The Owl and the PussyCat

Quietly moving

We went out to the woods today, to relax and breath again. Listen to the wind blowing through the trees. Slow down.

Things seem to move so quickly now that we are living back in the city.  I have to remember how important it is to retreat to the woods every so often, when I need to slow down and live in the moment. 

I need to savor these last quiet moments of just the three of us, before our family  grows to four.

Happy Easter!

My parents are in town this weekend for Easter and to see us one more time before Baby Neave comes.  We took a nice drive to Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.  It was an overcast day but the flowers were magnificent.

I made Emma an Easter dress, and the flowers on the dress seemed so similar to these flowers above. I think they are called phlox?

This week I got a special, special present in the mail for baby Neave. 

It's a beautiful day gown made my dearest friend Kate, who as you may know, has been making dresses for Emma since she was a wee baby.  The embroidery  detail is equiste.  I think I may never want to put her in anything else.  It's just beautiful. 

Well, I hope that you all had a lovely Easter weekend.  The big count is now on, 3 1/2 weeks left until my due date!  Everything is pretty much ready for the baby.  The diapers have been washed and hung to dry.

 

The bags are packed and all of Ina May's advice whirling around in head is ready to be put to practice.  I'm ready whenever she is.  Here we go!

Pedernales State Park

 

Sheepherding!

We went to the Austin Celtic Music Festival this weekend.  It was great!  We saw some good traditional Irish music and I was re-inspired to pick up my Irish flute again.  We'll see!

My favorite part of the whole festival though was watching sheep herding.  I don't know what it is about sheep herding, but I think it is absoutely the coolest thing ever!

 
This beautiful boarder collie is less than a year old and is so, so good at herding the animals.  Isn't she lovely?

Here she is in action.  The thing I find so cool is the body movements of the dog.  She keeps their head low to the ground, and makes slow and then quick movements, and then back to slowly creeping or just sitting and watching!  Just so cool!
I have always felt a little guilty for having a part boarder collie.  I mean, Syeeda was a rescue dog, but I always knew she was meant for greater things than just being our house dog.  She loves to herd Mingus our cat!!

Not only does this dog herd sheep, but she also herds geese.  These are a rare breed of geese and the owner said that now these rare geese actually come in different colors!  Strange.  I'm always a little weary when people say things that are natural, have started coming in different colors!

Maybe in my next life I'll be a shepherd!

 

Conversations of a Baby Donkey

 "Just take a nibble," said Mother Donkey. "But why? I don't like this Momma. I want the real stuff," said the Baby Donkey.

"Come on momma, where ya going? I'm hungry!" 

"Stop momma, please!" with a bit on the front leg.

"Your the best momma ever!"

"Ahh, finally!"

Amazing how similar this is to our own kind~

This was taken at Pioneer Farms.

I think I'm gonna like it here!

I love Texas already!  I must say, I was a little hesitant about the big move. You know, leaving family and really good friends, to move to the state where our oh, so wonderful president was Governor.  But, after venturing out, my hesitation has been pushed aside and I am ready to take Austin head on.

In my last post, I mentioned that we had discover the glorious Barton Springs.  Well, it is not only a lovely dip for children and adults, but also for our four legged friends.


Emma talks about going here everyday now, and honestly I can't blame her.  It's lovely.



We were supposed to go to the local farm the day before last, until I realized that in order to get there we had to go up a really large hill.  I have a steel frame cruiser with no gears.  In other words, heavy, extremely heavy.  Plus, the weight of Emma.  So we just took a beautiful ride through one of the most beautiful and interesting neighborhoods in Austin, Hyde Park. Sorry no pictures as of now, but after seeing so many cool houses with whole front yards dedicated to growing vegetables and herbs, I will definitely be back with camera in hand!  Anyway, I have plans to go to the farm tomorrow morning before the farmers market downtown

This morning we went to a nice little festival for children dedicated to protecting the environment.  They had puppets, music, and all sorts of stalls set up with information about the Colorado river and the Edwards Aquifer.
Emma really got into watching a women talk about pollution, the effects of pollution on the area, how pollutants run off into the river, and then into our drinking water.


