Four Part Harmony

It’s been absolutely beautiful here the past week or so.
We’ve been making the most of it, not with anything in specific, just spending a lot of time out and about, playing and working in the yard, riding the bikes, that kind of thing.
Certainly haven’t been sitting around on the computer updating the blog that’s for sure, and as a result, we’ve got quite the backlog of pictures piling up…so here goes.

Here’s a photo of Anna climbing through some big tractor tires. I think this was during a trip that Nicki and Anna took to the pumpkin patch with Dawn and Kadin.

Here’s Anna “feeding” the raccoon at one of the parks we ride to. There’s also a duck, and we take turns riding on them and feeding them the wood chips that are all around.

She’s also gotten into riding on this thing (which I’m not even sure what to call). The thing really spins though. It spins faster when you lean in and then slows down when you let your body hang back like Anna is in this picture. I can ride it for about 45 seconds but Anna really likes it. She’ll even lean back and let go with her hands, the little daredevil.

Here’s a kind of random photo that I took in the late afternoon sun, included here because it shows Anna’s hair looking like her Mama’s.

Anna at Woodstock park in the playhouse. She likes to sit at this little table and “make breakfast”.

We went to the feed store for some chicken food and various supplies. We thought it might be nice to get a treat for the chickens , so we bought a small bag of sunflower seeds. We ended up giving Anna the bag when we got home and told her that she could take some handfuls to throw to the chickens. She couldn’t have been happier, and she spent a good part of the afternoon emptying at least half the bag onto the ground in a big pile at her feet. This picture has her busting out her patented fake smile, and you can also the little dimple on her cheek that she inherited from Nicki (Nicki has the mirror image one on the other cheek).

Here’s Anna offering up some more seeds for the chickens or whoever else might want them. She was talking to each of the three chickens the whole time, saying “Rosie, I can give you more” “I can give you some more seeds, Kim chee”. A $5 bag of seeds never provided more happiness I don’t think.

Yes, this picture was taken last week, and yes, the sky really was that blue.

Here’s our Saturday project this past week. Fencing in one corner of the yard for the chickens to have a fenced run. We harvested our winter squash, and the last of the onions and some radishes, and gave that corner of the yard over to the chickens, at least for the winter.

Anna helped, when she wasn’t busy distributing sunflower seeds.

And here’s the final result. We wanted something fairly temporary and easily removable, but sturdy and nice enough to leave be if we decided to leave it. I think we found a pretty good compromise. The chickens took to it, that’s for sure. They now get a lot more freedom, as we can leave them out most of the afternoon without having to be back there. Although, I have to admit, on Sunday Anna and I came home from a short trip to find Rosie and Kim Chee in the driveway. They apparently can flap right up onto the gate.

I think we’ll be making some modifications to make it more secure, but nevertheless, we and the chickens are pretty excited about our new chicken run.

Sunday we took a trip up to the Salmon River on the west slopes of Mt. Hood, in the hopes of seeing some salmon spawning. It was another great day and we had a nice walk along the river.
We didn’t see any spawning fish, but we did see some baby coho fingerlings.

Anna was collecting leaves and pine cones and lichen along the way and sharing them with us.

The rest of this week should be fun. We’ve got a pumpkin to carve, and Anna’s pretty excited about her halloween costume. Hope everyone is well.