Monday, July 27, 2009

A very pleasant weekend.

I think this is the first picture I have of my family, all awake, and mostly looking at the camera.
Blessed, I know.
Our chickens are enjoying a free-range lifestyle. They find their own way back to their roosts inside the chicken house at dark, we just have to keep the dogs away from them (especially Shadow, who has a terrible track record with chickens,) and keep their water filled. 4 to 5 eggs a day, out of 9 hens.
Here's the rooster. These chickens have no names: as I explained to them when they moved in, if they stop contributing to the household, it's into the pot, and a name would just make that difficult.
My beautiful girls.
Alexe let me go on a daylong kayaking trip on Saturday. 17 miles down the Mississippi, crossing between the Arkansas and MS sides, a couple stops along the way. A good time all around, and planned and made possible by my good friend and neighbor, pictured below. We've been fishing together down on the gulf, and all I can say is, I hope I'm in that kind of shape when I'm his age.
Rounding out our party was another friend from Water Valley. His current incarnation is as a real estate agent, keep that in mind for the next picture.
:)







Now for a little bit of commentary on life in general. Things are good. Our little boy is an amazingly easy baby. Sleeps, eats, sits quietly and looks around, smiles in huge bursts when you coo at him, and then goes back to sleep. By himself, in his bassinet (which he's almost outgrown, in 8 weeks on Wed.) in a separate room.

Annaliese is adorable, running around the house, adamant that she and we spend lots of time with her book collection, and working on an ever expanding vocabulary. She still refers to the chickens, or anything chicken related, as "bok bok", but is calling the dogs by name.

My bride is crazy. Not 4 weeks ago, after the second baby had arrived, we had a decompression where we went over the events of the years since we were married, and decided the next years should slow down a little. A week later she bought a flock of chickens, and as of yesterday I think we're getting a jersey cow.

She went to a friend's house to pick figs, came home with a bowl full, and then was anxious all evening worrying about what we were going to do with them. Could not settle down.S

She's also the source of some of the most unbelievable quotes. Because I love her dearly they are not being repeated here, that and you probably wouldn't believe me.

Certainly a source of smiles and on-toe-keeping.

I think that covers my ever expanding family. 2 dogs, 2 kids, 1 wife, 10 chickens, a number of mice (that number is decreasing as quickly as I can manage) and possibly a cow. With a calf, if I heard correctly.

A busy fall coming up, a few business trips, some family visiting, and everything else that will crop up. We've planned out the next 9 months, with deadlines etc. for our various projects. I'm impressed with our abilities to accomplish things, start to finish, but even so, we've started far more things than we've finished. With a whole bunch of luck we plan on coming to a caught up moment in the next year before launching into the next storm we choose to create.

Hope all is well in your varied worlds.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

keep scrolling...





You may note a shortage of Caspian pics. He kinda looks the same in all his pictures right now...

Pictures will have to speak for themselves. Good times.