first picnic and farm things

The schools in our district had so many snow day cancellations this past winter that they lost most of their spring break and had to extend school a little further into June. Since we, being homeschoolers, were exempt from snow days, we kept trudging on. My kids were a bit envious of their school friends having so many days off during the winter and kept trying to persuade me to take days off. But I knew that once the warm days hit, those would be the days we'd want to "skip school" for the day and enjoy time out in the sun.

And that's exactly what we did this past Thursday. It was 70 degrees and sunny. We ditched the books and traded them in for walks in the woods, time on the rope swing, and the reading of Redwall while we had our picnic lunch. I plan our school year for times such as these. If we keep on our schedule, we will be finished with our state-mandated 180 days  by the first week of May. That's perfect because that's when this little homestead gets awfully busy with planting and gardening and all of those other wonderfully enjoyable warm-weather things.

My animals are also enjoying these milder days. The alpacas and chickens spent most of their winter days in their buildings or right outside of the door, neither liking the deep snows and arctic temps we experienced this year. I still get a bit surprised when I look out the back door and see the alpacas way out in the pasture, munching on any bit of green they can find. Admittedly, there hasn't been much of that until a couple of days ago. Now the grass is growing in green and we've got fuzzy little buds on some of the trees. And when I go out in the morning, well, it just smells and sounds like spring. The smell of dirt (oh, that smell invigorates me) and the beautiful songs of the birds ~ these are some of the things that make spring my favorite season. All things new. All things fresh. All things invigorated and ready to spring forth with life.