Chickens!

The old henhouse in the carriage barn is about to be put to use again! We picked up a half-dozen pullets today at Tractor Supply. Right now they are happily chirping away in their new temporary home, a bin under a heat lamp. The kids are thrilled. These will be well-domesticated chickens! That is, if they can survive all the love they are getting!

Under Water . . .

Spring runoff plus two new inches of rain overnight means our little house along the river has become lakefront property!

The brook alongside the house is raging too, reaching all the way up to the footbridge -- good thing we fixed and secured it last summer!

And the road into town is currently underwater so me and the kids find ourselves with an unexpected day at home! Maybe we'll get out the canoe and have some fun!

Signs of Spring

We went skiing today at Sugarbush and saw a moose.

As you can see from the moose picture, the snow is getting a bit patchy. I think they've shoveled everything that's left up onto the runs to try to keep the resort open! The snow felt a bit like skiing through spilled Slurpee. Getting over to the lift we had to ski over some bare grass and through some puddles. (Gavin was excited: "look, Mom, I'm water skiing!)

When we got home, Lucy immediately put on her shorts and the kids ran out to jump on the trampoline. The snow is almost totally gone from our field after the last three days of 60 degree temperatures.

I think we've just enjoyed our last ski Saturday of the season! Next Saturday, the spring yardwork begins...

Austin's Weathervane

Austin does a lot of driving around Vermont for his work. In his drives, he's noticed that a lot of people have weathervanes on their barns. Well, we are certainly barn-rich, but apparently weathervane-poor, so he started an internet quest to find the PERFECT weathervane for our carriage barn.

It's been quite a quest. All winter, he lurked on Craigslist and ebay looking for the weathervane of his dreams. It's not that there weren't plenty of weathervanes -- there were hundreds of styles and sizes, decorated with everything from flying pigs to fire trucks. He eventually narrowed his search to either horses or blue herons (both of which live in our field in the summer). At the same time, he searched for a cupola to mount the weathervane on, and finally found it on Craigslist in Portsmouth, NH in January. A five-hour round trip on a Saturday morning and we had our cupola. But still no weathervane. UNTIL LAST WEEK, when Austin FINALLY won the perfect horse weathervane on ebay!

Our friend John Palmer put it up for us yesterday. It works and everything! Though I'm not sure why we would ever need to know which direction the wind was blowing. John says it can be useful when sugaring because the sap doesn't flow when the wind is from the south. But we have no sugar maple trees (thank goodness) so I guess we'll have to just enjoy watching it turn in the breeze.

THEN, on Tuesday, Austin went to Tractor Supply to get a Purple Martin Birdhouse. Purple Martins are pretty, mosquito-eating birds that like to live apartment-style. Apparently all the cool people in Vermont have one of these massive birdhouses in their fields and Austin decided we need one too. So we (I) put it together last night and right now Austin is digging a hole for the pole.

What decorations will Austin decide our farm needs next? I'm a little nervous to find out...

And. . .he's off!

Gavin officially went off the ski harness today. Now he's a real skier, and boy is he fast! Austin unclipped him and off he went without the least bit of concern, right down the hill after Lucy, leaving his mom and dad in the dust!


How could he NOT be an awesome skier with his new spiky-head helmet? Gavin thinks it makes him look like Darth Maul. (He's never seen the movie, but somehow little boys seem to be born with Star Wars in their collective unconscious.) I think it makes him look like an ankylosaurus. Either way, it seems to have worked its dinosaur-jedi magic today! I am so proud of my two great little skiers and I hope to someday ski fast enough to catch up with them.