but of course

As I have just shared this story with a friend as we sit, she knitting and me, less domestically, with my laptop, I thought it was probably worth sharing in blog-land as well . . . guaranteed to make you smile, if not laugh out loud :-)
You have probably figured out by now that I enjoy collecting eggs while at work. I also enjoy sharing them. So I had taken an egg last week to my young friend Maggie, who is a vibrant and intelligent five-year-old [about to turn six, she is quick to point out!]. This week I thought I would test her divination skills and, covering the gift with my hands, I asked her to guess what I had brought her that day.
She began hesitantly: "Is it . . . crayons?" I shook my head, no. "Ummm. Marbles?" No, but that's closer, I hinted. "Hmmm. A ball?"
Her mom chimed in at this point, "Maggie, I'll give you a hint: it comes from a chicken."
Maggie grinned, and we could see her confidence level rising until she burst with her brilliant solution of, "Chicken balls!"

the aforementioned zipline

Maybe it's just me . . . but I dare say, the fact that I was careening towards it at breakneck speed did seem to make this tree more interesting, so far as photography subjects go

straight from the chicken's rear

My intention today, as I took my camera to "work" [it still feels like a guilty indulgence to call it that!] , was to take a sort of an action shot, snapping a photo as I went down the zipline. On the way, however, a stop by the chicken coop afforded the delightful discovery of a hen in the process of laying her eggs. Unfortunately, she was finished by the time I got my camera out, so you will have to take my word for it that the green egg that I just boiled came directly from some flustered feathers. FYI, the golf-ball-looking "egg" here is precisely that: it is left there to encourage the hens to lay their own eggs, competing with the Layer of the Golf Ball.

polly want a cracker?

I'm feeling rather like an unwilling zookeeper at the moment. It is my own doing, of course, as I had a choice . . . but I laid aside my known allergies as well as my aversion to driving commutes for the sake of the job. Sometimes, though, in the midst of misery, I cannot help but laugh. I am sniffling and coughing my way through my job as caretaker of a house containing 2 large dogs, 1 small dog, a loquacious parrot and, thankfully, a sweet cat. The cat is my lifeline: so much so that I let her sleep curled up next to me last night, even though I generally do not like to sleep with animals. I declined the room filled with dogs, mind you :-)
I doubt I will accept this assignment again, but it is affording me some interesting educational tidbits: who knew that it takes a parrot approximately 3 hours to chew his way, consistently, through one small bowl of food? The positive aspect of his dinnertime [besides affording a photo op] is that while he is crunching away he cannot be calling, in quick succession, the names of the 4 children of the household :-) But no, I am in no way tempted to get such a menagerie of my own: I will bide out the week, infusing tea tree oil into the air in a probably vain attempt to counteract the pet dander, and I will happily return to my own peaceful home when the assignment is done!

shaping

When I arrived for the afternoon, little Lawson proudly showed me the creation made from the "shaper paper" that I had brought for them last week. I don't generally have a great deal of faith in the advertisement of new and improved art products, but this one did end up making for a rather impressive little octahedron. Better by far, however, was getting to look into his lovely blue eyes and listen as he told me about his day's events. Sometimes little ones can just about break your heart . . . and it is moments like these when I am reminded of all that is good and true--and when I realize when I am reminded of what a great, and humbling, privilege it is to get to invest in these young lives.

reining him in

Just last week I listened, with great interest, to a radio program about equine therapy: the use of riding activities to treat physical, mental, and emotional disabilities. So I was pretty sure it was divine leading when I learned, this week, that such a program was being run not too far from home--and that they were in need of volunteers. All it took was a quick online search, a phone call, and some application processes for me to find myself there today, soaking in the stable smells that I actually am quite fond of. This photo documents the process of suiting "BooBoo" into his reins, during which I teased him for having a name that so belies his stately grandeur :-)

loving Leggy

When my not-quite-daily news perusal revealed an adoption special at the nearby animal shelter, I could not resist a frivolous afternoon outing . . . frivolous because I know better than to seriously entertain the prospect in my unsettled state. As I scratched ears and tickled chins, I struck up a conversation with my kennel companion. What she told me tugged at my heart, with an uplifting reminder of how admirable young ambition can be: she could not adopt a pet of her own, due to her apartment complex regulations, and so she was in training here, awaiting the day she would be old enough to be an official shelter volunteer. This friend, "Leggy," was her favorite, she told me. Or rather, it seemed, she was his favorite, judging by the way he noticed her arrival and waited for her to scoop him into her well-trained embrace :-)

over easy

At the end of a work day that has included such activities as jumping on the trampoline, tag-teaming with A.B. to denude the chicken coop of 4 warm eggs, and singing "Supercalafragalisticespialadocious" while swinging down a zip line, I feel a vague sense of the guilty pleasure of it all. It is a familiar sensation that comes each time I realize how much I love the work I am doing: the burden seems rather rightly linked to the blessing.

a carpet of crocus

For two weeks now, I have lamented the lack of my camera each time I have walked up to my friend's front door. So today, as I was en route, I proudly announced to her that this time, I had my camera in hand. I was almost too late, she said, but thankfully not quite: her front lawn, you see, has had the most uniquely lovely carpet as Spring draws nigh: purple crocuses--a literal plethora of crocuses . . . or is it crocii?