set it all on a ship for the moon

April. I welcome you with wide open arms. You and your shaggy, green velvet carpet with the calico print blooms.

Somehow we have acquired more creatures. 7 new chicks, one new pig, and another one on the way. Things like this happen when you have a propensity for animal collecting have kids.

The littlest chicks are frizzled cochin bantams. Just the name alone is like a sour apple life saver rattling around in your teeth. They're cuter than cute right now but before you know it they'll look like they dun walked backwards into a strong wind...all fluffed and curled and, well, frizzled. Meanwhile, they're Road Island Red and Auracana cousins are practicing they're parts as the lead dinosaurs. Long necked, pin featherd and beady eyed. I've grown endeared to this awkward dino phase of a chick's life. Last weekend the tide pulled us coastal. We stuffed two adults, two dogs, and four teenagers and enough food to feed them in the rig and tossed the winch line west. Part of what makes where we go on the coast so delicious is the drive through the Redwoods to get there. We all talk in whispers and hang our heads out the windows. The towering gods and goddesses sprinkle blessings on us as we pass beneath. Seems like they remember us from another life or something.

Theman named this place Easter Bend. We stop and skip rocks and let the dogs get a drink. It's in a sleepy little moss and fern covered ravine and once when the girls were little, they found a loot of chocolate stuffed eggs along the trail there. SOMEBODY hid them...and as far as they are concerened, it was not somebody in our family. Certainly not some peanut eating man who dashed ahead on the trail without being noticed while I stalled the girls tying shoes and pretending I was having trouble getting their seatbelts unbuckled and asking if they wanted a snack to take with them. Poof. He was back and they were (none the wiser) free to forge ahead. Fastest egg hiding expedition EVER! You should have SEEN the surprise in their eyes!!

Theman likes his peanuts. If you had a magnifying glass you'd see his shirt pocket stuffed with enough to keep him occupied on the trail. This dog of ours...man, she's a handful. She listens to him inspite of his reserved affection for her. It's not that he's not affectionate, it's just that he gives it so generously to me and the ponies so the dog gets the scraps. But, like most dogs, scraps are plenty good enough. All she really wants is to know who's in charge and if she can relax knowing we've go it.
Affection, however, wasn't exactly the chanted mantra of the ponies when they had to dig holes and set posts for the pigs THEY want. They did the work well, though. They're no dummies...they know that snarky attitude will tip the scales in favor of the person(s) who have the power to say "no". As in "no pigs". 'Sides, it's not like theman didn't do the bulk of the heavy lifting anyway. That's what dad's do. They give thier girls enough load to make them a little stronger and then pick up the slack without a peep of complaint.
I think if I had won the three hundred million powerball, I would only look half as excited as pony #1 did on the morning piggy came home. She has a name. It's Miranda HAMbert. For reals.

And this one. How did she get so grown up? I love her and her book worm ways to the moon and back and just when I thought I was filled with all the love my heart could possibly handle, a new ventricle appears and expands even more when baby Edissen is around. That is one happy baby, that girl. And she takes us all with her into that magic place of happyjusttobealive.

Even with an exciting and swelling to-do list and enough plans and schemes to make me a single woman if I'm not careful, I'd set it all on a ship for the moon if it meant I could just swim in the ocean of the love of my family.

You all know what I mean.