day we hiked up Mom and Dad's land to their little pond in a drizzly rain. Again we enjoyed the water adventure with no one falling or jumping in - Terah was pretty interested in taking a dip!
Kali and Alida enjoyed exploring some rocks and Kali even found a new kind of red fungus that Mom and Dad had never seen on their place.
I'm still adjusting to the fact that we really don't have a baby anymore. She's a tried and true little girl - complete with a new skill of "arguing" with us when she disagrees with something we say or are proposing we/she do. It's kind of cute!
It was really a lovely time away (other than missing Jason!). What is not pictured is that I got to work on some projects that I've been wanting to work on, was able to keep up with work stuff during Terah's naps and in the early mornings, got our taxes done AND I read a novel in 24 hours (if you are reading this blog and have not yet read small great things by Jodi Picoult, please do, and let's talk about it - could not be more pertinent for our times). That's about as close to a vacation as I'm going to get at this stage of family life! I didn't manage to get a nap or get a full night's sleep, but that might have just spoiled me a bit too much!
We arrived home late morning and are getting settled back in. The biggest news following our arrival home is that I went upstairs to get something from the freezer to find the girls out on the concrete pad in the rain AND Alida riding her bike! Yep, she learned to ride her two wheeler this afternoon and now is tearing around on it like a pro. As she was riding around, she commented to Jason, "Every day some different change happens to the world, isn't it?" Kids...they are incredible!
The sun is streaming in, onions are sauteing for breakfast, both older girls are rousing and the littlest is still sacked out (because of course her best block of sleep seems to be morning once the sun is up and I can no longer sleep). There are boxes and bags accumulating as we pull things together to clear out of the house for a full 5 days - the female contingent of our household that is! We are departing this morning, leaving Jason to fend for himself for a number of days and knock out a kitchen construction project in our absence. It seemed nothing short of a disaster to think of all being here while he knocked out drywall in the kitchen and used power tools. Terah would have been highly interested in the project and it would have been even harder to keep her from an emergency room visit than it already is these days! So off we go to have some WV fun at the Mountain House. It is shaping up to possibly be even more of an adventure since my parents lost power in a storm yesterday and it has yet to return. We'll see what awaits us! I need to finish packing but before I do so here's a few photos and captions from recent days!
While the rest of us work hard to enjoy the springlike weather and the flowers blooming, Alida is having no trouble at all. All she can see is the color and beauty and is not yet deeply alarmed by the changing weather patterns!
I must admit that this is still one of the most attractive scenes for me in the world - the man I love with a wheel hoe and the mountain in the background! Here's he's working in the garlic field.
We had two stints of family work recently that gave me hope for the seasons to come - It felt so good to be outside working together and to find projects that even Terah could take part in!
Need I say more - this ponytail is just too cute!!
This little gal LOVES being outside - and even better if it is warm enough for water play!
These little yellow daffodils are from Nora's garden and are a sweet reminder of her!
Spinach is loving this weather. Picked two large bins of spinach the other day grazing the patch. And, yes, we are able to enjoy it! Seems pointless to not enjoy the gifts of this time, even if the weather has also been unsettling.
This little gals also takes after her Grandma Myers in her love of looking at AND picking flowers - she doesn't wait until they bloom though and doesn't have the concept of getting a stem with the flower!
Well, the peaches are blooming. Not retaining much hope for peaches this year...
Our Lenten roses are about the only thing blooming "on time." Day two of Lent and Kali has made her bed (one of her commitments) and we'll see if Alida holds to her "only using one spoon a day" commitment. As a family we will not be doing any grocery shopping!
The biggest change around here - a 24x24 concrete pad - for bball playing, chicken coop constructing, butchering tables, seed winnowing, and of course four square!
Watching the process!
Figured it'd be fun to have names and ages of the girls remembered.
And hand sizes!
Ok, all girls are up and at it so I better get a move on!
