Dies Irae

I regret to inform you that on Invocabit Sunday of 2012, a hawk descended into the back yard and killed our little friend, the juvenile Dominique hen, whom Evangeline called "baby." We returned from lunch to find the hawk eating our chicken. She was already cold, so I think she probably died around 2:00 pm. She was buried promptly behind the shed near a sunny spot where we will be planting a bean tipi this spring. We actually miss her. She was the smart one of the bunch, the first one to figure out that if you snatched the food and ran away, you were more likely to get to eat the whole berry or grape. Its sad, and now I am back to obsessively checking craigslist for chickens. I don't think we can have anything less than fully grown hens. I've got my eye on blue laced red wyandottes now. Well... we miss our little hen.

But turn that frown upside down, because it is Lent, after all. Spring is nearly upon us. What was dead comes alive this time of year. The beets, carrots, lettuce, spinach, kale, peas and onions are all hard at work emerging from their deadness and breaking forth from the soil in their glorified plant bodies. The peach trees also seem to be emerging from their dormancy, which will be exciting to see. I am pretty sure that I scorched one of them this past summer, but it looks like its going to pull through.

Is this not the cutest pea seedling you've ever seen?

The Goings On

Evangeline can do this now

It was a touching piece of the afternoon to see Evangeline
copying her dad and eating a snack with a book at the table.
And the book is "Mealtime". Huh.

Dr. Seuss day at library story time

Kids in various stages of "Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes".
Evangeline's not buying what Miss Christine is selling.

Library story time. 

Kyle's new bottle cutting hobby. He's using them to cover
the sprouts he planted too early. He also knows that bottle cutting might
not be the safest of all hobbies around small children. Probably safer than
smelting or something, though. Taking orders for bottle glasses.

Irene in a sweater. And jeans.

Irene's Got Something To Say

And, I mean this in only the best way: Doesn't Irene look a little like a Monchichi? An adorable human Monchichi.

Irene and grandma 

Evangeline and her gang of girls take over Chipotle

pills

Evangeline got into Aunt Jessica's purse when she was here and had a quick Lohanesque descent into addiction. She tore apart the house in a rage and then got pulled over for driving 35 mph under the speed limit. She missed her court date and might have to spend some time in the slammer. Luckily, she is already used to sleeping in a cage... errr... crib. The good news is that the child proof bottle actually worked and no pills were ingested. The bad news is that we still don't know what is causing this erratic behavior.

We snapped these photos, and they will probably end up on TMZ pretty soon.

MANIAC

And here is a snow chicken picture thrown in for good measure.

By Popular Demand

Since some people loved Evangeline's performance from yesterday so much...guess what? We have more!

Also, it snowed today. The best kind: white and fluffy surprise in the morning, gone by the evening, and predicted to be 68 degrees by Thursday. Oh and we still got 5 eggs today.

Don't worry; we only let her eat snow off the firepit. I think.

Brava.

zoology

We took a field trip to the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro today. We saw a bunch of signs that said that the Africa part of the zoo was closed, so we sulked around the half closed North America part of the zoo. No one wants to see North American animals at a zoo. They are all brown and they are all slow. We did get to see some otters embroiled in an impassioned embrace, but other than that, it was pretty slow.

There is supposed to be an ocelot in there.

The beehive was closed because it is "cold," but there was at least a bee statue outside. We took a wild ride on this worker bee. Its almost like that scene from Honey I Shrunk the Kids.

Somehow, we misread the signs, and the Africa portion of the zoo WAS open! We wasted most of our time watching boring animals, but then finally got to see the cool stuff.  By that time the kids were ready to go and had no problem letting us know. Next time, we will know to go to Africa first.