Lunch and Hiking at Esther's

This morning dawned fresh and warm. School day? Nah! I told the boys to get dressed because we were going somewhere today. I didn't know WHERE yet, but I was working on it. Esther was nice enough to let us come crash at her place so we went by WalMart and stocked up on sandwiches, chips, cookies and drinks.

This was Griffin's lunch.

I guess you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make a four year old eat.


After Suzette arrived with her two kids we were ready for action! So we sat around eating Oreos and planning on hiking and camping at a later date. After the Oreos were gone we thought, well, it's warm so we may as well hike. The kids were out side building the "civilization". This is an ongoing social studies program involving city planning, construction and a hierarchy of elected officials. We also call it go out and play, but they have moved the city three times so I think it should count as school.

This is the bakery. I didn't ask. Just go with it.


The girls in the kitchen/guest area.


Zachary demonstrated the correct way to crash and roll shortly after this shot. We learned not to ride the wagon in the trees.


It was such a beautiful day. Even the daffodils were out.



Carson was out feeling the goats. They are so cute.



He was the only kid that wanted to come with us. Guess who is my favorite today? LOL! Just kidding!




We hiked out into the woods from the back pasture area and headed south toward a bluff. Winter can be a tough time of the year to hike since it can seem that there is not much to see, but if you look carefully there are fun things all around you. Carson found these neat vines, one white and one black, perfectly intertwined on the forest floor.



I noticed this tree with a perfect hidey hole. No one was home, but we guessed who might live there.


Suzette found some acorns in various stages of sprouting that we took back for the city workers that didn't come on the hike.




Carson and I stopped a lot to check out the tracks in the moist ground.

Deer


Raccoon


Big birds (either crows or small turkey?)


Some of the deer tracks were followed by smallish paw prints. Esther's dogs are HUGE so I knew it wasn't them. Esther suggested fox and shortly there after we can across some scat (animal poo for my non-nature friends) that was either fox or skunk. We also saw scat for rabbits and coyotes.

Some of the forest had been selective cut this year. A few of the big trucks were still there and Carson was really excited. Ha! Take that kids who didn't come!




By the time we got back to the house it was 5:00 and we were due home. The kids were chasing the goat kids back into the pen and rolling the bails of hay, but we managed to herd our kids back to the car. I can never resist a good sunset so I took a picture in the car on the way home.