When Dreams Happen If By Chance

OK, so it's after the soccer games for the day and I am knee deep in switching the girls' clothing from summer to winter.  Yes, with three girls in one room with one standard size closet and two dressers, it gets too tight to have all the clothes out at once.  Then all of a sudden the dogs are barking like crazy!

Chriscelda looks out the window and says there are horses in the front yard!

Not fully believing her, thinking she must of slipped and said horses instead of cows which are across the road, I went to look.  However, Bella had already scrambled over to the window.  She lets out a huge squeal, "My dream just came true!!"

As carefully as we could we made our way outside to figure out what was going on.  Bella was the first to try to touch one of them, after she tossed her crutches off to the side so they would not make the horses feel threatened.  I started to gain their trust by feeding them grass by hand.

Bella is in pure Heaven!

After about 40 minutes we try to direct them either to a fenced area or the neighbor's house that needs their grass mowed.  It's currently on the market and the owners moved out several month ago.

Finally the owners shoed up and we began to form a plan.  We got four horses in a fenced area to contain them while she rode one bareback and lead another that was not broken home.  Bella stayed as long as she could but having put some weight on her knee, she was in a lot of pain and went in.  I stayed with the horses.  When the owner returned, she asked if I could ride one back for her while she took a couple more.  Two of the remaining four were babies who just followed the rest.  Bella was so jealous as she saw me ride off bareback on an appaloosa from her window.

The story is, the owner has roughly 20 horses she is boarding on a large acreage about 1/2 mile from our house.  Since there are several hunters in the area, the deer have been running into her fences creating breaks in the hot wires.  A few horses decided to go looking for green grass and a few more followed.  I helped splice hot wires, off during the repairs, and fill the hay nets.  The owner hinted that Bella might be able to get a job helping her with the horses as she needs some help in grooming and working them.  As a thank you for bringing them back, she wants to take at least Bella and I on a long trail ride.  So, Bella is overjoyed with delight and prospects, but her knee needs to heal first!  Karl commented that she is well on her way with motivation of horses.  She needs that sweatshirt from her horse catalog, it reads "My therapist lives in a barn" with a picture of a horse in a stall.  I know God had a hand in this as Bella is starting to get her spirits down from her knee still hurting her.  She is not able to do all the activities she once could.  At least she can still shoot archery with one of her best buddies, yes, he's a boy.  They are good FRIENDS with lots in common.  He has goats, her rooster when we had to get rid of one, a menagerie of other animals including one huge white dog that Bella buries her face in her fur when she sees her.  Jacob also plays soccer on Anton's team, goes to school with Anton, and comes over a few times a week after school.

Bella has her Orthopedic appointment today, I hope we get our answers as to why she is in so much pain and not able to put weight on it.  She was injured during a soccer game 10 days ago.  Bella headed the ball away, but the opposing player was already timing the kick to where the ball would have been.  Instead of a ball, it was Bella's knee.  She got nailed in the soft spot on the inside of her right knee.

Baby Bunnies

 

Guess what we found while doing yard work in the early Spring?  We found a nest under one of the pine trees.  There was a lot of fur, no mama, and one dead baby bunny (it looked like a broken neck and a recent kill because the body was limp).  Not far from the nest we found two babies hiding and scared silly.  So I now have two little girls exclaiming "no mama" in a way that you know it relates to them.  Being placed in this predicament, Karl said to pull out the brooding box we made last year and put them in there.

 So added to our already busy days of soccer, we were now caring for orphaned baby bunnies.

 

Every day they gave them fresh clover and water.  The bunnies were being tame for awhile, but Karl and I noticed they were starting to get rambunctious.  The two were starting to jump and reach about 2 inches from the top of the hutch.  We knew we needed to let them go.

 

After a few weeks of explaining how they are wild animals, they are not babies anymore (grow faster then people), and they were not happy being caged, they agreed to let them go.

