Though … there’s the almost certain risk that kids will wildly clang it when they aren’t supposed to (their own trouble-making version of the thing one is never supposed to do: cry wolf).
But you should have heard me the other day—standing on the front porch, yelling with all my might for Summer (who was by the barn) to come for violin lessons.
It will not do.
I’ll be without a voice within the month.
We must have a bell!
Of course, what the top priority “must have” is changes from day-to-day. (According to my whim I suppose. Or whether I’m yelling for someone, or wanting a place to sit, or wishing for some privacy.)
We must have a bell!
We must have rugs!
We must have couches in the main area! (Though you’ll see from the attached pictures that we are managing with the two bean bags and two chairs we currently have.)
We must have blinds! (Perhaps at least for the bathroom for heaven’s sake!)
We must have a spice rack!
We must have a lawn!
We must have a towel rod in the master bathroom!
We must have more trees to improve our view in various spots! (Basically, anywhere I can see a house. Hahah.)
We must have a porch swing! (Oh! The porch swing! It’s warming up—well, no, the last three days have been quite cold!—but it will be warming up. And the other night I was surprised to step outside to a full chorus of frogs! [Maybe boreal chorus frogs? Maybe northern leopard frogs? I will report back.] I wasn’t expecting them so soon! I guess because the kids don’t catch them until all the little, new ones start hopping about. But the males get so loud during breeding season that you can hear them even just driving by any of the wetland areas out here. It’s such a delightful sound! Why is it delightful? I don’t actually know. You tell me. But! Maybe that is the #1 priority? A porch swing?)
We shall see what we manage to get first.
In the meantime there are wonderful things to love with or without spice racks and porch swings.
I walked the perimeter of the Pea-Viner property the other day. (Not all of it. Some barbed-wire fences had no gates for me to get through.)
In my walk I came across:
1. Two loudly bugling (bellowing? I don’t even know how to describe it) sandhill cranes. They have the most ridiculous call. Hahaha. They do. I love it. And I think the pair of them must be nesting somewhere about here. I keep seeing them. There even appeared to be some sort of leaping, flapping, mating dance going on outside my front window yesterday.
2. About 8 million red-winged blackbirds. Starlings too. But the red-winged blackbirds are … well they might be what I come to most associate the farm with! There are so many. And I have never gone outside—since living here—and not heard them chattering and calling and singing in a mighty chorus!
3. Cows. (Unsurprisingly.) The property across the canal houses maybe hundreds (?) of them. But it was extra fun on my perimeter walk because there are currently so many little calves running about.
4. Geese. Flying overhead in their V formation—crying as they went. And on my second lap, two of them in our field.
5. And! This wasn’t on my walk, but early the next morning, Jesse, Anders and I watched a fox with an injured paw make his way right past our front-room window. (I went out on the porch to try and get a picture, but he saw me, paused, and then, injured paw a footnote, fled at breakneck speed.)
Mind you!
It isn’t all magic and wonder.
Here are some things I don’t like:
1. Finding a completely smashed chicken egg in my coat pocket.
2. Hearing a lot of loud, clattering noises in my wood stove and trying to pretend I didn’t (in hopes that the sound would just go away), only to discover a poor starling in my stove. ("Birds in wood stove." The second thing I don’t like.)
Penny and I had quite the adventure trying to get it out. In the end our box plan failed us. Bird, and ash, and bird seed were everywhere as we screamed and tried to open doors. At last Penny clamped the box over it against a window and we slowly moved it upward while we opened the window and carefully pulled out the screen.
3. Mud. Mud season. Somewhere in my mind I have a faint, glowing memory/hope of a time with no mud. Or, at least, … less mud? And in theory the kids should wear mud boots every time they step outside. But they do not. And this picture doesn’t do it justice:
The bottom of 1 billion shoes around here, by every door, look just like this right now:
Our cats walk from one porch to the other through our muddy yard and then paw at the windows and doors. And one of them got in the other day and dashed up the stairs and then ran across two bedspreads.
(Cat paw marks on door.)
Pig’s pen (which is actually like an entire field) can’t be stepped in (you know, like in order to feed Pig) without squelching through mud.
4. And we still have six roosters (which is four or five too many).
So, it isn’t all sunshine and roses.
But a lot of it is!
And here, among other things, are a few pictures I’ve taken in our still mostly empty house. (Empty of furnishings. Not people. Thankfully!)
