Fair week

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I vowed I wasn't going to complain about the weather on my blog this summer, but it may or may not have been the reasoned I climbed into a hole and disappeared last week. 

But the heat is lifting a wee bit just in time for our 4-H county fair to begin this week. 

You can tell my brain is full when I start pasting sheets of lists and schedules to the kitchen refrigerator. There are papers listing everyone's fair entries--cookies, paintings, photographs, cakes. A schedule for the week--what day we take animals in, when sheep get weighed, when we have volunteer duties, when the sheep show starts, and with plenty of room for more "to-dos" as they stack up. 

My kitchen is a massive explosion of fair picnic food, cookie-baking, show clothes and tonight's defrosting dinner.

 

The girls and I just came in from a

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A shearing and a washing

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Alt Summit is behind me. I sent off my contribution to the Be Out There ebook, and now my gaze it set squarely on the upcoming 4-H fair. The days are ticking by and these lambs need some serious attention. 

For several weeks I've been trying to arrange to have the mamas sheared, but finally in desperation called my sister for a shearing bail-out. So last weekend, she loaded up her kids and made the two-hour trek to Woodlawn to tackle the task of shearing our sheep. 

 

Originally, we had planned to just shear the big girls. They were desperate for a haircut and the situation was getting out of control (not to mention hot)!. 

So we got out the metal sheep stand, hitched up Penny first, plugged in the fan, the clippers and got to work. Shearing these sheep was an amazing task. About four swipes into the project my sister looked at me and said, "I've never done anything like this." (I'm pretty sure she meant such long-haired, dirty sheep. She's sheared plenty of times.). "I may have bitten off more than I can chew." But little by little and with lots of helpers, she got the job done. Three pairs of electric clippers, two pairs of scissors, three garbags bags of wool, and lots of greasy sweat later--the two mamas were done. 

When we put them back in the pen together,.....

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June 5. My best tip for going to the zoo with kids

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So I thought I had this whole zoo-trip thing figured out. We were capitalizing on a rare break in the heat and humidity to make a trip to the zoo. We had the "homeschooler advantage" meaning most schools were winding down, but too late in the year to be taking big field trips to places like...the zoo. 

We waited until later in the morning to hit the road, knowing that if we left too soon we would hit traffic in both Baltimore and DC. And the trip was smooth sailing. But I should have known, when

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June 4. Zoo bound

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This will be a short post but I'm committed to keeping up with my daily posts! And I am actually posting this from my phone, in the car. No, I'm not driving.

We are having a rare two days of beautiful cool days here in Maryland. So we are taking advantage of both the weather and the fact that schools are still in session to slip off to the National zoo for the day.

Birdy says she wants to see scary tigers, Mary says she won't leave without seeing flamingos and Emma says giraffes are a required stop. Elizabeth thankfully has no stringent requests.

More soon! Happy day.

Woodlawn update // barn projects

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woodlawn barn

woodlawn barn

Yesterday afternoon, while Birdy was napping, it suddenly occured to me that I hadn't heard from the girls for what was pushing two hours. Usually, I can hear them somewhere in the house. Or hear them outside the kitchen window. 

woodlawn barn

woodlawn barn

I walked outside and all was still quiet. Bikes strewn across the grass. A sweatshirt on the hood of my car. The usual troop of lounging barn cats were missing. No dog to greet me. I mean, let's be realistic. Usually in the span of two hours at least one person is coming inside to find me, usually in tears, usually arguing with her sister over something. At the very least, I expect someone to arrive with a bloody knee or skinned up elbows. 

woodlawn barn

My heart stirred a little. Did they go off hiking to the creek without asking me first? Did I give them permission to go off with someone and forgot? Were they up over the back hill? 

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