born imaginative.: May 2024

The Donkeys!

Somehow I failed to introduce you to Chuck Norris and Penelope.

Chuck Norris has attitude and wants to be alone.

Penelope wants alllll the love.

Between the gazillion animals of my childhood and the sizable amount as an adult, I've never had a donkey on the homestead I live. I dare say Penelope is already a favorite and we have a whole new love for donkeys! Below are three of my favorite donkeys.

Fashion Revue 2024

Fashion Revue 2024. Feels like a mountain to climb as their sewing teacher, but we got to work.

Audra with a 1975 pattern dress.

Anna-Kate with a bag.

Audra's finished result.

And both girls with both of their finished projects dropping off for judging.

The results: Great job girls!

First swim

Last week the girls fully submerged in the Maine Atlantic Waters for maybe a half hour. Audra didn't want her wet suit either. Just to be clear, their first dip wasn't mine. Brr.

More animals

I know. More animals. A couple of calves added. Clyde and Bonnie below, left to right. Clyde is ours. I love having large animals on the homestead again.

Also, I made Anna-Kate's top. It used to be a dress, now it's a shirt. She loves talking with Clyde.

Ice Cream Socials

The 2024 Ice Cream Social season has commenced. Our family usually funds the first one and we tend to get enough donations to keep going for several socials. This year Another Chance Animal Rescue wanted to do some community outreach and they chose to support the ice cream socials. They funded the start up one! This was a huge blessing that I wasn't even looking for!

If you're not familiar with the ice cream socials we've been doing for years, here's a brief rundown. Anyone can come. You can bring all your friends and relations. The stand is open once a week on a random day for an hour. My kids run the stand, the kids who arrive order their own ice cream and count out the money for the transaction. No one needs to pay, we keep a bank right there that anyone can use. Once the shop closes, kids play and adults enjoy the sunset.

It's a summer highlight for my kids. It's so fun to see the fields filled with running children.

My fave part? It brings community together. If you're local and want to know when they are, I can guide you to the facebook page where I post.

New Additions

Meet Maverick and Goose. They'll reside with us this summer. Girls are over the moon.

Anna-Kate and her nest

Anna-Kate has been monitoring the nest that is being built in the birdhouse she built. For some reason, the eggs haven't been laid. She checks with Zippy multiple times a day. We shall see!

Plant swap

Plant swap success, we had between 50 and 60 people. The largest yet. A smashing success.

Cows

Our fields again have cows. This time they aren't ours, but we get to enjoy them this summer, right out the kitchen sink window.

She's checking the cows in mama made pjs.

And this stinker has already crawled under things to roll in fresh cow poop. Swell.

Adrian is the happiest. He's always loved cows.

It's really feels cozy to have our field filled.

Wood Fired Pizza

For about the cost it would have been for us to go out to a wood fire pizzeria, we bought a wood fired pizza oven. (With BOG Christmas money, thank you!) It truly was a family affair. I made the dough and the pizzas, Justin put them in and took them out of the oven, Adrian and Audra collected and split wood that would fit, Anna-Kate....well, she mostly just ate the pizza and complimented the chef. Justin thinks we should do this every Friday. The one who did most of the work (me) didn't promise a thing. For sure we'll be doing this more often.

My Teen

Adrian, at 13, keeps a busy week. He has one afternoon working at the automotive shop.

One afternoon he works with Pap in the woodworking shop.

And then all the time in between he's driving the lawnmower, splitting wood and landscaping...getting paid jobs too! So far, other than the fact I'm pretty embarrassing, the teen years are quite awesome.

Home Sweet Schooling

We wrapped up the last of the Maine homeschooling requirements for the year a little over a month ago. Education is a lifestyle for us, we school year round. We've been taking more days off as of late to do things and having less homeschool days. Yesterday the kids said, "Mom, can we just have a typical homeschool day? We've been so busy." Yes, that's right. They ask for our morning routine. What's the routine? They create, I read aloud. It was two nights in a row that I had meetings and didn't read them their nighttime read aloud. They requested that too. Yes, in case you're wondering, I have three readers. They can read their own books. But what we do as a family, what pulls us together are the books we read together. I collected a few months of pics 'round the table for our morning routine. The simple, the ordinary, the expected, the comfort. Thankful to have created schooling they run to instead of run from.