Then she got to add the food coloring, which was the pollution, and pour the water on the roads and streets! She was really attentive and seem to really be taking in everything that the lady was talking about. Very cool!

 

After that, we headed over to the bleachers which looked out onto the river.  The children from the local school were out in kayaks and having a ball.  Musicians were setting up their music right on the river. 

Beautiful, just beautiful. 


Emma got really excited when she saw the kayaks.  I think she still remembers going out in them when we were in Maine last summer.  We are going kayaking Sunday.  Ah, Sunday, Sunday. 
Sunday is my birthday, and not just any birthday, my 30th one!!  I'm really excited to enter into the 30's.  I've got no regrets and no worries! I'm totally ready!  I've done pretty much everything that I wanted to while in my 20's.  I finished college in 4 years, worked, got married to the most wonderful man, traveled, lived in different states, own a house and had a beautiful baby!  Wow!  If I have done all this in just 10 years, imagine what can be done in the next 10, learning from my past! I definitely know that these next 10 will be dedicated to Emma, but I can only imagine what other neat and interesting things we will all get up to! 

So, the next time I write I will be 30.  I have a wonderful birthday line up, full of boating excursions, good food, a movie, and a trip to see my friend play in her match.  Wow!  I wish you all a super weekend and here's the first of June!

**I'm having problems uploading my pictures with the new typepad webposts.  They are not uploading correctly.  Anyone else out there having the same problems?**

The free roaming ones.

This was the look of my excited child ready for her first trip to the zoo. I'm not crazy about zoo's.  Personally I like my animals to be free, like the roasters and hens that roam around my neighborhood. But I couldn't resist her excitement when we started talking about the different animals in a old vintage book called One Silver Second by Daphne Hogstrom.

Sandhill Cranes. The call of this mating pair was incredible!  We almost jumped 3 feet the first time they let out their call.  The amazing thing was that their pitches and timing were so exact that they sounded as one. 

I can't remember the name of these little animals, but they're fast. 

As we were walking away from watching them,  one found a small hole in the fence and made a mad dash for freedom.  I can't blame it!

I had to run and tell one of the workers and they kind of huffed and puffed because they said it was almost impossible to catch them.

On the way to catch the little train, we happened upon this beauty. 

He was quite the poser, and as soon as my back was turned and ready to check out the giraffe, he pulled out all the stops.

Ah, the monkeys.  This made me happy.  They had their own little house and their own large piece of property.  Nice.  This I can live with. 
The high fences, small spaces, and muddy ground, is definitely not the life for an animal of any kind. And the thing that really makes me mad in respects to the lack of education for the visitor, is that there was nothing on the zoo brochure telling us where the animals came from before they arrived at the zoo.  I mean, were they rescued or just exchanged for another animal by another zoo?  Shouldn't people be asking these questions these days, about the welfare of these animals and shouldn't these institutes be required to educate their visitors?  When I asked a women who worked there if she knew anything about where the animals came from, she just just shrugged her shoulders.  I mean, if I knew that these animals had been in a bad situation before coming to this zoo, then I would feel a bit better about looking at them in the cages.  But, if they had been taken from their natural habitat for our looking pleasure, well, then, that doesn't make me happy, not in the least.  Actually I'm totally opposed to it. I must do further research on this matter. 

But this, this made me smile.  The happy, free roaming petting zoo, of sorts. A collection of all kinds.  Emma and I were transfixed by all the wonderful animals that we could touch, who could touch us, and who seemed relatively happy.  I could of stayed and played with these animals all day. 

And for some reason my skirt tasted really good to all the goats. This was the second one who had attempted to do so.  Maybe they didn't want me to leave. 

I think I could of moved in here, if the smell of horse and goat manure didn't tickle my nose so much!

Oh, and to add a bit of spring into the picture, look at this sweet mama goose sitting on her eggs.