They've been unearthing all kinds of toys that were in storage. (To be honest I really thought I'd used the opportunity of our original move to get rid of all the kinetic sand. Apparently not.)
I'm still hoping for an even longer table!
An after-dinner Sunday walk at Trapper Park. (A lovely place that is forever trying to be closed.)
I have to keep reminding myself not to get so used to a pony or cow wandering past my window that I no longer find it worth noting! I keep reminding my kids too. "Just imagine if a cow had walked past our living room window in Pleasant View! We would have gone crazy!"
Rosie wandering past the porch.
Holly rushing to meet up with her. (They are good little friends--though Rosie is not interested in running and Holly often is.)
Shannon and Lila (Shan's youngest) sent the kids a fun "new house" package. So fun of them!
As I said, making do just fine with beanbags and a few chairs for now. (And we do have couches upstairs.)
Bundles of sleepy elementary kids gathered for scriptures before school. (We are going through the story of Joseph--a chapter a morning. Each time I end it's like a cliff-hanger when we are reading a good book. "One more chapter!" they shout. Haha.)
Anders and Penny inside (as I clean cat paw prints from the windows outside).
We had some carpet left over from the loft, so Mike had it bound into a big rug. It still needs a pad under it, and we might use it here or maybe in our bedroom. Just rolled it out to have a look.
I don't fully approve of all the jumping and window-ledge standing Starling has been up to.
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We must have a bell!
Of course, what the top priority “must have” is changes from day-to-day. (According to my whim I suppose. Or whether I’m yelling for someone, or wanting a place to sit, or wishing for some privacy.)
We must have a bell!
We must have rugs!
We must have couches in the main area! (Though you’ll see from the attached pictures that we are managing with the two bean bags and two chairs we currently have.)
We must have blinds! (Perhaps at least for the bathroom for heaven’s sake!)
We must have a spice rack!
We must have a lawn!
We must have a towel rod in the master bathroom!
We must have more trees to improve our view in various spots! (Basically, anywhere I can see a house. Hahah.)
We must have a porch swing! (Oh! The porch swing! It’s warming up—well, no, the last three days have been quite cold!—but it will be warming up. And the other night I was surprised to step outside to a full chorus of frogs! [Maybe boreal chorus frogs? Maybe northern leopard frogs? I will report back.] I wasn’t expecting them so soon! I guess because the kids don’t catch them until all the little, new ones start hopping about. But the males get so loud during breeding season that you can hear them even just driving by any of the wetland areas out here. It’s such a delightful sound! Why is it delightful? I don’t actually know. You tell me. But! Maybe that is the #1 priority? A porch swing?)
We shall see what we manage to get first.
In the meantime there are wonderful things to love with or without spice racks and porch swings.
I walked the perimeter of the Pea-Viner property the other day. (Not all of it. Some barbed-wire fences had no gates for me to get through.)
In my walk I came across:
1. Two loudly bugling (bellowing? I don’t even know how to describe it) sandhill cranes. They have the most ridiculous call. Hahaha. They do. I love it. And I think the pair of them must be nesting somewhere about here. I keep seeing them. There even appeared to be some sort of leaping, flapping, mating dance going on outside my front window yesterday.
3. Cows. (Unsurprisingly.) The property across the canal houses maybe hundreds (?) of them. But it was extra fun on my perimeter walk because there are currently so many little calves running about.
4. Geese. Flying overhead in their V formation—crying as they went. And on my second lap, two of them in our field.
5. And! This wasn’t on my walk, but early the next morning, Jesse, Anders and I watched a fox with an injured paw make his way right past our front-room window. (I went out on the porch to try and get a picture, but he saw me, paused, and then, injured paw a footnote, fled at breakneck speed.)
Mind you!
It isn’t all magic and wonder.
Here are some things I don’t like:
1. Finding a completely smashed chicken egg in my coat pocket.
2. Hearing a lot of loud, clattering noises in my wood stove and trying to pretend I didn’t (in hopes that the sound would just go away), only to discover a poor starling in my stove. ("Birds in wood stove." The second thing I don’t like.)
Pig’s pen (which is actually like an entire field) can’t be stepped in (you know, like in order to feed Pig) without squelching through mud.
4. And we still have six roosters (which is four or five too many).
So, it isn’t all sunshine and roses.
But a lot of it is!
And here, among other things, are a few pictures I’ve taken in our still mostly empty house. (Empty of furnishings. Not people. Thankfully!)
Anders and Penny inside (as I clean cat paw prints from the windows outside).
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