Blogging with my hands tied

Have you ever know someone that you swear wouldn't be able to talk if you tied their hands down because they make so many gestures? Well, that is me blogging without pictures. We have been busy and have lots we want to tell but without the camera to take pictures, it just doesn't seem the same and I don't know what to write. I know lots of people blog without ever putting a picture up, my hat is off to them. Since our blog is more of a diary I hope the kids will enjoy looking back on, I don't often write posts that are opinion pieces because that isn't want I want them to remember of our wonderful days together. I could write post after post of opinions without pictures but, well since that isn't what we are going for here I feel writers block without pictures. Good news is our camera has reached it's destination where it will be fixed. Bad news is it took a week, yes a week, to get there. I don't have a lot of hope in seeing it for a few weeks. See, that could be a wonderful opinion post there but it wouldn't be positive so I will just let it go.

So without pictures here is what we have been up to:

• Dancer has been sick. So sick one day that she didn't even want the t.v. on. You know a kid is sick when they don't want to watch t.v.
• We have been making maple syrup. The sap is running faster than we can cook it down. That is a good problem but it makes me feel like I am behind which in turn makes me a wee bit tense. Today we were cooking in front of the garage with the propane cooker. It is colder today so with the steam rolling off the top of the pot and hitting the cold air it looked like we were cooking up some witches brew. The syrup this year is beautiful. A creamy, light, golden color and oh so sweet.
• Spark has been cruising through his math lessons. Yeah!
• It is hard to do math or any other subject when the weather is so nice. A few time we have even been outside without a coat on. Another yeah!
• Dancer had dance pictures taken. She loves it, me on the other hand, well, she loves it. The girls wear their hair in a pony tail for their tap dance and in a bun for lyrical and jazz. We get there and I put her hair up in the bun with about 35 bobby pins, along with all but one other mother, and they decide to do the tap pictures first. Out comes the bun with the 35 bobby pins, take the tap pictures, and put the bun back in with the 35 bobby pins minutes after I just took it out. They also wear false eye lashes. Perhaps if you wear them every day they are easy to get on. When you don't they are about as easy to get on someone else who wildly blinking as it would be to knit behind your back while riding a roller coaster. She was beautiful and I am sure the pictures will be beautiful as well.
• I don't know if I have ever talked about our little goat Eeyore on here, he's is the one on the picture at the top. He is either diabetic or has epilepsy. We give him candy a few times every day and he does really well. When we don't he foams at the mouth and just lays a heap or walks around in circles in a daze like he can't see. We give him a syringe full of sugar water or syrup and he usually turns around quickly and is back to his normal self. Yesterday, when Dad went out to do chores in the morning, Eeyore was having one of his episodes and Dad had to work harder than usual to get him back to normal. Then last night he had another episode and he again didn't come out of quickly. In fact, he started grinding his teeth, fell over and started shaking. He did this twice. This is Dancer's goat so she is out in the barn crying and laying with him in his stall. The rest of us are out there trying to comfort her and figure out what to do to rally this goat back from heading towards the light at the end of the tunnel. Spark came out and prayed and Eeyore started to come back around. Sometimes I think that kid has a direct hot line to God because often when he prays his prayers are answered quickly. By 2 a.m. we felt confident enough to leave him alone and went in the house to bed. Actually Dad and I didn't think he was going to make it through the night but he did. After a sluggish day he seems pretty good tonight. It is amazing how much time and energy we have put into this goat but Dancer loves him so we do.
• Spark has a huge farm set and the kids set it up in the living room. It has been really fun to listen to them play. Dancer is the producer (goat and cow milk, cheese and ice cream) and Spark buys her products at wholesale prices and sells them retail. They have price lists and everything and are figuring out their profits. They are quite the entrepreneurs!

Those are the highlights. We have no commitments tomorrow and are so looking forward to a day of whatever we want. It will probably be cleaning the barn but at least it is our choice!