Farm Animals Galore

Annette loves farm animals beyond belief.  She has some kind of relationship to them that isn't normal.  As a child she claimed she could communicate to animals, dogs specifically and she still claims it as an adult.  

Recently we were given the opportunity to take care of our friend's animals while they were away on vacation.  Annette LOVED it!  We didn't get nearly enough photos since we were actually working and not just goofing off.  Here is Charles milking the goat.  I really like that the goat looked back for the photo.  

Milking the goat was by far the hardest chore of all of the animals.  We would take turns to give our hands a rest.  After a few days Annette had enough hand muscle to do it by herself in the morning when Charles was at work.

One of the mornings we found a dead chicken that had drowned in the goats water basin.  That was fun to dispose of.  We got to collect the chicken eggs and feed the chicks, horses, goats, and alpacas.

Charles' sister, Angela, was taking care of someone else's farm animals at the same time and so we went and visited those animals.  Since we were goofing off we got lots of photos.

 The kids loved playing fetch with the dogs, but not nearly as much as the dogs loved playing it.  The dogs didn't want us to ever stop and would bark at us when we walked away.

Not all of the horses were good at selfies, but Sundance was.

The kids had a good warm up period with the animals before we dove right it.

The pigs were loud, noisy, and ugly.

For her age, Eliza was the least timid of all of the kids with the animals. 

Charlie did awesome as well.

Henry did get into it eventually.

Here one of the dogs is barking at Lizzy to play fetch with him.

Elizabeth loved the horses.  She has Annette's love of animals.  She will probably think she can communicate with them as well.

Henry is petting two horses at the same time.  He was so brave.

I was trying to take a picture of Angela, but the horse photobombed and made the picture even better.

The horses were hungry and kept encouraging Angela to feed them by eating her.

The kids stood right besides huge horses, but when it came to the indoor cat, boy was that scary.  Well, at least until she got picked up and was very friendly.

The fish tank were a big hit.

Charles got there a little late, but...


the horses obligingly all lined up to get patted.

Fall Time

Fall weather never really happened.  It went from blazing hot to incredibly cold.  But we are still trying to have some fun.

The summer grew these beautiful sunflowers for us.  It helped keep out all of the other weeds.  We did eventually rip them all out to do more yard work. 

We had an awesome day with beautiful rain and rainbow.  If you look closely you can see a titch of a double rainbow.

Charlie has really getting into coloring which has been fun.

We love the Bean Museum.

We love playing outside when the weather is good enough.

Annette made goat cheese.  She got goat milk from her neighbor.  Boiling the milk and the adding vinegar.

Straining the liquid from the cheese. 

Cheese! 

We played croquet at the park one day.  It was a lot of fun. 

Annette made a faux fireplace. 

She really likes it. 

 Lizzy likes to pose for pictures.

Annette made this fruit basket. 

Elk Ridge is gorgeous in the fall.  It is such a great time to take a hike.

Evan and Lizzy 

Henry wants to now be both a dentist and a neurosurgeon.

Henry and Lizzy LOVE the camera.

We spent time with our cousins which was great fun.

And we made another fruit basket.

We terrorized Annette's cousin's wedding reception.

And danced the night away, well at least until 7:30 when the kids started crying too much from too many injuries.

We now want to take some fun dance lessons.