Amelie at 9 years, Mia at 6 years, Desmond at 4 years, Miles at 20-months
April 27, 2013
 

 

 
We moved the chickens into the area we had for the goats, they seem to like it, it's a pretty big area for just three chickens. I didn't know chickens ate salad, though.

 

 

 
Sharky is also enjoying himself, but he's mostly an outdoor dog these days, due to our complete lack of ability to potty-train him. Also, the minute we let him in the front yard he takes off. Today we found him stuck in the neighbor's garage.

 

 

 
We did another trip to Sonoma and met up with a home-school group there. They met at this really nice park that had dinosaur fossils all throughout this one area.

 

 

 
The park also had this cool climbing carousel.

 

 

 
Mia is drawing inside of this giant acorn at the park. The trip up north was actually pretty fruitful, we found the area in Sebastopol that we want to live in.

 

 

 
There's a nice area to park and go down to the Russian River where you can throw sand into the river, if you're so inclined.

 

 

 
Or rocks, the bigger the better!

 

 

 
The kids were riding their Razor scooters down this little hill over and over, and each time, I was just waiting for somebody to bail, but they never did.

 

 

 
March is a big birthday month for us, Desmond turned 4, Amelie turned 9, and Naomi also had a birthday!

 

 

 
Amelie started fostering cats, and they've been getting adopted out at a pretty regular clip. Apparently, it's breeding season right now (I didn't realize cats had a breeding season) and they're overwhelmed this year with kittens, they have 500 kittens! So, in addition to the two adult cats Amelie has at any given time, we also have three kittens.

 

 

 
We visited Drake Family Farms, a goat farm where they make goat cheese with the milk from 250 goats. It was fantastic cheese, I have to say, not goaty at all. They have about 400 goats altogether, I think. Their goats were very tame, as you can see here with Miles petting the goat in front of him. We got to hold a baby goat that was born the morning we visited, not even one day old yet.

 

 

 
The kids get to feed some hungry goats.

 

 

 
For my birthday, we went down to Zoo Mar's petting zoo in San Juan Capistrano. It's expensive, too expensive really, but they have bunnies, and you just can't put a price on bunnies.

 

 

 
Desmond feeding a guinea pig at Zoo Mar's.

 

 

 
The kids panning for gold. I was thinking of putting a sluice in our front yard, that would be pretty cool.

 

 

 
Taking the train at Zoo Mar's.

 

 

 
Desmond on the pony at Zoo Mar's. The pony ride is the highlight, I think.

 

 

 
Amelie is laughing because she just stuck out her tongue at me to ruin my picture, but then I got this one, so take that!

 

 

 
That is a big pony for such a little girl.

 

 

 
And then back for some more snuggling with the bunnies. We don't have any bunnies right now, we have to build a coyote-proof enclosure for them, then we'll get some more. They're my favorite kind of pet, by far.

 

 

 
There's a park right next to Zoo Mar's that's also excellent. Miles had no fear of the ladder, but he didn't like the look of that slide.

 

 

 
We went to the Civil War re-enactment at Talbert Park in Costa Mesa. It was supposed to be a big gathering of re-enactors, and maybe there was too much open space or something, but I thought the one in Huntington Beach Central Park was bigger.

 

 

 
A proud American. All these pictures just have Amelie, she was the only one that went to the re-enactment. The canons are too loud for the other kids (and us, too, as a matter of fact).

 

 

 
As I was taking this picture, an old guy came over and starting commenting on how this picture will really piss off my liberal friends. When I didn't say anything, he kept repeating it, like anybody cares about Civil War-era rifles. Really, out of 31,000 gun-deaths a year, how many do you figure are done with a 150-year old rifle? You should almost get a pass if you manage to kill somebody with a 150-year old gun.

 

 

 
They had a wide selection of Civil War-era hats to choose from.

 

 

 
We visited the "Gospel Swamp" History Festival at the Heritage Museum of Orange County. Turns out, Orange County used to be called Gospel Swamp, who knew?

It was very cool, we learned that old houses are beautiful and everything was smaller back then. Hallways, doorways, bedrooms, kitchens, they're all so tiny.

This is Mia and Amelie in front of the Kellogg house, built in 1898.

 

 

 
They were letting the grass grow back on this beautiful lawn, turns out we weren't supposed to be on it, but we didn't know that. When Mia laid down in the grass, she completely disappeared from view, it was really cool.

 

 

 
Amelie playing in the grass.

 

 

 
They had a blacksmith shop on site, giving the kids turns at hammering out this ladle.

 

 

 
Their orange trees were completely full of oranges, so Amelie picked one for Miles to eat, just as soon as he finishes the apple he's working on.

 

 

 
Until next time, take care of those kittens!

 

 

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