 

To make the transition even more difficult, it was a rainy day.  This was showing their inner turmoil as they let them go.  Bella choose an area near the wild parts of our land behind the fort.  She felt it would give lots of cover and food as they readjust to being wild bunnies again. 

 

 

Then guess what happened, we found another nest, only this one was not abandoned as we saw momma coming to a fro to care for the babies.  After this picture, the next day, the nest was empty.  Either momma bunny moved them or a wild animal got them.  But now the girls think all the wild bunnies are their bunnies.

Daily Life with Keva and Nature

Christine Loves watermelon!

 

Keva Blocks are back in the spotlight again!

 

 

Going on Nature Walks to the pond.

 

Several Canadian Geese have taken up residence in the pond.

 

More turtles are around.  I found one under a pile of wood.  Karl found a snapping turtle in the garage!  I hope this will motivate a thorough cleaning which has been pushed on the back burner as we deal with our changes and closing up the school year.   

Painting in Water Colors

Working in the garden and orchard

 

Trying to teach the girls about good and bad bugs in the garden.  They thought worms were bad, "Yucky and Dirty".

 

Criselda has gotten very comfortable with the dogs now.

 

Some weeding action here!

 

Who says working in the yard has to be boring!

 

Giving the trees some organic fertilizer!

 

Look how strong I am!  Christine is an animal when it comes to working in the garden.  She can go for hours!

 

Bella spreading mulch!

 

Anton weeding.

 

I use old papers under the mulch to be a weed block.  It really cuts down on the weeding later in the season if I do this first!

Even the chickens had some time in the garden, only they were prepping the veggie garden beds for planting by flipping the soil and eating bugs.  Way to go girls!!

Busy Times

Sorry I have not been keeping up to our extended families and friends.  We have been doing a lot of growing and changing in our family.

 

The Three girls after Bella's Soccer practice one day.

 

Having fun on the swings on the fort.

 

 

We met up with some friends at the local park on a particularly warm Spring Day.

 

Afterwards we went to the grocery, "Food Store" to pick up ice cream and watermelon.  Christine loves watermelon and prays for us to not run out!

The beginning of the firsts

 

Finally home and now it's three girls in one room!  There was lots of giggles and talking which was obvious the next day when Karl took them to Bella's horse back riding lessons.

 

This time there was no Dramamine or Sea Bands.  Guess what, no car sickness!  Karl thinks it is the driving and smells of gasoline that caused the sickness.  However, we still have some Ziploc bags in the vehicles just in case!

 

First American Ice Cream!  OK, the girls are use to having purple ice cream, it's cream mixed with a purple yam.  So when Anton was asking the girls in our Skype chats what was their favorite flavors, they looked confused and drew pictures of purple ice cream on cones.  Bella brought out the ice cream on the second night.  Karl and Anton were at Scouts, and I thought we should start easy, plain vanilla.  It was truly fun to watch them eat it.  They would take a small bite, smile, shiver as it went down, giggle, them take another bite.

 

After they finished, I had them snuggle up under the big blanket while I turned on the gas fireplace to get them warm.  That was a huge first also.  Christine practically jumped out of her skin but then wanted to know how, what, why, etc.

 

 

With so much excitement and still jet lagged, the girls fell asleep talking holding hands on one twin bed.  They slept like that all night.

 

 

So, Anton eager to have another chess player in the house, tried to get Criselda to play him.  We told him it was too soon and maybe checkers would be better.  Christine has a new love, the dogs!!!  She loves them!!!

 

 

This was their first reaction to Magic School Bus.  Christine is a sponge at soaking up things and like any possible future science person, wants to know how things work.  Watching Magic School Bus was a low key, nonthreatening way to get the message across.  Christine is more nervous about her English than Criselda, but she understands more than she says.

 

 

 First snow!

 

It only took one ball from big brother for the two to catch on!

 

After about an hour, they were all chilled and coming in to get warm and dry.

Bella introduced hot chocolate with left over candy canes.