Two Weeks Later

The boys and I were planning to fly to Colorado during the night of June 8, but due to weather, we would have missed our connection. So we went home from the airport and spent Sunday and Monday nights in our own bed, and flew out very early Tuesday. It was about 3:30am when we left the house, which put us to Denver just after 9am. Crazy!

While Phil moved cows and worked, I shopped and visited and talked. The boys played with their cousins and went to the pool. We also hit a zoo that breeds giraffes (some boys fed them). Isaiah fed an elephant. We went to a butterfly pavilion and held a tarantula. I put Jamberry wraps on my nails, which, a week later, still feels exceptionally glamorous. The Botanic Gardens has an installation of glass sculptor Chihuly's work ... that was a highlight. Stunning.

The boys and I returned without issue last Wednesday, and we've been getting back into the swing of life. We finished the ten-book Squire's Tale series. We miss it. We watched Fiddler on the Roof with friends last week. Fun, but long. We enjoyed our community group after church yesterday for almost six hours.

I went running with new trail shoes on Friday and Saturday last week, but both times I had dogs run with me part of the way (one stepped on the back of my shoe, so they don't keep their distance). Since Isaiah was bit by a dog last year, I have some fear built in to that. Caleb has to be asleep, and I need to go before it's too hot. This morning, he woke before 6am and didn't fall asleep for hours, so I didn't go running.

I was proud of myself, though, to go about two miles the first day (and maybe the second, too, but in a different direction).

I also picked up the flute again. Abraham said today, "You are better at the flute than the piano." True. It is fun to start at the beginning of one of my lesson books and work my way through as quickly and well as I can. Will I keep it up long term? Who knows? It is easier to store a flute than a cello in the space we have. And I own a flute, and not a cello.

This feels a bit like a season of reinventing myself, or at least testing out the various pieces of who I have been. I ran in high school, and Phil and I would go running pre-children. Do I still like to run, enough to keep doing it? We shall see. Do I want to play the piano? The flute? Both, long term? Neither?

In farm related news, Phil called the butcher last week, and the earliest we can bring some cows for processing is at the end of August. It is going to be an expensive summer and winter for feed. Again. And we had another calf born, so we are up to 23 animals, on land that can probably support about six without buying lots of hay.

Our tractor's mower has not been working well for quite some time. To repair it would have cost almost $1000. Phil found a used mower for a good bit less than that. He is so happy to have the appropriate tools to keep up the property.

That's not a lot to report on two weeks, but it covers the high points, I think.