Spring Weekend on the Farm

Oliver, Elliot and I had such a wonderful time this past weekend visiting old friends and experiencing a real slice of rural life in Virginia. Ryan had to bow out, which was understandable but still disappointing. I wish he had been able to come chiefly because we had such a good time and made some great memories that I really wish that I could share with him. So I made him look through all my pictures and hear all the details of our trip ad nauseum. I'll spare you, gentle reader.

The highlights included:

• going to the Culpeper small animal auction with John and Lynnie to buy bunnies and chicks for their kids for Easter
• spending a lazy afternoon with the Meyers, the Oakeys, and the Millers on Mt. Vernon Farm--watching animals, exploring old barns, and devising plans to get Cliff to hire us all to come live out on the farm
• eating some AWESOME organic, dairy and gluten-free meals at Mt. Vernon Farm...and then going home to have "real" dessert at Lynnie's (sliced strawberries and pears just didn't quite do the trick :-)
• Serious country breakfast at Eldon Farm on Sunday morning: John's homemade biscuits, fresh scrambled eggs and bacon, whipped cream and strawberries and cantaloupe
• Marching out to feed the goats and chickens in our pajamas and boots...we pretty much didn't change out of our PJs until it was time to go home
• Spending an anxious 5 minutes trying to locate Oliver and Nathan...only to discover them in the chicken coop, "Making a chicken party" in Ollie's words. They were trying to hold the chickens but the chickens "ran too faster." The boys had dumped out all their food and water and were tossing handfuls of chicken feed into the air and at each other.
• Stopping off in Richmond to see some good friends and old neighbors

I took SO many pictures because I really wanted to capture the experience, but I don't think I was able to distill the essence of what it was really like in these pictures. I have a good camera, but I lack the photo-journalist's eye. My camera is magnetically attracted to my kids. Somehow I am STILL surprised when I go back to look at my pictures and realize that I missed some really obvious details but I have like 100 shots of Oliver. Oh well.