Monday, May 9, 2011

goin to the country. gonna eat me a lot of peaches.

Best mother's day ever..... even better than my first mother's day when B had a total poo explosion up to her neck and Rob had to clean her up in the Perkins bathroom while I enjoyed a free slice of pie. At first I was all for going to this nice restaurant for their fancy prime rib buffet and custom crepe chefs. Laying in bed Saturday night I realized, I don’t really dig prime rib. And what I do dig is hash browns and pancakes at the Pancake Place. And the Pancake place is crazy cheap whereas the buffet place was almost $20 a plate. So we started off at church where I got to chat with some of my favorite moms and watch B with her little buddy Lily. Then off to our favorite breakfast mecca where everyone of the server gals popped over to say hi. Then we took a beautiful drive down to the little farm town where we had our wedding reception almost 7 years ago. We went to Mulberry Lane Farms to see and snuggle some baby critters.

This place blew away all of my expectations. First off, it's gorgeous. The barns are weathered but beautiful and tidy. The animals had to be the cleanest livestock I have ever seen outside of the county fair. They look like they all get biweekly baths. Our first trip was to the goat and sheep barn. Farmer Dawn gave us a quick lesson in the many things farmers use these animals for before telling us to make sure and pick up the baby goats and give them lots of love. I found this lil booger hiding in the corner thinking that he was so clever. I swear the bleating for his mom nearly made me start lactating right then and there.

I passed him over to Rob who introduced him to B. B was not all that game to get very close. Mama came sneaking around and had to make sure everything was okay. I got all teary eyed when she came in for a motherly kiss. I got a message on facebook from the farm sharing that the nanny's name is Shivers and that she became foster mom to a kid that one of her offspring had rejected. Had me all teary eyed again.

Next we were off to the pig pen where they keep the “teenagers.” I gotta say I was more than impressed that the kids did not make a bigger deal about the pigs pooping on each others faces when they were piled up on top of each other. We learned that pigs are not so familiar with Vibram 5finger shoes and they kinda think my toes were grapes.

One brave little guy took it one step further and tried ripping my pants off. If he weren’t so cute, it would have been horrifying. It turns out, B is quite the little pig whisperer(in addition to turtle whispering) and she bravely called them out to play once the crowds left.

Then we gleefully plopped her on a teeeeeny little pony’s back and Rob took her around the ring. I had to reign in my stage mom side “Sweetie, you have to HOLD the horn of the saddle!!! Really hold it!!!” as she disgustedly put just her fingertips on the very top of the horn.

Rob came around from the first circle and gave me the look of “do you want to pull her off cuz that’s what she wants?” and being the kind of mom who really listens to her child’s needs said “Go for a second round!!!!” B’s look of betrayal could have broken my heart if I wasn’t stifling a fit of laughter. Its mother’s day…… its my day to be a brat.

Speaking of brats…. B did not like the idea of holding anything with wings. I liked the idea of teasing her with chickens……

and ducklings…

I think the one moment of the day where I got a little embarrassed about what a hippy dork I was was when we met Red the milking cow. I always thought I was such hot stuff cuz I milked a goat once when I was 11. So I strutted up like I was some sort of expert and puffed up all proud when B actually got some milk out herself. We walked around the front to say thanks to Red, and I was struck by how peaceful and beautiful she was. I never saw one ounce of fear or anxiety in any of these animals even though they had seen group after group of families all day. I scratched her forehead and she gently turned her nose to B and let her kiss her nose. Later we were playing with the newborn barn kittens and I noticed Red was happily laying down all by herself.

B and I walked over and were giving her some good neck and behind the ear scratches. She leaned into our touch just like a dog. I couldn’t get over how gentle and relaxed she was. Here’s the nerdy hippy part, I started thanking her for the milk that she provides and her gentleness with B… and then I started to cry as I wished her a happy mother’s day. Sheesh!! Crying at the milking station. She turned and looked at me funny like “Girl, its muh job.” Later that night, when I uploaded the pictures, B saw the one of Red and she reached up and touched her and said “ooooh soft. Gentle scratches.” And proceeded to pretend to stroke her neck.
Just as we thought our day was over, one of the farmers popped her head into the barn and mentioned that one of the nannies was about to give birth so we hightailed it across the yard and into the goat/sheep pen with another little family. Sure enough, mama was cleaning up a little black and white kid and we saw he or she take their first steps(insert more tears). After a few minutes she layed down and pushed out the second kid. She barely stood up to clean #2 when #3 made his way into the world. I think Ma barely even noticed his arrival.

And again, I couldn’t believe how thoughtful the human kids were about the whole thing. Here she is with all this “stuff” hangin down out of her rear and the little boy near us was just concerned about who was gonna help her wipe her bottom. There was a pregnant sheep that kept sneaking in and checking on the goat and her kids. Later that night we saw on the farm’s facebook page that the ewe actually came over and was letting the newborn goats nurse from her. I told Rob, if I knew how to do it, I would make a great 2 mom family children’s book from that. Here she is checking on mom and kid #1… not sure if the goat to the left is dad or another nannie waiting her turn to give birth.

So there you have it. My very long winded picture heavy story of mother's day. Rob and I agree that we will be getting season passes for the farm.

Friday, May 6, 2011

more architectural daydreams

I think I like daydreaming about my future kitchen more than any other aspect of the house. Perhaps that is because our current kitchen has about 1 sq/ft of built in counter space. And that 1 foot disappears if you need to open a drawer to retrieve a utensil because the drawers are built in directly above the "counter." We added a bakers rack but that still forces me to choose only one appliance to be left on the counter at a time. And in our house, that is the coffee pot. I would normally skip the electric pot for a french press but our quaint farmhouse sink is too old to accommodate a garbage disposal and the feel of french press used grounds on my hand as I try to slosh it all down into the compost bucket is just too gross. SO, back to my dream kitchen..... one of the things that helped me know Rob was the one, was that he said he always dreamt of having Larry and Abby's kitchen table from Dharma and Greg. The big counter top island made from 2 gorgeous wine barrels. I can't believe I can't find a picture on line of it anywhere. Anyhoo, even though I dream of a nice small cozy home in the woods, the kitchen in my head comes up lovely and open to the rest of the space. I saw this picture today and it got me dreaming again.


Donna Wilson's blog...
the cement counter.... the reclaimed wood cabinets..... the old school drawer pulls.... the subway tile. Rob should seriously ban me from looking at design blogs cuz it does nothing to help subdue my desire to move.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

breaking my silence...

I slipped back into a quiet phase for a little bit. Thought I'd break the silence with a post of pictures from other websites that made me giggle today. Found a lot of these on Old Chum.










this picture is in one of my hand made houses of the 60's books. It has always inspired me to find a gorgeous cast off window but in my heart I know these sort of scores don't exist now a days. At least not in my price range.