I Accidentally ate the Easter Bunny's Carrots

My first chore most mornings, after walking dogs and all, is picking up kitchen detritus deposited after I went to sleep the night before.

Yesterday there was a paper plate on the stove. It held a few kinda shriveled carrot sticks. I ate them and tossed the plate. It's a mom thing.

A couple of hours later Liz came to me and said, "Thank you so much, Mom, for taking care of the Easter Bunny's carrots for me! I forgot all about them."

Well, okay then. 

Just how low do you have to stoop to steal food from a magic rabbit?

I dunno, but I guess I can bend that far.

Important Cargo

Four

It's a big birthday, but someone's got to have it!

Happy Birthday, Peggy!

Rainbow Dash

Book Huntin'

Dr. Peggy holding surgery with her dogs, cats, and horses...
and unicorns, and tigers....and other creatures great and small

Peggy has finally decided that it is okay to sit on my lap in the evening. Sometimes she watches a movie on her Kindle while I read on my NOOK. Sometimes we talk. Sometimes stuffed animals act out this and that, and sometimes we just enjoy each other's company.

I would like to add reading to her to this mix, but I don't want it to be the same old-same old. Her mama reads to her a lot in the evening, and she has plenty of books to love.

However, I would like to share the books that delighted me when I was young, some of which are especially timeless and pertinent to us animal loving folks who like to learn.

Thus I renewed a search that has been ongoing for me for several years now. My late grandmother worked in a news shop, which sold magazines as well as books. Christmas was about guaranteed to supply wonderful reading material, from comics to hard covers.

I remember one, a great, big, shiny, hardcover, that had stores and poems about animals. I know I wore it out. I still remember some of the poems.

However until today I have been unable to find it, even by searching for the text of the poems. 

Suddenly, while looking at hundreds of covers from the fifties and sixties I remembered the title!

Dogs, Cats, and Horses....... It's a bit pricey for a used kid's book, but still.....

Guess Who's going to the State Museum

She believes in being prepared.....This trip is a pretty big deal.

She will see beams from the World Trade Center, some of which her daddy, who drives truck, hauled here from there. 

She will get to meet the Cohoes Mastodon. I still remember the first time I saw it, when I was, I think, in 5th grade. It made quite an impression, and I am sure today will for Peggy too.

And the Native displays. My first visit there was unforgettable as well and I am sure Peggy will be talking about them for weeks. 

There are minerals that her great grandpa found in the mineral section.

After all the educational stuff, there is lots of fun as well.

I hope they all have a great time!

Just Because

When you share Christmas with someone who is only 3 there must be photos and videos

The Peggy Channel....Santa

L J Hand Farm Store had a magical Meet Santa and his Reindeer event today. Peggy liked it. We all did.

Self Portrait

Lately Peggy has been using her magic wand to turn me into either a dragon or a frog.....guess which it is today......

Off to school...a little sleepy, but she loves it

The Things you See

Peggy painstakingly put her glove on the door knob
and proceeded to high five it every time she went past.
School day and all....she loves school

I had noticed that all the tiny fathead minnows had vanished from the pond

Where they were spawned

Liz caught one of them but the other was too quick. Who knew that Garter Snakes fished?
They leave their tails on top of the leaves, evidently as anchors, while their front ends gobble fishies.
Dagnabbit

My aunt sent Becky some yarn her late sister left....
Becky crocheted this doll partly from that yarn and sent it to her

And, I think this link will work if you want to read this week's Farm Side

Pretty pups playing at the park

First Day of School

Waiting for LIght

This is Becky's photo of the doll she crocheted for the fair,
which she gave to Peggy when it came home.

Oh, the sun is up and all...and for a change there is some sun....but it is too foggy to tell a House Sparrow from a rooster, except that the latter is crowing his head off. So I'm waiting.

The fog will burn off soon enough as the sun creeps over the trees to the east. Then it's out for a little hide-and-seek with warblers.

I thought of my dear friend from Ohio yesterday as a little Wilson's Warbler came cheerfully out of the brush to inspect me..... thoroughly. What a delightful little fellow, yellow as a buttercup with a small black cap on the very top of his head. He didn't leave until I tried to raise the camera.

Warblers are about the most elusive birds you could imagine, except for Wilson's, Yellow-rumped (sometimes) and Common Yellowthroats. Those three will come right out of the bushes and hang around looking at you while you look at them. It is so companionable. Every fall some Wilson's or other will pop out and check me over, for all the world like an emissary from my dear friend. So, Cathy, if you sent him...thank you....

Meanwhile, it is impossible not to worry...a lot...over dear friends and close family who are in harms way with the terrible storms and fires. I feel kind of guilty planning a walk out on the land while people I love are racing for safety or battening down for the big wind, or gasping for air out west. Indeed even here in Eastern NY we are all sneezing and wheezing, I believe from the smoke from those Hell fires out west. 

Peggy's first day of pre-school today at Mom's Morning Out in Fonda is today. Becky and Alan both attended there and had a wonderful experience and lots of fun. We are all wondering if they still have the big wooden barn Ralph and I built and Liz donated....we built her another one, of course. That one is in the living room right now, full of horses and such....

Hey Grandma

"You wanna come walking with us?"

"Why sure, let's go!" I walked....they ran....

 

Ice Cream for Breakfast

Good Omens

If you found these structures clustered around your kitchen floor, what would you think?

Week on the Farm

Fun with daddy

The seductive scent of wild milkweed

Working on a new duck pen

Getting hay for the bull

Walk on the wild side

A new cow....