Animal Scat

All our chickens got eaten. 

In like a day or two.

It was rather a shock.

And sad.

And boggling.

Whatever got our three huge geese must have come back for everything else.

(Actually, one chicken still remains. Our rooster. And he appears to be in a state of great depression over it all.)

We set up a game cam--hoping to find what has been getting them. 

So far it has captured only four suspects: 

1. Our van 

2. Anders

3. Mike

4. ... Some doves

(Until we can prove one of the four above was truly to blame, Mike suggested we tie our rooster to a stake--like in Jurassic Park--as bait so we can finally get whatever has been coming onto the farm on camera. He was joking. He was JOKING! We've locked our rooster safely in a run near his coop. ... So he can continue on his lonely little life.)

The other day Mike went to the farm to look for animal scat in hopes of identifying what we are dealing with. (Most likely foxes or coyotes, but there are different rules about trapping them, so we would like to know which animal is actually responsible before deciding how to proceed or daring to get more chickens.)

Several of the kids went with Mike on his scat hunt.

When they arrived at the farm Starling climbed out of the van and cheerily called, "Dad, can I climb a tree while you look for poop?" And then she dashed off without a second thought.

And when Mike told me, I wondered just what we've become. (As if Hans touching the electric fence the other day because a friend dared to isn't enough. ...)

Anyway. Here they are. Some of these backwoodsy kids we are creating. (Note: the chicken below is not one of our deceased chickens, rather, a neighbor's that wandered into our goat pen.)

Of course mostly Mike is to blame. 

I just follow where he leads because I like him so much. (Making me some tiny bit more of an innocent party to this madness of goats and geese and chickens and coyotes and their scat and so forth!)

Starling Thriving

Little Starling is thriving in kindergarten. 

Thriving! (Twice I must say thriving. And in paragraphs all their own even!) 

I was so worried about sending her. I prayed over it every day of the past year! She just would not speak to anyone other than her family. I don't know that she ever said a word to her primary teachers. It would usually take a day or two when Abe would return from college for her to speak to him. She wouldn't talk to Goldie on her FaceTime calls. I was just so worried about how she would do off at school without me. 

But you would never guess it now. 

She has just let her guard down and become bolder and more confident in everything. 

It's miraculous really. 

She talks now to everyone she needs to talk to, sounds out and writes small words with no prompting, counts proudly to the highest numbers, says prayers out loud with the family (something she would never do before), and is determined to learn every other thing as well (for example she decided it was time to ride a "pedal bike" as she calls it and practically demanded Mette teach her [and it really was Mette that did it!]). (And of course she still crafts like a tiny champion.)

It's just so fun seeing her confidence, interest in learning, and determination take off so dramatically! And to see her living up to her name: a little bird that thrives in any environment she finds herself in.

We Found ...

Christmas???

 Or at least winter anyway.

We weren't necessarily looking for it. But it certainly felt like we'd stumbled upon it after living all of October in 80-degree temps and then arriving at Bear Lake (which is often ten degrees colder than home anyway) on the first day of a fall cold front swooping in. 

The kids have still been wearing shorts and flip flops. And had we arrived at the cabin several days earlier they would have donned swimsuits and insisted on the beach. Yet suddenly here we were. In snow! (And still cold even bundled in coats!)

The drastic switch did make it feel exciting and magical. Like we'd walked through a wardrobe into Narnia. I half expected to see Mr. Tumnus.

Anyway: the rest of our Limber Pine hike and a few straggling photos from the cell phone. 

Look at Pen and Jesse walking along--completely unaware of that smallish Bigfoot in the trees.

The Peter Sinks overlook has slowly become ... cairnville?

The bare white trees behind the green pines looked so cool. (Why were they bare though? They appear to be evergreens themselves. ... Only without the green. I don't know.)

The 500-plus year old limber pine. (Which is actually five limber pines all grown together.) My kids are always aghast (as they should be) when they see people climbing on it for photos.

 

And the only other pictures I took during our four-day stay:

A photo Anders took of the view from the van window looking towards the lake as we arrived at the cabin.

The kids outside the Montpelier tabernacle. (We drove to Montpelier for a movie again. Wild Robot. [I cried for a minute. Something about mothering I think. The robot feeling so worn down and used up and maybe not realizing she now knew a million things she never ever knew before.])

The Garden City library did a stuffed-animal sleep over. The kids dropped their stuffed animals off and picked them up the next morning. When we arrived, they had to go find their animal in a sleeping bag, and then they got donuts and a slideshow of all the sleepover shenanigans the stuffed animals had been up to: bowling, sitting in a fort, reading books, etc. It made me happy that I still had kids young enough to find this so exciting and fun. 

Cold at a park.

The End.