Hiking!

This was a long time ago, but I just realized that it was never chronicled! It deserved chronicling!
So. Jessica called and said, "we're going for a wee stroll in the morning-- a saunter, barely even qualifies as a walk. Care to come along?"
Me, being a doofus, say, Sure, how hard can it be?
HAH!
It was beautiful. It was amazing.
It was DEATH defying.
I'd go again in a heart beat.

Raising Critters

Look at this girl. She's transformed into a kid-- and her 2nd birthday is still a week away!
This is her response to, "make a happy face!" Ham.
We found some plumeria on our walk. And also, this is to show how HUGE she is.
And... the stroller hula.
Rosie the fluffy pink princess madly chasing a mama chicken and her chicks around the house, with her fluffy pink princess doll.
A world of contradictions. :)
Our chicks! When they were little and cute! They're already big and gross.


And here are some monarch caterpillars that Kaycee gave us-- they started out tiny-- like mechanical pencil lead. And they gorged themselves on milkweed and ballooned into these fat beasts and eventually...Made cocoons! This was all very amazing to Matt and I. Especially watching the transformation happen in real time-- a caterpillar gets all green in the face, climbs stickily to the ceiling, starts thrashing around (Rosie did a jerky caterpillar dance for the occasion) for a day, and then suddenly, wriggles out of his black crunchy caterpillar skin, and then squirms a bit and then hardens into a cocoon. Ten days later and...
Voila! They climbed out and hung upside down dripping (!) and fanning their new wings and then flutter away! It was VERY cool. Thanks Kaycee! We loved it!
Aaaand, here are some cute kids at baby beach, photo courtesy of Jessica. I noticed half-way through this playdate that three of the four families were racially identical, as in... three half-Japanese, half-caucasion guys married three white girls to produce 5 of the above 7 children. It was like a quarter Japanese kids club! You won't guess which ones from looking.

Gory

I decided that today was the day to turn the compost. As I was trying to extract 4 months worth of rotten grass clippings, lime thorns, and kitchen scraps, a HUGE yellow-green-blue-black centipede came whipping out. Jurassic this thing. Yellow feet, blue body, pale orange underside.
I admired its lovely bright colors as I hacked it to death with my shovel, chanting Die. Die. Die.
Then the wild roosters came over and finished it off, gingerly, still flipping and coiling.