An Adventure in Country Living

So yesterday I sent the little boys outside and joined them a few minutes later on the northwest corner of our property where they were watching the cars drive by on the highway (no worries, we have a steep ditch and they know if they go down the hill close to the highway they will be in BIG trouble).  After a watching for a bit we started to walk back towards the house on the north side along our windbreak.  Which is when I spotted this (you may have to enlarge the picture, my zoom on the camera doesn't work anymore):

Yes, that's a skunk.  I assumed it was dead and we approached it very carefully.  When it lifted its head and looked at us we hightailed it out of there!  It stayed there, by the tree for four more hours, most of them carefully watched by various children (ok, and me) from the bathroom window.  I texted Jeremy "We have a dying(?) skunk in our yard." To which he replied "What do you mean a dying skunk?"  Um, exactly what it sounds like, there's a skunk who appears to be dying in the yard!  Anyway it got up and ate some grass which caused some excitement but laid back down again.  So Jeremy came home and "took care of it."  But not before it sprayed some.  Gross. (Didn't get Jeremy thankfully.)  He then put it in the burn barrel because he didn't want just to throw it in the field.  Turns out burning a skunk doesn't smell so good either.  Let's just say we're keeping the windows closed today and thanking God the wind is blowing from the south!

Still Christmas in April

We got some steps for the south door!

Our dear friends Melissa and Doug recently moved and didn't need these steps.  They seem like a strange thing not to need but I can't remember the story on why.  Anyway, after a large mishap involving a broken axel on a horse trailer loaded with these steps and also half full of broken up concrete, Jeremy went and helped Doug recover from said mishap and brought the steps home.  The kids run out the door, down the steps and down the sidewalk every morning to catch the bus now!  Who knew cement could make us so happy and thankful?!

Her New Smile

Julia recently lost her top two front teeth.

If you're keeping track that's the bottom two teeth, knocked out by a brother when they were very loose (last year), top left wiggled out with the encouragement of a friend at school when it was pretty loose and then lost somewhere in her desk, top right, knocked out by a brother when it was fairly loose (different brother). 

She's Only Got Brothers

But on the plus side, she's always got a dance partner!

It's Like Christmas Around Here!

Not only have I rearranged pictures, made curtains and gotten a bunch of stuff moved out of Jeremy and my bedroom and down into the new basement closet, we got cement yesterday!  I know, my life is really exciting, huh?
There was good little boy entertainment on Monday watching the workers make the forms.

And a solid hour and 15 minutes of watching cement being poured via Bobcat on Tuesday.  Good thing there isn't a little boy entertainment fee.

 Even Addy watched.

 And today we can walk on it!

In case you are having a hard time visualizing the layout:

Progress!

So when we moved the house (2.5 yrs ago) a few things we were storing in the old basement got displaced to Jeremy and my bedroom...and have stayed there ever since.  But over the weekend Jeremy got the closet under the basement stairs finished up and we moved all the junk important stuff down to the closet!

Our room is so nice and clean and roomy now!  :)

Operation Bunny Rescue

So we're having our sidewalk poured today!  (Which is a different story, more on that when it's finished.)  They did all the prep work yesterday and while the boys were watching out the window I noticed the workers all peering down our window well.  When the big kids got home they reported they had discovered a bunny nest the day before up next to the house in between the two window wells.  Putting two and two together I went outside and discovered five baby bunnies down one window well and two down the other.

Now our yard definitely doesn't need seven more bunnies, however the idea of all of us watching them starve and decompose was even less appealing so we implemented Operation Bunny Rescue. 

Philip and Julia happily volunteered to go down the holes.  Philip went to get the two.  He caught one pretty easily but the other got jumpy so Thomas went down to help corner it.

Julia went down the second window well and Thomas helped too.  Those bunnies proved easier to catch.

 

The kids all loved holding the bunnies for a little bit (except Samuel who was inside engrossed in a book), especially my animal loving Julia and Nicholas.  Not wanting to have to rescue bunnies again today we relocated them to the burn pile.  There was one bunny left in the nest and we didn't want to leave him by himself so we relocated him too.

Later that evening I saw the momma bunny sniffing at the now empty nest so I sent Thomas out to chase her to the burn pile so she could find her babies.  I'm not sure if I'm rooting for them to survive or not...but at least they have a chance.