HAPPY BIRTHDAY SPROUT!!!

I year ago today give or take 30 minutes.

and today (this was hard fought for, he's ON THE MOVE and much too busy for pictures!)

Continuing the house search...

Yesterday we looked at an 1870's school house in a PRIME home based business location (its currently a B&B) but it is on the main road into town so LOTSA TRAFFIC
also lotsa space and charm and what have you.


Tonight we're looking at two little farms - one with 16 acres and a pond and an old barn, the other is 3 acres surrounded by orchards, and it has two barns and a small house. There's a tire swing out front.

Then later this week we're looking at a house in Kingsport - actual deeded ocean access and room to build a workshop, and a crazy cobbled together 150 year old house and a TON of work to be done (like GUT the upstairs and live downstairs for awhile while its being rehabilitated from a shag carpet and stucco 1970's nightmare) but it is CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP and we LOVE LOVE LOVE Kingsport.

And then the house above - a circa 1750's acadian house. Pretty huh?

Wish us luck on finding our forever house!

In contrast...

Nature Girl did her own mini harvest on the way home from school. I'm not looking forward to the worms coming out but I think we have 144 acorns now for our times tables work!

I don't even like cantaloupe that much

But this is part of why I love Papa Pan.

Its big news here in the Valley that the big grocery chain told a local farmer they'd buy melons from him. So he planted 50 acres of them. Then the grocery chain backed out of the deal. When the "he said - she said" dust settled the farmer invited neighbours to come pick all the melon they could carry before they rotted in the field.

So Papa Pan went melon picking after work yesterday.

This is what was left after we gave a trunk full to the neighbours, to my daycare families.

The calm after the storm

This is my favorite time of day. Breakfast finished, lunches made, kids dressed, washed, brushed. Papa Pan and the bigguns off to school, diaper changed, and the rhythm of the day is in swing. When the quiet descends on us and I catch my breathe Wild Thing draws.

Pirate adventures...

The most luscious volcanoes you ever did see.

Snapshots of my home...

Our make do mudroom.

Remnants of a pirate snack, Wild Thing insists that apple cider is rum.

Dollmaking at its most gory stage!

We value sleep too much to keep our clothes in the bedroom. Papa Pan and my dresser is in the livingroom.
The beach nature box on top.

Dresser in the diningroom that holds art and school supplies and a gross of cloth napkins, and the cutlery, and...

Modelling beeswax krpt on top so the sun can warm it.

For Robin, little beeswax bee guardian.

I always love seeing into the homes of the bloggers I follow so I thought I'd take some pics today.

No, the cat does not look worse

Rule number one with cranky old cats: Don't wake them up at face level.

The cat hissed. Sprout yelled out in surprise, but it was poor little Wild Thing who needed the rescue remedy. He was SO upset that the cat would hurt his baby!

NO TUNA FOR YOU LUNA!

I'm trying to tame my own mama lion response because I kinda understand...I expect this is what she saw....