Audrey Meets Some Goats

Is this okay?!

Yesterday marked Audrey's 5th month birthday, and her first REAL adventure.  We went out to Noble Springs Dairy to see some goats!  It was my first time back in several months.  I was helping out in the cheese room last year while I was pregnant with Audrey.  (In fact, I was there when a PBS crew came out last spring to film some stuff!  You might catch a glimpse of me for half a second here in a hairnet and jumpsuit...)  Anyway, it was a beautiful but chilly day and we had a lot of fun! 

We let Audrey pet a goat and it licked her hand... She was skeptical of this activity and quickly lost interest.  I was hovering with a wipe, ready to clean her up!!  In fact, I barely touched the goats at all because I wanted to keep my hands baby friendly.  I miss cuddling up to baby goats!  I'll have to go back on my own some time soon.

Family barn picture.

If you've never met a baby goat, you definitely should!  They're the friendliest little creatures.  Here is a link to our first visit, back in 2009.  I had no idea back then that we'd become such good friends with Justyne and Dustin.  I'm so glad to have goat cheese buddies!  They're real sweethearts.  And here are some more baby goat pictures from a couple of years ago.  Ahhh, baby goats!

it's almost october...

But here are some pictures from September-- just a few little things that have piled up on my camera. It's been a nice, quiet month.

A mysterious cat came to visit our backyard! [blurry effect thanks to the window screen]

The cat was gone by the time I went out to meet him, but I rediscovered the amazingness of our big tree.

Spying on Robert through some flowers.

Finally framed this print, which I got for my birthday. It's in our bedroom, and the green sky matches the wall.

I drew this monkey and was really impressed with myself. You can't see it, but he has glitter highlights. Been working through this book about drawing (which was also a birthday present)!

And finally, the new friend who's gracing the walls of our hallway. Another birthday gift -- it was a good birthday!

The weather is getting nice and cool here! My sister and her husband will be coming to visit us at the end of next week, and staying for a few days. I'm fairly excited about everything. How have you all been? I think this is a really fun time of year, when the seasons change.

cute, creepy and crawly creatures

I've been keeping busy and quiet online lately! I didn't think I had much to blog about until I was uploading a recent batch of photos from my camera ("recent" meaning stuff from all of last month) and noticed a theme.

I really like taking pictures of little creatures. Real or artificial. Here are some from the last little bit!

This little friend landed on my brother-in-law's foot and hung around for 10-15 minutes.

Pacman ghost candies that I bought for Robert

I love this little guy! I'm pretty sure it's a Sedge Wren, or something closely related.

Walking salt & pepper robots! They bring your seasonings to you. Birthday present!

Yesterday afternoon when Robert got home from work, he ran up to the house. Before I could say anything, he said, "get your camera! I've got something to show you!" When I asked what it was, he said... "a muppet."

This guy was hanging out on the lock on our shed. For a creepy crawly thing, he is the cutest one I've ever seen.

We transferred him to a leaf, and he curled up in a little ball. I believe he's something in the Arctiidae family, destined to grow up into a moth! They're also called Woolly Bears. I really like that.

Here's another woolly bear, who got a hair cut a while back.

lately

New record: almost a month without blogging!! Sorry, everyone: it just sort of happened. I've been out of my online habits lately, and I think that's actually a good thing for me. When I'm keeping busy in real life, I don't feel like I need this outlet. But now that I actually have a day off with no plans, I'll share some pretty pictures from the last few weeks! Just a tiny peek.

Recently I have...

...let some giant sunflowers take over the kitchen

...had some zinnias hanging around in a jar

...discovered a fallen robin's nest

...spied a giant butterfly

...attended a gorgeous wedding

...blueberry waffles!!

...been moth-watching...

...AND MORE! Much much more. Those were just the pretty bits. Now for the apologies: sorry I haven't been around to visit everyone! I actually haven't been reading blogs, because I know I won't have time to comment in any sort of meaningful way. Didn't mean to disappear like that, but I just haven't felt too much like talking lately. Everything is good over here. I'm being contentedly quiet.

bear in the mail

When I got home from work yesterday, there was a package for me. It was from Robert's mom. We were pretty curious about what it could be...


And I was somewhat confused until I read the letter she sent along. This is Bear - a stuffed animal that belonged to Robert when he was little. It's obviously supposed to be a monkey, but he called it Bear. That makes sense to me, because it doesn't even have a monkey tail! I can understand getting it confused with a bear.


She said that Bear needs some stitching, but after seeing Toy Story 3 she thought that Robert might want him back. Isn't that the sweetest thing? She also sent along some great little pictures.


You can see Bear was missing an eye for a while. And he's wearing one of Robert's t-shirts -- isn't that considerate?


Robert told me he's "totally embarrassed" of what he's wearing in these pictures. ha ha ha!! I like it. I think I married into a really cute family.

chickens!

Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a great weekend and is starting the week out in a pleasant way. I just needed to show you some pictures of chickens.

As you may have gathered by now, I've got connections with some wonderful people who make goat cheese. I've started helping them on Fridays, and whenever I drive up to the farm, I'm greeted first thing by chickens.

