It's Spring! Well, almost anyway. Tomorrow is the first full day of spring! As you can see from the photo above, the Hildreth family came out to fish the pond on the Land when I was in Iowa (they were invited to do so, of course!). They had a blast, according to Chris and Erin. Here is a picture of the bass that Henry caught. Chris said he (Chris) threw in 10 casts and caught 8 bass! They were all the same size - not too big, but then Henry caught this one! Good one!
Just one week shy of an entire year without a kitchen, the kitchen on the farm is finally finished! At least the part that the cabinetmaker was in charge of. Now I have to figure out what goes above the back splash. But now at least, it is a usable fully-functioning kitchen! It looks so good! The entire granite countertop was replaced, and then the mouldings and range finally were added. Such a nice job!
The weather is getting nicer. The last time I was in Iowa, Dave and I worked outside quite a bit. Bruce, a friend of mine from Alaska and Virginia, stopped by one night on his way home. So we put him to work, too. We spread compost around daffodils, and worked on the "tree stump fairy house" that will be in front of the kid's eventual playhouse. Dave plans to trim up the dead stump and put a roof on it. I hope to have Katie, Chloe and Jack help decorate the front of the stump with a little pretend door and windows. I even found another little fairy house at the Land, which I will take to the farm and put by the big stump fairy house. (see photo)
I hope the kids don't get too excited about their playhouse, because it will not be done by the time they visit this year. (See pictures of the inside of the playhouse.) I hope they aren't too big for it by the time the playhouse is finished, and they visit in the future! Dave found an old concrete slab and put it in front of the door. Then we leveled out the yard and added the triplet's new picnic table. I know they will like their stump fairy house!
We also managed to put the Gator in the barn, after moving some of the junk (!!!) in there. Then we burned all the wood debris in the burn pit at the back of the farm (you might think its Native Americans sending smoke signals!), and had quite a lovely time uncovering old flower beds and all.
And one last thing! We cut up a really nice, but dead, walnut on the Land, put the wood on the trailer and hauled the pieces to the farm. We also brought some large stones from the Land. Dave used the stones to ring a campfire overlooking the farm pond, and then arranged the stools for seats around the campfire. The 3 little ones in the front of the picture were cut a little shorter, especially for Katie, Chloe and Jack. I'm really looking forward to their visit this summer! (This picture shows the view of the pond in front of the summer kitchen I had moved in last fall.)
Happy Spring, dear Reader!