Finding a moment

Moments seem to be getting lost in the larger picture lately. I can't believe that June (and with it the end of the school year) has arrived already!! We've been super busy here, so as I sit here in the company of my morning coffee cup I thought I'd take a moment to share what's been going here.

Lars would like to enter Dougall the Duck into the fair this year. However, this means being able to handle...or at least catch said victim. Bruce has become our resident winged creature wrangler. He can round up chickens faster than anyone I know, apparently he's branching out to ducks. ;)
Here we have a clash of wills, can you feel The Force????

"You are no match for me and my brother, Darth Dougallous."

Like so many stories, they all live happily ever after...in some form. In Dougall's case, it was getting a new pool to play in. I think that's the most duckish behavior we've seen in him! Dougall suffers from species confusion, I guess it was bound to happen. The sole duck in a flock of chickens, we really should get a hen or two for him. I'm sensing a summer of trauma for the Dougall.

June has arrived and it heralds it's own kind of insanity. The end of the school year, beginning of summer vacation and a child high that surpasses any sugar known to man. Children and teens across the nation evacuate their houses of learning with shrieks of glee and in the background you can hear the quiet sigh of parental groans.
Okay it's really not that bad. I'm looking forward to having them all home, come the end of August I'll be really happy to have them all back. The timing works out well.
There is one thing, however, that I always seem to block from memory until it's upon me. The last two weeks of school. There are more events, picnics, field trips, just-because-we-don't-want-to-be-here happenings and to dos than the whole year combined....and they're all crammed into a just shy two week time period.
I guess I've started humming the circus music, unaware. Malina asked me the other day if I really liked the circus "Cause you sing circus music all the time!" I guess that must be the case. Life will settle into the summer routine and it will be better.


This house came with all kinds of wonderful little surprises. One of them being a built in ironing board. I don't know why this tickles me so much, but it does. I found that it's a great set up for the drum carder though. A few days ago, while I was getting some wool through and ready to spin, I just let it set up in the kitchen. I'd been cleaning up and discovered Nani, I guess she found the perfect napping spot.

"Don't disturb me, can't you see I'm engaged in highly important research?"

The summer fun has started for the kids. Malina has been busy searching for "Tadapoes" or tadpoles. We don't have as many this year since the pond is dry. Last year I had a couple of 5 gallon buckets filled with them, the kids believe in catch and release, catch and release....much to the chagrin of various life forms here. Leif is awaiting the frog hunting season. Anna has taken up beading and is working towards being able to sell some items at the Farmer's Market.

Lars is contemplating band, drums.........oh dear.

Bruce is looking at Football this season. He's also starting to count down to his driver's permit. *gasp*.......how did that come around so fast????!!!

Justin is still pretty busy at work and the summer celebrations are going to be coming up soon. We'll also need to think about fertilizing the pastures again next month, possibly if Potash has come down in price any. He's finished the lawn system! Yay! It runs twice a day for 15 minutes on each section. No need to worry about it, well unless you're out wandering around checking plants and it happens to come on. There's still the backyard to finish, but the kids talked me into a copper butterly sprinkler when we were out flower shopping. It works, it gets moved around to water back there and the kids and duck play in it.

I'm still engaged in the wool battle. The Cotton Candy yarn is almost finished and I have an interesting green that's sitting next in line. Other than that, it's that wonderful down time between planting and harvest. Putting some finishing touches on the recovering the house. Bruce, Justin and I all worked and finished cleaning out the barn after winter (some wonderful compost in the making there). So the big Springtime jobs are wrapped up finally! Ahh, big deep breath.

It's looking like a windy day here in the valley, good day to catch up on some laundry and get those sheets on the line. Mmmm, gotta love the smell of line dried laundry!