Spring Break 2

Owen started the day by doing a bit of washing - all the measuring cups.


After Abram got a couple of days work done, he was ready for some fun today in the nice weather (high around 70F and sunny).
We took a drive up to northern Lancaster County to Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area where there were supposed to be lots of snow geese stopping over on their way north. (Thanks to Sue for telling us about her family's adventure up there last week!)
They have a very nice (and free) little museum with lots of preserved animals including deer, many water birds, a bobcat, an elk head, and a bear head and rug. They also have a display of pelts you can sort onto hooks to match them with pictures of their animals, bones and antlers, and bird eggs. I really liked a display of antlers arranged by the age of the whitetail deer and their nutritional status - poor, robust, and average. The poorly nourished deer antlers were not only smaller but also less symmetrical.

We took a hike through some of the management area and learned about different things they do to encourage wildlife to live and reproduce there.

We found some of our own deer bones

and skunk cabbage blossoms.

Then we had a picnic in a field. Owen ate a whole tin of smoked oysters.



Here is a view of the reservoir from the top of the hill on our hike. The white stuff on the water is birds - mostly tundra swans and snow geese.

We saw tundra swans from the highway. They are on their way from the warmer east coast regions back to Canada for nesting.

We got to see the snow geese up close after a short walk to the reservoir. All the geese in this picture are snow geese. Most are the white morphs or snows with mostly white feathers and black wingtips (visible on the second goose from the front of the picture). There is a single blue morph here too. They are migrating north to their nesting grounds above the timberline in Canada.

Spring Break

Saturday we went down to see Tracy and Martin. We enjoyed the rainy day visiting with them and taking the train into DC to see the Air and Space Museum and the Botanic Gardens. Owen enjoyed sitting in a tiny Cessna airplane (this and the blurry version of this were the only pictures I got the whole day),

looking at the astronaut suits, moon lander, and rockets; watching a thermal view of himself (He was RED while everybody else was mostly yellow!), and seeing the astronaut toileting facilities. (Sunday morning, he made his own astronaut potty in the comforter, and he and Daddy spent the morning washing it at the laundromat with Owen's quarters.)
Tracy claims Martin was on his best behavior for us, and he really was a super pleasant little companion. He enjoyed riding on his mama in the Ergo carrier. He looks SO MUCH like a little Ben.
We enjoyed ourselves, Tracy! Owen says next time we'll see Ben.

Sir Owen

Here's a little story from Aunt Lauren who is so sweet for sending Owen his VERY heavy chain mail shirt in the mail:

Once upon a time,
There was a boy named Owen. Owen was a wonderful boy, and everyone who met him instantly fell in love with him. His mommy and daddy loved to help him grow and learn and pretend. One day Owen's daddy gave him a very special shirt. It was chain mail, and his daddy had made it just for him. From that day on no dragon was safe when Owen was around, and Owen and his shirt took many adventures together.
One day Owen and his mommy and daddy went on a long journey to the land of Tennessee. Owen wanted to share this journey with his shirt, and so they all packed up and went to the land of Tennessee.
While in the land of Tennessee they all visited the castle keep Jernigan. The Jernigan keep had a sneaky and hungry monster named recliner. The Jernigans had lost many treasures to the monster. While Owen wasn't looking the monster gobbled up his shirt.
Many rescue attempts were made, but the people of Jernigan could not find the shirt.
Meanwhile Owen's shirt fought valiently against the monster and one day the Jernigans heard a clinking. Could it be? Yest it was! The shirt had defeated the monster!
The Jernigans celebrated and did a dance of glee.
At long last the shirt came home to its beloved Owen, and together they defeated dragons once again.
THE END

Thank you very much for finding and sending the shirt and most especially, making a story for Owen. He has had us re-read it several times already.

Dare I Say It?

I think spring is on it's way!
Sunday, we took a walk to the North Museum. On the way we still had to dodge some piles of snow here and there, but we saw crocuses by the sidewalk.


Monday was a bit warmer, and we stopped at a park on the way out to the Amish farms to get eggs and milk. Owen enjoyed making a river in the sand,

and we saw daffodils coming up

as well as some little purple wild flowers.

This afternoon was warm and sunny. There were lots of kids at the park right before we all headed home. We could get used to this weather.

Sledding

We took advantage of the heat wave (high of 41 F today) and the sun shine and drug Owen out to sled at the park today. It's a good thing, since the forecast makes it seem like it might not be nice to get out again for a while:


We have all been needing some fresh air, sunshine, and exercise lately, but Owen was set on NOT going sledding. We'd offered numerous times and he was scarred by his last experience out in the snow when the second big one had just come. We went out first thing in the morning and it was so high that it was no fun at all for him. He had to be carried most of the way, and the one time he tried going down a hill in the sled, he ended up face first in a pile of snow taller than he is. So, understandably, he was not keen on going out again. He just couldn't understand that all those big kids sledding down the hill for the last week and half and some melting had made the park a nicer place to sled than the last time.
Owen had a set of coveralls from his cousin Roman (They look just like Pa's!) that arrived yesterday (thank you, Aunt Alison!). He protested a bit,

but once we got to the park he only had to go down once with Daddy to realize it was much more fun today.
We sledded
and sledded
and played for about an hour and a half.

Owen thought it was fun to throw snow balls at Daddy and try to catch the ones Daddy threw at him. He also loaded up a bunch of them into his sled and wanted to bring them home. Alas, they could not come home as the sidewalks are well-cleared now and the snowballs were heavy.
So we threw them all at Daddy when we got to the sidewalk to head home.
I'm thinking nap time will go well today!

Another Overdue Post

These pictures have been lost on my memory card since Christmas - I forgot to look upload them when I got the new camera.

Micah was doing some redecorating in his room so my gift to him was to help him tie dye some covers for his papasan and mamasan chairs. He helped cut-out and sew the muslin covers and insert the zippers then dye them. We used the instructions here and dyes from Dharma to make a spiral-dyed pattern on the two covers and a couple of t-shirts for him. It was lots of fun and not that much of a mess. I think they turned out really well too. Micah helped A.J., Kailey, and Izzy dye some shirts after we left. Apparently they turned out well too.




Owen enjoyed riding around the long driveway with Anne in her sporty new Saturn Sky.

The Second Big Snow

I'm posting these a bit late, but here they are. The second big snow (2-10) dropped almost as much as the first one. Most of it is still with us although it is slowly melting. I'm anxiously awaiting SPRING!
The front loader that cam to clear the parking lot:
Me wading through crotch-high snow at the park:

Me pulling Owen along on his sled - We're on the sidewalk.