Perfect Summer Day

My morning started with a hearty garden breakfast... Garlic and potatoes we harvested from the garden along with a few eggs from my parents' farm. 

I finished setting up the sleeping arrangements in the tents while G finished mowing and sprayed our natural mosquito spray around the front yard and outdoor game setup. 

The tent on the left is the current tent my college friend and I use on our trips. The right one is our old tent. It felt good to put it to use again! I remember why I liked it so much... good door zipper, good internal pockets, good airflow with rain fly attached... If only it were a tich bigger. 

Our friends arrived just before lunch. We did a quick homestead tour and introduced our animals. The goats were a huge hit. The kids hung out in the pasture feeding them leaves while we set out the food. All our meals were eaten outside, either on our front deck or on the picnic table and benches on the lawn. 

The homemade Miracle Whip worked well in the salad and tasted pretty good. Not as much flavor in the salad as I'm used to, but I think that could be tweaked with more spices. The recipe was pretty light on the amounts.

More animal time for some of the kiddos in the afternoon (one parked herself in the goat shed next to the baby kittens for a few hours). Some took naps. A few enjoyed the library. I guess it's a good thing I didn't get that mattress relocated to the garage. 😜

Lawn games were another hit for the afternoon: badminton, bean bags, ladder ball, bocce. The littlest guy drove our red and yellow Little Tikes car up and down the driveway with his sisters. 

For supper, we grilled burgers/steak and cooked hotdogs over a fire with a walk around the pond and s'mores for dessert. And more bonfire into the night. 

At one point, there were five kids bundled together in the biggest tent. As you might have guessed, that didn't work out too well for sleeping, so a few relocated inside. 

We were all up bright and early the next day! I heard the goat pasture gate chain rattle as I got ready for 4H judging. Out the window three were giving the goats a little breakfast. 

I know I won't get them all, but here are a few random highlights from our time together: 

• One of them gave us a "couple" name- Gimly 😄
• Setting aside "goat beans" at lunchtime (the big tough beans no fun for people to eat but loved by goats... Especially Ilsa) and saving all our other veggie scraps for the animals 
• Kids rushing off after eating to feed the goats, then rushing back bursting with excitement that the two most skittish goats ate out of their hands
• Tree climbing! A few tackled the big maple tree in the goat pasture. The first one to do it jumped down on the other side of the tree and needed a rescue because he couldn't climb back over the fence (The same thing has happened to me minus the tree climbing; our goat fence is not good for people climbing! We've thought about leaving a stepstool out there so we don't get stuck.)
• Chickens pecking leaves out of people's hands through the chicken wire
• Best homestead name idea: Holzhueter Haven (still thinking it over, but I really like Haven as the last word in the name)
• They also gave the goats nicknames: Svetlana is Antelope because she looks like an antelope, Gerda is Shantlers because she has short antlers, Fritz is Peg because he's small like a peg (Ilsa's I can't remember at the moment)

☺️