Sunday, October 31, 2010

Happy Halloween from a Raccoon and Refried Beans!

Pearl is one happy side of refried beans!

The final product: a delicious veggie burrito.

We found a large raccoon today on our morning walk!

We decided to keep him. He will live out in the pasture.

It was a long walk so finally we broke down and ate the burrito.

Have a safe Halloween!

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Stressing Out

I have realized over the past nine weeks of being at home that my brain craves a little bit of stress. At work I am used to having my heart pound daily and breaking out in a cold sweat at least once a week. "Oh my gosh, I still have seven patients to see and it is four o'clock." Or, "Is this biopsy site going to stop bleeding? Please God, make it stop!"

My heart rate at home has barely topped 100 on my most stressful day. To keep myself stimulated, I intentionally try to keep some stress alive in my life. On snack day I decided to make tuna boat sandwiches with little cheese sails for Oliver's preschool. I regretted my decision at 11 o'clock the night before school when the little cheese sails kept splitting under the pressure of the toothpicks and Pearl wanted to be bounced around the house. But that morning as I saw my final creation on the counter in Oliver's classroom, I felt a sense of victory (but unfortunately forgot to take a picture).

Another project I have been working on is a paper mache moon. Oliver finally moved out of the family bed and into his big boy bed. Chimpanzees move their kids out of the nest at the age of four to make room for a new baby, so we followed that wisdom. Glenn and Oliver painted his new room and added glow in the dark stars on the ceiling. It was missing a moon and I thought, "How hard can it be to make one?" Ten hours of work later and we have the ugliest glow in the dark moon you have ever seen.


My latest hobby? Embossing! I'm planning a Mother Blessing (a ceremony to celebrate a new mother) for a pregnant friend. A sale at Michaels convinced me I should buy an embossing kit and hand emboss the invitations. I'm so pleased I did because embossing is so much fun! I keep trying to think of things to emboss (Hmm, that piece of paper would look so much nicer with a gold butterfly on it). It is just so satisfying watching the powder heat up and melt into something pretty.


Oh, I also thought maybe we should start TRYING to sell lip balm, why not? I opened our etsy shop up again and started a Facebook page. Check it out here:

The Beneficial Bee

If only this little girl were more fussy or difficult, I could stop giving myself projects.

And don't worry, my house is a mess and the laundry's not done-so really I'm not stressing myself out too much. Happy Halloween!

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

You Give Me Fever

Once a week or so we put Banjo and Pumpkin in with the animals in the front pasture. This is our lazy way of giving everyone some extra exercise. Banjo and Pumpkin love getting to spend some time with the girls. After humping Pumpkin all week (and being humped by Pumpkin-it's only fair), Banjo is eager to get his hooves on members of his own species.


When Pumpkin and Banjo are initially released into the pasture, there are always a few minutes of pure chaos. The alpacas do not like Pumpkin and make effort to stomp him to death (don't worry about Pumpkin, he loves it). Lotta spends her time trying to get between the alpacas and Pumpkin. Once the stomping fest is over, Lotta and Pumpkin wrestle until they drop.





Banjo could care less about all of the chasing and stomping. He has one thing on his mind-Leche. Leche is apparently very "hot" as far as goats go. She is even sexier from the back side as far as I can gather from Banjo's behavior. Poor Leche has to be on her toes to resist Banjo's advances.

She escaped! I'll be frank-I put in this action shot because I think Banjos swinging sac is funny (sorry).

Here Leche is using Glenn (and Pearl) as a human shield.

Finally, Banjo got so fed up with trying to catch Leche he tried to make it with Oliver. Oliver politely declined the offer and went on playing with his stick.

I'll end this post with a picture of our new rooster. He is gorgeous and needs a name! We welcome suggestions. Photo by Glenn.

Oh, and also a picture of Pearl. I can't leave her out!