Birthday

Patty Cake, Patty Cake, Baker's Man

Bake me a cake as fast as you can.  Pat it...

Roll it, mark it with love.

Put it in the oven for wifey and me.

Marshal made me a delicious honey cheesecake for my birthday.

Sooo good and went down so easy, we all had to have two pieces.

A potted flower for Mom.  He spent half the day creating this floral beauty surprise.

Creative birthday love from kids.  Blessed mommy.

Glimpse of Improvements

Here are some pics of the aforementioned home improvements during my mom's stay with us earlier this month.  We are loving having a second bath.

Salvaged Wainscoting from Second Use store in Seattle we've been storing for a year.  We started in the bath, and with Mom's vision and encouragement, continued the beadboard in the hall and entry.  Mom resurrected it with Howard's "Restor-a-Finish" and "Feed and Wax".

Lead the way, to the downstairs bath!

Ikea sink and cabinets.

Clean white tile!

Shiner

Not the best way to start off Little League season, but we could call it a rite of passage for my serious little baseball player.  He is working through some ball fear, but an assistant coach congratulated him on his courage, being all over the ball, and not showing any ball shyness in yesterday's 21/2 hour practice!  He caught a pop fly with his eye socket after it grazed off the tip of his glove pocket earlier this week.

Dr Dad confirmed vision and bones unharmed!

Recovering from the initial trauma.

Got a little crazy with the eyeliner and eyeshadow this morning?!

Survival Skills

What will Gabe cook up today?

Gabe took it upon himself to make a solar oven today.  By the time he had it together the skies were overcast.

Oven complete with cookie creation by Gabe and Lydia inside.  They followed no recipe for the cookies, so it was a complete experiment.  The cookies baked well in the conventional oven after solar power failed, and they were GAPS legal too.

Insulated box with layers of foil and black paper to absorb heat.  Marshal was impressed when he came home, and gave a few ideas for capturing the solar power more intensely.  Gabe followed Dad's advice and remodeled his solar funnel to box window right away.  Now waiting for sun power.

Spring Robin

Snow and sun, but the robin says it is spring.

Early March

Our yearling Shetland lambs, Ramsey and Biddy.  The neighboring cows are dropping new calves every day.  The pastureland is a sea of spring green with little black dots.  The vista was absolutely bucolic in the late afternoon sunshine.

Marshal mowed this weekend, satisfied with his labor.

Marshal pruned the trees weeks back, this time no injuries, and they are just waiting for the proper time to bud and blossom.

Chard wintered over, and looks good enough to eat.

Long Shadows, chive, onions, and carrots still in the ground.

Dog-sitting Asa for Mom.

Labra-Doodle - Happy Together.

Almost Spring

It has been very cold and a skiff of snow two nights ago, but it looks like early spring when the sun shines!  Mom came for a visit and gifted our home with her vision, "get it done" ambition, and talent for creating beauty.  I will post the interior big accomplishments when I capture better lighting.  Here are her exterior touches that grace the front door in the late afternoon sunshine.  I didn't get a front door full on shot, as the lighting was not yet right for that either, and I still have icicle lights hanging haphazard from the eves!

Primroses and Pansies

Trapping

Gabe's latest hobby is live trapping.  He googles directions online and has trap making on the brain most of the day. 

The Bird Trap

 Gabe wrote a little "how to" speech for this trap before bed last night:  "My name is Gabe and I am going to tell you how to make a bird trap.  What you do is you have five square pieces of wood.  Nail them together and make a square box and then have a short stick and tie the bottom.  Make a long piece of string.  Then put bird seed or something and put it under the box and then wait for a bird to go under and then pull the string.  Let the bird go."  He caught himself a chickadee with it and let it go.

 Today we took the dogs on a walk, Gabe's main motivation to find discarded plastic bottles for traps.  He brought home a bundle of sticks instead for the snare trap he made this afternoon.

Set snare tied to a springy, live elderberry branch.

Testing snare action.

It works!  Caught himself the end of a stick.

Rebuilding and setting the trap.

Setting trigger.

Covering trap with leaves, and setting snare's slip loop.