I think this little one was ready to hop in the car with me.

They immediately run up to anyone who arrives. They're really curious!

They're as pretty as can be, for chickens.

They're also a little crazy, and like to lay their eggs in various barns where no one can find them.

They're very happy little chickens! Sorry, no recent pictures of the baby goats... though the last time I saw them, they were beginning to look like teenaged goats. Really, some are getting beards and some look like they have mohawks - real tough guys!! I've been leaving my camera in the car [thus the photos taken from the driver's seat] more often now, because it's silly to carry it around when I'm there to work... or even to just hang out -- it's kind of like taking pictures of a friend's house every time you go over: makes you seem a little kooky!

pink palace museum

Uh oh, I went a whole week without posting! It felt like a month. Here are the predictable apologies for being very busy. Things have balanced out quite a bit, though: I am way less stressed than I was a couple of weeks ago. I began working for a non-profit organization last week, and it's very close to my home. I was originally going to be part-time, but they've asked me to start out full-time just until I finish up this first project I'm working on. I won't share many details, but the important part is that I really like the work and I feel content with everything!

Here are some pictures from our (anniversary/birthday/graduation) visit to Memphis last weekend-- specifically our visit to the Pink Palace Museum! This was my second visit to the museum, and I believe we really only go there because it's a piece of nostalgia from Robert's childhood. Unfortunately, the museum seems to have very little funding and the exhibits haven't really been updated since the 80s. We mostly just like to pose with the scary mannequins.

At least they have a narwhal tusk!! They also have a shrunken head, but we didn't get around to it this time.

Here you use your imagination to "get small" and then look through some microscopes.

Or just pretend you have shadow friends.

They keep this dinosaur around, even though you can see he's falling apart. In the past he would stomp and roar if you gave him a quarter. He doesn't do anything now.

New friend?

He's a cool guy.

Next up: Early America! This picture always reminds me of Rasputina.

Are you ready for some mannequins? I'm leaving out the guy with the gangrenous foot (being sawed off by another mannequin). It's really gross.

Why, hello!

A pink-haired leprechaun is about to receive a shot from a jovial doctor... ?

This part always makes me cringe. You REALLY don't want to know what those tools are all for.

That's.. it. That's all I've got. Sweet dreams! I'll try to set up some more pleasant / less bizarre posts for this week. I'll also try to come round and visit everyone's blogs! Sorry I've been flaky!

baby sloths

Hey, everybody! I am WAY too busy to actually do things on the internet, but I had to share this with you. Working full time is really wearing me out, but luckily this job will be over at the end of the week and then I'm going on to something part-time! Temping is kind of neat.

Meet the sloths from Amphibian Avenger on Vimeo.

Hope you have a wonderful Tuesday and rest of the week!

mother's day: a dinosaur story

Today is Mother's Day here in America! Perhaps in some other places, too: it's hard to keep up with all of the different holidays. Anyhow, if it's Mother's Day where you live, remember to show your mom some appreciation! Here is my post from last year, complete with some cute photos of my mom from the '70s. This year I'm going to do something a little different. Honestly, I just want to show you some dinosaur pictures. And I figured this could somehow fall under the category of motherly things.

During the weekend of the great flood, Robert and I spent our indoors time hatching a dinosaur egg that some friends gave to us. What follows is the photo log we made so we could keep everyone updated with the latest happenings of the baby dino. Robert took about half of these pictures. Enjoy!

The experiment began Friday night. Dino egg went into the water.

This is how it looked when we woke up Saturday.

Things began happening fairly quickly.

We ate some scrambled eggs. A little pink dinosaur looked on in wonder.

Around 10 a.m., something began to emerge!

An eye appeared around noon.

Around 3 p.m. we saw what it's head sort of looked like!

Just an hour later we saw a smile!

5 p.m. - nothing much was happening, but Robert started picking at the egg.

We had strawberry pancakes for dinner. YUM! I could eat breakfast foods for every meal. Sometimes I do.

Just before we went to bed Saturday night... we'd been chipping at the egg again. Impatient!

Next morning: you can see his neck grew longer!

Sunday, 2 p.m.: A little more peeling away at the egg revealed his lumpy legs.

2 hours later: we finally took him out of the egg shell and let him just soak some more, hoping his tail and legs would get longer.

His legs got a little chunkier, but never longer! And the tail stayed stubby. After a couple days of extra soaking, we decided he was done growing. He's all dried out now!

In other news, I began working on Friday! It's just a 2-week temporary position, but already it feels so nice to keep busy all day. A little hectic after not working full-time in almost a year and a half... but I'm enjoying it! I'm still adjusting to the time constraints and not being online all day, so I may be a little scarce around here. Just a warning-- If you don't hear from me for a bit, you know what I'm up to: getting paper cuts!

As far as post-flood updates, things are going fine around our house. Still may need some roof repairs, and we're still under water restrictions [which is still driving me crazy because it means cutting back on doing dishes and laundry], but things are otherwise fine! That's just my case, however. Can't forget that there are still people in the Nashville area (and other places) who are without homes because of the flood!