A little more "crazy"

In early March before we knew we were moving, we didn't realize the turn that life would take: the new opportunities that awaited, the many animals we would soon acquire, the enormous garden we would try to upkeep, and just how busy, crazy, and fun life would be.  As I drive now and then by our old house, I think: "How could we have lived there for eight years?" but the answer is simply that we didn't know what we were missing.  Life in the country is so. much. fun.

The only problem I can see with a country house is that I never want to leave it.  I'm perfectly happy hanging out in our new house or in the spacious yard, throwing the ball for Molly, working in the garden while the chickens scratch for bugs nearby, watching the kids swinging or running their hearts out across a lawn that is many times bigger than our entire property in Hancock.

But sometimes we have to leave home for other kinds of fun, such as visiting relatives like my grandma out at her camp on Big Traverse Bay, stopping on the way to pick a few wild blueberries:

Nora picks blueberries near Rice Lake.

Enjoying a warm, sunny day at the camp and very warm water (for Lake Superior). 

Karl was being a stinker and decided to dunk his whole self in the foot-washing bucket.

People have asked what we most love about country life.  It's hard to answer but certainly the beauty, privacy, garden, animals, views, and the abundant space for all our hobbies and activities are top on the list.

I love peaceful moments of life on the "farm" such as this:

In the past two weeks, we've added twelve new "members" to our farm family.  First, a kitten.  We've heard the mice get plentiful here in the fall when the weather turns cold.  We heard of some free kittens just down the road (siblings, actually, to our friends' cat that was a great mouse hunter here) so we decided we should be proactive and take one of them home.

Clare has fallen in love with this little kitty so we decided to let her name it.  I rather liked the name "Misty" that she'd been given, but it's no fun to get a kitten that already has a name.  So.... we told Clare she could name it what she liked.  Hence, "Snowflake" is now our little mouse catcher.  We hope.  (I absolutely love having a kitten in the house again, although technically she's a basement and porch kitty who's allowed in the house as long as someone's holding her.)

Clare adores this kitty and Snowflake seems to feel the same way about her.

She's a very playful kitten and super friendly.

 The other eleven animals we took home recently were 2.5 year old egg-laying chickens that were being sold for meat at a nearby farm.  We'll keep them about a month or so for eggs first.  But bringing those girls home meant getting the spare coop ready (because we don't want to mix our two flocks in case of disease, etc.)  After the busyness of that day, we started reaping some of the benefits:

and our own chickens have started laying the occasional egg as well.  Very exciting.  Clare loves checking for eggs every day.  Being older, our new girls are not laying many eggs but the few we get are worth it!

It does feel a little crazy to be adding all these animals to our "farm" in one summer: chickens, lambs, more chickens, a kitten... if we'd gotten one new animal every summer, would we appreciate them more?  Or is all this craziness just a really fun perk of living on acreage where we can have animals? Not exactly sure, but I'm already looking forward to placing our next order for chicks in the spring. Clare wants to get an "Easter Egger" chicken which lay Easter-colored eggs (blue, green, sometimes pink).  That will be super fun for her.  

Taking a break from work for some fun at the fair (after stacking several loads of logs into our basement for firewood... the work never ends.  ;-)

Karl drives a truck on one of the rides. 

Clare's preferred ride was the merry-go-round.

It's tradition to take a picture of the kids in front of an old tractor at the fair.  This was the best one we could manage, perhaps a potential Christmas picture??!

Karl's at the fun age where he doesn't like to be in photos.

Happy Nora.

 We watched the first half of the monster trucks.  I wasn't thinking when I packed Cheetos but thankfully we had some baby wipes handy.

The monster trucks were loud even with ear protection.

The kids were exhausted by the halftime show and even Karl (who LOVES monster trucks) was spacing out.  Time to head home.  :-)