Caricatures

What a fun night we had at the Mennonite church! We went for their BBQ chicken fundraiser, which gave the girls (and their parents) a chance to visit with friends.

Katie's pen pal is Jodi. This is their mutual caricature.

As they played and ate, their faces were animated, and they would occasionally grab hands to run off to a different activity together. I think the artist captured the glint in their eyes quite accurately.

Here, Laura is an ice skating girl with a small body. She and Becky also had plenty of friends to mingle with at the dinner.

My Bouquet

I thought this was beautiful and cheerful, so here it is on my blog.

A nine year old Amish boy arranged this! My favorite aspect of this bouquet is the aromatic weed that sticks up in the center, looking a bit like a daddy longlegger.

My Lovely Ice Skater

Well, one of my lovelies, at any rate. They're still abed, so I can't tell you if this is her flip or her loop. But it's Becky, skating prettily. I'll call it a floop.

Thanks to Gretchen for the lift to the rink and also the entrance fee, as I was cash poor yesterday. I'm glad the girls retained they're skating skills over their excessively long break.

I know it's been too long between blog posts because I couldn't remember my password to get on here. I'd say in general though, that less time for blogging means a happy productive summer.

Well, There Goes the Neighborhood

Baseball season's over! That means that the neighbor boy can rejoin our family for the summer.
This is his very own motorcycle he got last week for his birthday. The girls have not gotten to ride on it yet.

Blink

Blink is a nuthatch. He was hatched in our shed, in the blue helmet. Two of his four siblings died outside of the nest, and two flew away. But Blink didn't fly well, and our chickens were trying to eat him. So Becky would bring him into the house to feed him and let him grow safely a few hours every day. She made his fancy bird cage.
One day Becky came inside with the news, "Blink's parents came and took him away." I asked her how it had happened and she answered, "His parents called to him, and because he's a nuthatch, he ran up the tree sideways."
So now we occasionally see Blink in the oak tree.
Meanwhile, a new nuthatch nest is down in the barn. In an ironic twist, this mother bird used a shed snakeskin as nesting material. So I always get a scare when I look in at the eggs.
As of today they hadn't hatched. I'll try to blog them soon.

Flowers from a Friend

Picked especially for me by my Amish friend Becky.

Surprise!

When I went to milk my goat late Friday night, I was surprised to find #6 cornered in the barn yard by a little white puppy. On closer inspection, I saw that this was no puppy, this was an unexpected goatling!
Everything had gone fine with her birth and #6 allowed me to get near her, a rare occurrence. Last time #6 delivered, she rejected the kids and had no milk, so I was concerned. But this time, she accepted her daughter and there's plenty of milk to spare.
Another improvement #6 has made to her personality is that unlike last time, this freshening we can milk her full teat without a fight. She just eats her grain and for the most part stands still while we milk.
Q-Tip the orphan lamb gets her extra milk.