A Day on the Farm

Leila and I enjoyed a perfect day at KMK Farms today. When I say "perfect," I really mean it, in fact, "perfect" really doesn't even do it justice. The morning started out with weather that seemed undecided about whether to be stormy or pleasant. By 11 when the farm excursion began, the weather opted for pleasant, with a refreshing coolness in the air and a stunning spread of wispy clouds streaking the sky. We started by planting potatoes... like 500 pounds of them (between the whole 20-person group of us). Leila was REALLY into it! Then we headed over to the greenhouse and seeded about 250 summer squash (between Leila and I). Back at the farm, we fed the baby lambs and also made about 100 happy chickens even happier. The day concluded with a dynamite lunch made from delicious on-site ingredients. Yum! The best part of this perfect day was watching Leila truly revel in her farm experience.

A Snowy Retreat in March

Spring was in full effect on the valley floor with blossoms bursting forth to dazzle the eye with color, but Leila and I drove 6,600 feet up a mountain to enjoy some snowy white. My parents recently became the proud owners of a fantastic mountain home and this past weekend, Leila and I took advantage of the quiet place for a solo retreat. I knew it was still winter in the mountains, but I hadn't anticipated so much snow. And neither had Leila. She was really frustrated as she sunk with each step, yelping for help. But she got more confident with each venture outside and would happily march along anywhere that I created "treks" (tracks = my stomping of a compacted path along which she wouldn't sink).

At mid-day when we arrived, it was so cloudy that you could only occasionally see Slate Mountain looming across the way. Here is a view when the clouds were briefly parting...
Little snowmen...
The house is equipped with a pool table and Leila enjoyed her version of billiards, which entails rolling balls down the green, not necessarily with the intention of reaching a pocket. Eventually, half the balls are in the pocket and the other half end up stuck in the middle of the table out of reach, and that's about when the game concludes.
Leila got cozy with her friends to watch "Bug's Life."
Our toasty little fire...
The picture below depicts what might have been one of the biggest highlights of the visit. It was our "science experiment" where we turned snow into water with a little help from the sun (much sunnier on day 2). She was riveted by the transformation and delighted in monitoring our experiment throughout the day, dipping her finger in the water to make sure that it was really water.
She was quite the photographer too. Here she is getting serious about an artistic shot of the white snow, or maybe it was a portrait of a snowman?
The mittens proved a bit challenging for the aspiring photographer, and we soon removed them. But it was kinda cute watching her try to figure out how to press the buttons with clumsy mitten hands. She must have taken 300 pictures in 24 hours.
We passed a few glorious redbuds along the drive. Leila renamed them "dark pinkbuds."