Wednesday, April 20, 2016

today *updated*

When I finished showering and tidying upstairs, I came downstairs with a basket of laundry headed for the basement and saw that that the girls had been busy. This is usually Laura's work with help from Kate, often following Laura's instructions and ideas. Of course, they were off doing something else by the time I happened on the scene. This type of play goes on all day in between activities and lessons they do with me.




This afternoon, after the girl's rest time and Seth had finished his work, we took a walk along the river and into the woods. It was hard to see much beauty since they have cut so many trees down in anticipation of pipe work beginning soon. But as Seth pointed out, the mosquitoes may not be as bad, since their shade has been majorly reduced. We did see what we think is either a beaver or an otter, it was hard to tell the difference since it was so far away from us, but we have seen both in the river over the years we have lived here so we will keep looking for it and trying to identify whatever it is.
It's a great swimmer, gliding along with barely a ripple. My photos below are not very clear, but if you look for brown patch of wet fur in the water, you can see what we saw. It will be nice to see the leaves coming out, since it feels quite desolate with all the trees down.




We also saw our first butterfly of the season. It fluttered right down next to my shoe just as I was taking a step. As I whipped out the camera, it flew to this downed tree branch and continued to open and close its wings which appeared to be brown on the outside and bright orange on the inside. From our guide books, I'm considering it part of the 'Coppers' species for now.







I had been holding Kate's hand as she walked along, occasionally reaching her arms out to be carried which I heartlessly refused. We usually bring the wagon for her, but she's getting stronger, so I wanted her to walk. I did turn us around sooner than we would have, to keep her from having to walk too far back to the house. I took a break from holding her hand on the way back and instead Seth and Laura offered to hold her hand. She thought it was great and practiced many fun steps while holding onto to both of their hands.




It was a good day, as we have all recovered mostly from the various colds we had in this last week. Today was the first day I had energy since early last week. It felt so nice to tackle laundry and cleaning projects on my to-do list in addition to our regular lesson work. Nights are tiring as my chest gets tighter and I cough very easily. But with nice warmer days, even being sick is not so bad, especially with lots of good books to read. I couldn't get my March Book List done, so look for a combined March/ April at the end of this month. I try not to feel bad that I missed it, but I like to keep up-to-date. 

2 comments:

  1. I like the girls' mini Tupperware jug! My mom had the big one like that when we were growing up.

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  2. Such happy play pictures! They remind me of the 'old days' when my kids were young. Enjoy!

    And I love your river photos. Our teens and their friends were wandering beside ours in their Sunday outfits yesterday, but I haven't made it out there yet.

    I hope you continue to feel better; there are some very bad colds going around, aren't there?

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