Thank you so much for all of the kind thoughts on my last post. I appreciate your condolences and your stories of connecting with friends and having fun. It truly means a lot to read your messages.

I’m not really sure what to write to follow that post. I confess my head is a bit all over the place this week, and projects at the farm are somewhat the same.

This post will likely reflect that as I share some odds and sods of what’s been happening lately.

Ellie turned 5 months old a week ago. I’ve been sharing a photo every month on Instagram of her with her tractor. For the first time, she was stable enough to actually sit on the tractor (with a bit of help from Daddy).

She’s rolling over all the time now. But only from back to front. She hasn’t figured out how to go the other way, and she doesn’t necessarily love laying on her tummy, so we spend a lot of time fixing the upside down baby–not a hardship during the day, but not so much fun in the middle of the night.

She’s still a gem, though, and takes it pretty easy on us usually.

Here’s some of what else has been going on:

• I had a first animal sighting for me last week: a fawn. Six years into farm living, and deer are still special to see. But I had never seen a fawn. This one was way in the distance following its mom across the back field, but it was still incredibly special to get a glimpse. Butterflies and herons are holding special significance for Matt and me this year, and we’ve seen more of them than ever. We’ve also had a skunk a few days in a row, five mice (in the house… yuck), turkey vultures (Baxter’s nemesis) and an infestation you’ll hear more about in a future post.

• A local farm went viral over the weekend. The farm where I buy our birdseed has fields and fields of sunflowers in bloom. They were allowing people to walk through the fields and take pictures (for a small fee). The response was surprising to me, but on Saturday it was unreal. An estimated 7,000 people showed up. I can’t imagine 7,000 people on our farm. The police were conducting traffic and the road that the farm is on had to be closed. I was caught in the jam and was blown away. When I got home, I found out that the police shut down the sunflower viewing for the season because of the overwhelming turnout. I’m happy for the family for what they achieved and disappointed that their season got cut short. I’m sure they could have made more income from sunflower walks than sunflower seeds. I am super proud to see a small, family business–and a farm–enjoying such success and hope they can come up with a solution for next year.

• I had another article published in the latest issue of The Canadian Organic Grower. (It’s a profile of potato growing at Calannire Organic Farms, and unfortunately isn’t available online yet.) I wrote this shortly after Ellie was born, and I still remember how good it felt to have this piece of my self–to be a writer for a few hours and not only Mama. Life is all about balance and finding what works for us.
• I was first introduced to Pete Souza’s work through a PBS documentary about presidential photographers. Next I started following him on Instagram and then I checked his book, Obama: An Intimate Portrait, out of the library. The documentary is very interesting, the book is lovely and his political commentary on Instagram is cutting. I’m interested to see his new book Shade.

• I’m currently reading Endurance, an account of astronaut Scott Kelly’s year in space. It’s a neat glimpse behind the scenes of the space program and the effects of space on people’s bodies and minds. I did not realize how truly international the International Space Station is.
• I’ve been cooking mainly vegetarian for awhile now. Thug Kitchen has become one of my go-tos for tasty, easy recipes–and humour (as long as healthy vegan cooking with an abusive potty mouth appeals to you).
• On Friday, I got my first haircut since Ellie was born. I now have a short little bob. Byebye pixie. I love having short hair, and I’ll likely go back to the pixie in a little while. My hair had basically already grown out–the hard part–and my hairdresser and I thought it was a good opportunity to change things for a little while.

Thanks to all of you for reading my posts and following along with our adventures and caring about what’s happening with us. Choosing to share some of our life through this blog has connected us with a lot of different people, and I truly feel those connections. I appreciate that you take some time out of your week to drop by and read what’s happening with us.

What’s happening at your house? Anyone else trying out a new haircut? Any special animal sightings or books or recipes to recommend?