Note: all of the pictures are linked to a larger version. Click on a picture to see it in all its glory. Well, larger at least - the image host I used doesn’t allow images larger than 1.5 meg…
Kel & I packed up the kids and flew to Kansas City to spend Thanksgiving with my parents. Well, actually Tonganoxie, Kansas, but you can’t fly into Tongie. (If you blink, you’ll miss it when driving into Tongie…)
My parents live on a small farm (20 acres), with two horses, two (useless) cows (one’s infertile and the other can’t produce milk for her calves so they have to be hand feed), two obnoxious geese, a variety of chickens (soon to be eaten by neighborhood predators), and a dog and cat.
They live in eastern Kansas, so it’s not quite flat as it gets further west…
Here’s the view from the front porch:
Apros pos to nothing, I really LOVE their door. They had it custom made by someone they knew. He decided the rough-hewn look was appropriate for the outside. The inside is smoothly finished.
As you can see, Keira doesn’t get vacation. The poor little Cinderella…
Actually, this was entirely her choice. I have no idea why. We can’t get the kid to do any cleaning at home…
Dyson found better ways to combat boredom…
At one point, my Dad was raking leaves and Dyson did what all kids do…
Of course, once Keira found out about all the fun she was missing, she was all over it…
Tess, my parents’ dog, didn’t help much - she barked ferociously at the rake and did her best to bite it with every raking motion…
A bit later, my sister Heidi, her husband Luis, and his two girls, Caroline and Olivia, showed up. This was the first time that Keira and Dyson met their (cousins?). Caroline clicked with Dyson pretty quickly. A pile of leaves is a good bonding experience.
They then moved on to the basement for some dramatic train collisions…
My parent’s recently put a tire swing in the big, old mulberry tree. This was insanely popular with all of the kids.
Keira and Olivia were total adrenaline freaks. Here’s Luis putting his all into filling their need for speed…
And, when they couldn’t get one of us to push them (higher! faster! spinnier!), they managed to come up with their own entertainment. No, I have no idea what they’re doing…
Another big source of entertainment for all four kids was my parents’ camper. I guess it makes a great club house…
They were constantly trying to talk the adults into participating. Heidi got suckered in this time. With snacks!
Dyson seemed to be the most fascinated by the camper. He was constantly in and out (and/or yappin’ about it…)
Dyson and Caroline really wanted to get close to the mini chickens. The chickens will come up to my parents, but not the kids. So, one of the kids got a small feeder to entice them. I got the kids to inch closer while the chickens were distracted by the food. This was about the closest they got.
Luis and Dyson stayed in close communication. Even when they were only three feet apart. Dyson never did figure when to hold down the button…
Keira and Olivia were constantly going in and out of the horses’ paddock. Luckily Comanche is as about as old as a horse can be and still be alive…
The girls were a constant flurry of activity. They really seemed to get along fantastically.
After Thanksgiving dinner, my mother brought some bread out for the tiny chickens. The white one is the "mother". Not related to the other two, but she did hatch the eggs. Apparently they’re not used to sleeping in the chicken hutch (previously they stayed in the screened breezeway between the house and garage) so my mom has to "put them to bed" every night…
This toy horse was my mom’s when she was a kid. Dyson was quite fond of it…
I noticed the sun going down, so I stepped out to see if I could grab a shot of the horses with sun in the background. Cody wasn’t cooperating, but Comanche came running up in the hopes that I would feed him.
While out, I noticed one of the normal-sized chickens eating at the local smörgåsbord. Gotta pick where the pickin’s good…
That night, Heidi and Luis took the kids to their place. Apparently they had a bang up time. On Friday, Kel and my parents joined them and did some fun stuff while I spent the whole day finishing up a proposal. (Looks like I did okay on it - I’m going to Panama next week to negotiate terms and conditions.)
On Saturday, Keira really got into playing Sims on my parents’ computer. For hours on end…
She wants her own pet, and she let’s the Sims people die of hunger?
Dyson helped my Dad with some work around the farm.
We all went down to the front pond to do a bit of fishing. It’s been dry recently, so the pond is pretty low. I guess that concentrates the fish for us…
Dyson reeled in the first fish. Well, he helped…
Just a wee sunfish…
Didn’t take much longer before he hooked a big-mouth bass…
One for me…
Keira’s first catch.
Dyson and I got a couple more bass, at the same time. We kept his for dinner and threw the rest back.
Kel finally got in on the action…
The earlier ones that Keira caught were on casts made by my dad. This one Keira did all herself. It was the biggest one we caught all day - over three pounds…
Dad takes care of the messy part…
…while Dyson swings…
…and climbs the mulberry tree…
Dyson gets to serve up the final product:
The geese made a huge racket any time anyone came near their enclosure. Mom said it wasn’t so much about food as company. They definitely had a lot to say…
Keira is more about riding the horses then taking care of them, but Mom did get Keira out that evening to brush down Comanche. He startled a bit each time the flash went off. Maybe I shouldn’t have been taking pictures while Keira was behind him…
She only got to ride a couple of times - Thursday morning and Sunday morning, but that seemed to be enough.
Comanche is an old horse and he’s not used to children, so she had a tough time controlling him at first - she was too gentle…
Mom was very tense about it. She was probably flashing back to when Keira was nine months old and was sitting on a (different) horse with my father. The click of the camera caused the horse to rear a bit and everyone freaked out except Dad and Keira…
Dyson and Mom occupy themselves while watching Keira play the Sims…
Early afternoon, we all went out to fly a kite.
It was supposed to be a Dyson-kinda activity, but he was scared that the kite would pull him off the ground. Keira enjoyed it for a bit…
I mentioned that Dyson’s sweater looked a bit like the kite. Next thing we knew, Keira was "flying" Dyson the kite….
Keira went back to the real kite for a bit more. (The silhouettes at the bottom are Keira, Mom, the dog, and Dad.)
Dad, Dyson and I went down to the brush pile to look at the burrows dug into the ground just inside the pile. We explored some animal paths from the brush pile to the upper pond. After some close examination (by that time, Keira was with us), we determined that it was probably raccoons. (We found raccoon prints by the pond, but not by the brush pile, so nothing definitive…)
Then we tried to catch some frogs but weren’t fast enough.
We found a rotting log to play on…
Sometimes Keira and Dyson even play together…
As we were walking from the back pond to the front pond, Dad pointed out the nest where their resident hawks base their chicken killing operations. I did see hawks while there, but never with the camera in hand. The KC area always has a lot of hawks and eagles around. They’re much easier to spot in the winter…
At the front pond, we managed to catch a couple of small frogs and were having a nice stroll about.
We found this HUGE bird print. You can see the maple leaf to the lower right. I estimate that it was about eight inches from front to back. No webbing. I wonder what it is…
A nice stroll, that is, until Keira almost stepped on a garter snake and freaked out.
Of course, being such a loving and concerned parent, I had to catch it…
I was thirty years out of practice at catching a snake by pinning it just behind the head (and perhaps my reflexes have slowed down a bit), so I finally gave up and picked it up by the tail. Keira did NOT think that was a good plan…
It was only about 18 inches long. Just a garter snake!
All in all, a very eventful few days…
To cap it off, here we are killing time at the Delta Crown Club Room in Atlanta. By then, it would appear that Keira was getting tired of me and my camera…
We got home just after midnight on Sunday. I got up at 4:30 a.m. on Monday to head to Acapulco. Pictures from that trip next….
