Hello out there! I feel like I'm speaking to an audience of just myself, since everyone has migrated to the land of IG (myself included - I'm a sucker for peaceful photos of country houses and landscapes that are so different from my own.) However, my daughter's 10th birthday was last week, a decade of life being a rather big milestone, so I thought it was fitting that I pop back in here to commemorate it. While looking back to see when I first started sharing in this space - 9 years ago and 1 month - I found the first post I wrote and thought I'd share it again.
"Let's see, what happened today. Cleaned, made cookies, walked the dogs, oh yeah, and almost lost a chicken. The question I ask - Why jump the fence? The chickens have to know the dogs are out there. But they still do it. So I go flying out the back door and try to find something to break up the massacre. The wheelbarrow is right there, so I throw the wheelbarrow onto the mass of fur and feathers and drag the first set of dogs into the house. Then throw the third one into the dog crate that happens to be on the back deck, and that only leaves one left, who screams like a baby when I barely touch his collar. Amazingly, the chicken is fine and gets tossed back over the fence. So back inside, wash my hands, and continue the dishes. Barely broke a sweat on that one."
The "crew" is significantly smaller since I wrote that post. We only have 2 dogs left - our Romanian rescue Wallace and our 16 year old Corgi, Lola. We adopted a kitten last Fall named Tiny Tim, we still have a yard of ducks and chickens, and we just acquired a new Lop rabbit and a guinea pig. My beloved Angora rabbit, Flora, was with us five years until two weeks ago and I miss her little happy furry face.
The newest members:
We also have three horses that are kept at a boarding stable, so our outside crew has grown while the inside one has shrunk. Shaya, the Haflinger mare, is the newest addition adopted last year, from Gentle Giants Draft Horse Rescue.
My hobbies haven't changed that much - gardening, knitting, and spending time in the woods. I sell my knitted items on Etsy. My daughter and I spend a lot of time at the barn with the horses and love riding in the field and woods.
I'm glad to have this space to look back and remember the adventures of parenthood and pets.