away, away

This spring has been surprisingly busy with all kinds of travels.  Right now I'm actually home alone as the children have chosen to visit friends and relatives over the spring break, and the Most Saintly Husband has gone to retrieve one of them.

A little while ago I had the rare and wonderful opportunity to take a mid-week break with a friend.  I have always wanted to visit Portland, Maine.  What a fun, lovely place!

I have not been near open water in so long, and I must have really longed for it.  No matter where we were or what we did, we'd invariably end up somewhere near the water.

The West End is nice too, but after walking around there, I wanted to go back here:

It was fun to walk down the cobblestone streets, dart in and out of interesting shops, eat great food and then go back to the water to breathe in the salty air.  So invigorating!

On our way home, we stopped for a walk along the beach:

The first glimpse of the ocean never fails to take my breath away.

I didn't see many shells on the beach, but lots and lots of beautiful, sandwashed rocks.

The marshes are beautiful, too:

What a lovely break.  Just enough to get a taste and know that I will be back sometime.

Where have your travels taken you lately? 

Easter

We had a lovely Easter Sunday with a sunrise celebration, waffles, lots of decorations and of course a hunt for goodies.   It was lovely to see that the magic was still fully living in one child, and the love for her sister kept the other one playing along.

Following the exciting hunt for stash, we were blessed with a few snow flurries and then clear skies which allowed for gardening and a park trash-pickup excursion.

A note on the decorations in the first picture:  I got the idea and instructions from this site, though we simply used Mod Podge for glue.  This craft kept my nine year old happily occupied (and partnered with a parent lending lots of hands-on support) for hours.

What a busy and wonderful day.  I hope yours was too!

well, hello there!

Dear friends, I tried to post a couple of weeks ago and couldn't upload any pictures, so here is what's been going on in the last month:


There may have been a minor accident involving a very icy road, a pair of glasses and a head:

Luckily, it only took a week for the black eye to heal and now I'm left with a lovely scar.
There was more snow:

There was a visit to a nearby farm which included meeting the new lambs and watching their antics,

Gathering still-warm eggs from under the chickens in the henhouse

Making friends with one of the herd's llamas and it's amazing eyelashes

Apparently llamas are wonderful guard animals because they integrate well with sheep and goats and have been known to drive off predators of all kinds, including bears.  Beautiful and feisty!

Finally, we were treated to a demonstration of working with sheep dogs.  This farmer generally uses several dogs at the same time.  On this day he used four border collies to herd his flock of year old ewes.

This was a special treat for Youngest daughter, who is enthralled with all things sheep and border collies.  It's amazing to see the focus and speed on these dogs.  After their herding, we threw a frisby around for them, which was just the perfect end to a lovely visit.

In other happenings, we learned to prune our apple trees,

celebrated a birthday and the first crocuses,

and got quite serious about planning our spring planting.

And with that, spring is most definitely here and life is busier than ever.  More news very soon!