outside

Well, let's see if this works!  My attempts to publish this post have come up against brick wall after brick wall!

With all the boys on the up and up, it was time to get them outside.  We went out a couple of days ago to get some fresh air, but they all wanted to go back in within a few minutes :-(  You know they are really sick when they don't want to be outside!  It was a warm day, in the low 60's.  Though, get this....over the next two days it is going to reach the upper 70's, the following day will go down into the mid 50's and *then* the day after that it will be in the  upper 30's!  Twenty degree temp changes daily for the next five days!

Although it was warm out, this was what the sky looked like.  Talk about dreary.  I have to say, since moving here, some 20 years ago!!!, this has been the cloudiest year I can remember.  Brings back bad memories of living in the North :-)  Granted the city we lived in up North was in the top 10 cloudiest cities of the US.

I decided to take my camera out with me and 'play'.  Thankfully there are free programs, like PicMonkey to help with picture taking on dreary days (can we say, 'edit'?/)!  Flannery was in the hay playing with the cats.  She actually trains the cats to do tricks!  Seriously!  Our very own cat trainer.

Saoirse loving on her kitty, Bells.  Each girl has their own cat now, though I remind them all the time, it is only for a season.  At least that is the case for our male cats.  At about 12 to 18 months they move on.  Vader, our 'oldest' male cat, hasn't been around in weeks now.  So they love on them when they get the chance.

Everyone needs some chicken goodness every now and then, don't they?  I've been trying to get a good picture of our Black Australorps (above).  They have this beautiful green sheen on their feathers when the light hits just right.  You can get a glimpse of that on the above chicken's back and tail feathers.

Saoirse made up this fishing pole like cat toy.  She was just saying to me, "Look, mom, I'm 'cat'-fishing!"

Just your run of the mill picture of dead tomato vines.  I liked the way they looked.  Though I do believe they are well overdue of being pulled!!

For years I have heard/read about how children seem to grow (physically/ mentally/ emotionally) after an illness.  I never discounted that, but I've never actually experienced it...until this week.  For some reason Jonah just looks *different* after overcoming this latest illness.

One of the girls' handmade bird feeders.  They set up Moira's camera on a nearby branch to take close up videos of the wild birds eating.

No, he isn't mad in this picture.  He was in the process of 'wrangling' that small tree!  This particular wee tree is a favorite of the kids to wrangle down, climb on, and ride like a horse.  They can bounce up and down on it.  I suppose there are benefits to not having a pre-made swing set at hand!

These two were being pals.  They spent a lot of time finding treasures and asking me to take pictures of them and their treasures.  At one point they hopped up on the 'green electrical box' and asked for me to take a picture of them together.

The cutest part was that they insisted on holding hands the whole picture taking time.

Jed caught on to what his brothers were doing (showing off their treasures), and wanted in on the action.  The funny thing was that the other two boys happened to just be playing and as they came across their treasures, then they would ask for a picture.  But Jed asked me, "Mom, can you take a picture of .......(he is looking around all over the ground)....(spies a pile of leaves)...take a picture of me holding leaves?"

This is a beloved hammer in our house.  It is a toy hammer....made of metal! Which most certainly has been regulated to an outside toy only!!!  Oy.  Just as I was about to round up the boys to head inside, Aubrey ran inside.  My thoughts were, 'oh, good, one less boy to round up'.  Except he came running back out with his hammer.  He had remembered it was inside, and that he can only play with it outside.  So, outside we stayed for a wee bit longer :-)

When I got inside I thought it funny that I had taken a bunch of chicken pictures (yes, you're welcome, that I only shared one :-)), to see our *whopping* two day egg haul.  Insert big, huge, rolling eyes!!!  We have 30+ chickens, all of laying age, even in the winter we should be getting at the very least a dozen eggs EACH day.  Something is very, very wrong here.  Granted 95 % of them went through molting, which can take up to 4 to 6 months to complete!!!  But they started molting right at the beginning of summer.  We only have one 'bald' chicken at this time.  So where, oh where, are all the eggs?  I think a HUGE major chicken coop cleaning, and chicken lock down is in order.  The last time we did our lock up I think too many were still molting.  I don't know what their excuse is now :-)  As a side note, some eggs come in clean, and some, not so clean.  That is life, especially life when too many of us are too sick to put new straw down in the coop!