Doing!

We visited our friends at Turtle Hill farm yesterday, and not only are they awaiting the arrival of baby goats, but their bathroom is full of chicks. Fuzzy little chicks. The "aw" factor was high.

I feel so fortunate to have friends - and these friends in particular - to drive out to visit. Eliza and I are farm girls at heart, and it fills us both to be there.  You know, sharing a dirt pile with chickens.

Talking to goats.

 Tromping.

Another good thing about this friend in particular is that when watching my child do something like this makes me want to turn inside out and lose my skin, she lets me walk after the other kids and sticks around to encourage and play catcher if necessary. (I was so impressed; up and down, no help needed.)

We ended our day "helping" with making a pinata.

If it looks messy, it's cause it was - between four children and the wind, it was tricky.  Mama J finished it, of course.

Today was busy, in that homey bustling sort of way. Eliza is getting over a cold, and it was raining...perfect day for home-busy.  We played Nim with our beans...

Ani found a paper mache bird I made last fall (to see if it were something the girls could do), and decided to paint it. Out came the bird book for some guidance...she had already decided it should be a goldfinch, and we laughed at all the many pages of sparrows and warblers she pawed through on her way to the endless pages of finches.

In the end she painted it just the way she wanted to. It is more of a very very gold black necked finch.

Legs on, and now it's drying...

Eliza read some Harry Potter to me, after a few rounds of Nim together and several rounds of Bridges, all of which she won (and then suggested that maybe we could play tic-tac-toe...I'm not sure if she really likes that game or just thought it was more my speed?).  While she nestled back in bed listening to a story, Ani and I read and then decided to make popovers. We used Pretend Soup by Molly Katzen. Love that book...

Nothing but the popovers really got finished today - it was a day of create and do and talk and wonder and read (about St. Patrick's day, and some of The Jungle Books).  I realized that Eliza totally gets contractions and uses them correctly in her writing, without any guidance on my part (she wrote a poem about a monster).  We pondered over whether shamrocks and the sorrel we love to eat here are the same plant (they are both Oxalis  - the girls wondered why the book on St. Paddy's day didn't mention that they were edible? They also decided that all the green of the holiday is because really what people were celebrating was Spring, with the equinox so near...smart kids.) Messes were made, a few cleaned up and all went to bed tired and content.  Good day...