The zoo, escapees, Nate, play

Mama took the kids to a zoo in Gainesville yesterday. She and Victoria left Cori at the farm for some alone time while they trekked through the park filled with wild “aminals”, according to Grant. They got to feed a giraffe that was seventeen feet tall. I think the kids were disappointed that they did not have more change to feed the goats. (At least they get to feed the animals on our farm.) All our change is saved for and given in the change offering at church, so we rarely have any change on us. This is one time Mama was wishing she had some. They had a great time in both in the zoo and at the adjoining park. I am sure we will go back at some point.

While they were away Cori looked out the window and discovered that the caves had gotten out of the calf lot. Mama had walked in one gate in the morning – leaving it open behind her, and walked out of another gate. That gate she closed. She really doesn’t like to close gates more that once. The calves are easy to lead so Cori got some sweet feed in a bucket and walked up to the calves. They had not gone far. They smelled the feed and anxiously followed her back into the lot. Once they discovered they were back in familiar grazing grounds, they were not too happy, but safe is better than happy.

Nate arrived safely last night just before 7 p.m. The kids were very glad to see their Daddy. All of them began to tell him the significant events of the past week at the same time; feeding calves, the dirt mountain that has been their play place, getting chicken eggs, Easter egg hunts, etc. Grant began to lay out the routine of the farm. Grammy’s chickens get out during the day but not at night. Papa has three houses but they only live in one. We feed the cows milk that Grammy makes for them; and on and on.

I took some time last night to put up tarps over the shop door openings. It might be an exercise in futility with the severe winds we have in this area but I wanted to try to keep some of the rain out of the shop. There were about two inches forecast but we did not get any of what was predicted for last night and it looks less like rain today. Anyway, I did what I was able to do to help the shop and apartment stay dry.

Since I sealed over the doors I was forced to put the front door of the apartment into service. To this point I have had it in place, filling the hole it was designed to fill, but it was not operational. It was not too difficult to do but I was a little concerned that the boys would really like that assess once they knew it was functional. I had good reason to be concerned. Not to be denied their playground in the shop, they would crawl under the tarp on the north end of the shop at a place where is was not able to get it to fit tightly and then stroll over to the door, open it and walk out.

My main concern is that they would leave the door open and wreck my plans for keeping the apartment dry. So far it has worked out that we have been able to keep things as I intended, but time will tell. They will continue to play in the shop but the access will have to be monitored to make sure we are closed up when the rain starts.

As I hung the tarps yesterday evening the kids were playing on the stack of lumber I have stored there. Their favorite hangout is on top of the stack of plywood and OSB. Grant has used that as a ship, a playground and a foundation for towers built of scrap pieces of wood. He and Blake have a ramp I built for them to run their trucks down which has also served as a bridge over a dangerous something or other depending on the ongoing storyline.

At one point I left my phone recording the play as I worked. I placed it where you could catch some of the action but where the kids would not notice. They were playing family and Blake was the baby. I think he thought he was baby monkey by the routine he was going through. Mykenzie was the mommy and Grant was the daddy. When Mykenzie got tired of hearing daddy say “Hooneeey” she decided she would be sister instead of mommy.

As we listened to the recording later we all got a good laugh – especially the kids.