mmmmm....strawberries

After reading the book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver this spring/summer, I was highly motivated to buy all local produce and buy only organic meats, etc, from now on. I can't say that all my ideals have been held to since then, but a valiant effort has been made, and I think I will need to force myself to read that book yearly to stay on track. So, with all these good thoughts in mind, a trip to the strawberry patch was definitely in order. In fact, my original plan was to head out to Neepawa to visit my aunt and uncle's strawberry farm, as it was their last year, but in the end it was just too far for a day trip and I didn't feel I could quite manage it. Jaimee, being of the same mindset, and actually putting a lot of these things into regular practice, was more than game to join me and off we went to pick some berries. Once again, my fabulous mother was at my side, helping out, picking more than all of us put together I'm sure. (Jaimee and I did have a bunch of munchkins to watch, so it wasn't like we were slacking off. :) ) Anyhow, pictures to prove it was a great day. The kids all had a blast (except maybe for the babies!), we got a ton of berries, we cooked in the hot sun, came home tired and exhausted and with pails and pails of berries to deal with, red fingers for a week and happiness in our hearts. Truly. I loved it all.
A berry enthusiast. A hard-working Jaimee.

the fabulous Gramma Anne, hard at work. Sam, the spectator. I was hoping it would be more of a participating kind of experience but the boys were more like foreman, making sure we were doing a good job.

Strawberry Shortcake.

Helpful big brother.

Our loot!

Driving in the back of a truck was a huge highlight for the boys...

Beautiful lady.

Isaac was simply adorable this whole day. He really got into the strawberries, literally.

Morning Sound Farm, Year 2

It was that time of year again, time to travel down to Morning Sound Farm and feel like we knew a thing or two about farm life in front of the kiddos. It was a hot hot day, so this pipe/water fountain was a big hit. I think we have all these same pictures from last year. If you have ever experienced deja-vu, this day was it, in every way. Same Mr. Farmer, same goat?, same milking, same tentative Luke, same eager Sam, same scared sheep about to be sheared, same piece of gross wool that ended up in my pocket for the day, same fabulous friends to spend time with at the farm, same patch of grass for a picnic, same ridiculously large tubes that provided hours of fun for the youngsters, same beautiful, smiley Mrs. Farmer to greet us. I would do it again next year in a heartbeat. Actually, this year was a bit different for me, in that Julio and I dream about one day having a bit of land outside the city, with chickens and maybe a milking cow and homeschooling and eating well and having the kids connect more with nature and their food source. So, I ended up having more interesting conversations with the host family this year, with their very eager 8-year-old son who was passionate about his cows and his homeschooling, farm living, fabulous mom who never has any expression but a smile and a very easy and content way about her. I quite enjoyed our time there this year, and sometimes wonder if that could really be us someday. I think, in reality, not quite...definitely not the 6 kids part, probably not such a big farm either, and seeing as she was raised on a farm, I will probably never be quite as comfortable with such a life as I idealize from my comfortable city home...but it's fun to dream.

Luke did show more bravery this year and actually milked the goat. I always find milking animals a little gross when I'm still nursing. I had no desire to squeeze that poor goat.

Sam, "milking" the goat...in reality, Mr. Farmer was doing most of the work.

The crew of attentive children, enamored by a goat. Gotta love those city kids. :)

The object of their attention...

They had a great sandbox there too.

Chickens...who wouldn't want some in their backyard??

The terrified and submissive sheep.

Feeding a goat. There will just always be something cute about kids and goats. Or, kids and kids, I guess we could say...

" I'm not so sure about all this farm stuff mom."

A good day. Good to drive on a gravel road, to get out of the city, to see animals treated well and freely ranging, to dream...

Cottage time

We did a couple of hikes this summer, often on this trail which is by Falcon Lake. Normally it's pretty tame, not mucky, etc, but when we went with our dear friends, the Krymusas, it was pretty mucky in places. We did, however, get to pick a bunch of blueberries with them, which is always a highlight on this trail. Here we're with the ever lovely and popular with the young folk, Gramma Anne and Papa Ron. Not Christmas card worthy, but a family shot nonetheless. Faces are overrated, right?

My parents are so cute.

Biking fun, around the cottage. Nice look Sam.

These posts are lacking in word content, but trying to make up for it in visual content. Sorry if you expected more wit and stories...a tired brain doesn't produce either very well!

Anna can you laugh?

So, this is actually from yesterday, totally throwing off my chronological summer plan, but it makes me laugh.

painting the garage

Have I ever mentioned that my mom is super? Well, she is. Also, she loves projects, which is a wonderful thing for me as I merely mentioned that I wanted to paint our garage and she basically said, "sign me up!" She's such a hard worker, and refused to let me climb up the ladder in case I would fall, because, in her words, "you're more important Corinna! You have three kids to raise!" Seriously, selfless woman to the core. But hands off, she's my momma. Luke thought this was one of the best days ever because he got to WORK. He loves working, in theory. He also loves painting large surfaces with only one colour. That's pretty much how he paints or colours on paper, so finally he was able to "express himself" on a larger surface the way he's always wanted. Sammy liked it too, I think, for all of 3 minutes. Luke, however, was pretty much helping all day.

This is just a sweet picture of Sam actually playing with the quiet book. I have not nearly recuperated the hours I put into that thing in terms of hours it has been played with, but I sure love it when they take time to look at it. Samuel has such an awesome attention span for such things, and just giggles at the farm animal finger puppets and knows how to enjoy the small things. I love that about him.

Anna, starting to get up for the first time on furniture. She's a pro now, I bet she'll be walking any day.

I liked how the sun came in on her in this one.

finally

I keep checking back here to see if there's a new post, and there never is. It's very disappointing, also considering the post that does keep appearing talks about how fabulous I felt about running, and I haven't run in weeks now, not consistently. So this is my plan, seeing as I'm totally overwhelmed with the fact that I haven't blogged all summer and that this summer has been completely jam packed. I think I will post a series of posts in chronological order, with mostly pictures, to recap our summer. Mostly I'm doing this because I can't stand trying to reorganize pictures on here, and somehow posting 12 times seems easier than moving pictures around on blogger.

So, first off, I'll call this post (within a post) "general fun around the house".

Anna, getting ready for a walk.Hanging out in the backyard - we did this a lot, especially before Anna really started crawling. Lots of reading and playing happened on that blanket this summer, solidifying our decision to homeschool. Learning on a blanket just seems more fun.
Barefoot biking. I'm sure this is wrong for many reasons, but they were just giddy doing it. Oh, the rebels!

Our homeschooling group get together - Luke had these kids' undivided attention for the longest time and we couldn't figure out what he was doing. It turns out, he was a hockey player and they were his fans, watching. And I thought he was shy...

Chalk on barn. Now, if we were to do it, we could call it chalk on garage. My mom and I surprised Julio one day and had spent all day painting the two sides of the garage that you can see from the backyard. It's grey now, and not nearly so barnlike. When we first moved in there was actually just a half door leading into the garage. These people were seriously going for the barn look, and who can blame them? What's more fun than a barn in the city? My fun stopped a few years ago, so I'm happy for my dull, grey garage now.

Cover that barn Luke!

Our other home days, had I taken pictures, would include trips to the wading pool, walks to the park, bike rides to the nearby construction site to take a look at the progress and check out the "exavators", and some fun in the sprinklers. Okay, stay tuned for another post soon!