Love is in the air

Love is in the air! Last week my brother proposed to his lovely girlfriend and he let Nathan and I be part of the crew to pull it off. We took advantage of some of Nathan's restaurant connections and helped surprise her with a dessert she won't soon forget. ;-)

Speaking of love, Nathan surprised me with sweet notes hidden around the house and beautiful succulents for Valentine's Day this week. Since we can't have chocolate, he brought home another gluten-free, sugar-free, soy-free, corn-free, dairy-free, chocolate-free doughnut to indulge in. I promise it was delicious and didn't taste as nasty as that description implies!

This past week we had the opportunity to help Jenny and Chris out at their new house prepping kitchen cabinets for painting. Photo was unnecessary of the grime, gunk, and droppings. ;-) I was also able to have lunch with a coworker friend and then attend her baby shower. The organizers of her shower did a fantastic job! It was fairy tale woodland theme complete with themed food! Fruit platter in the shape of an owl, hedgehog cheese ball, mushroom-shaped caprese, and black forest cupcakes! Not to mention the very crafty gals that work in her department. They made beautiful paper flowers, tea cups stuffed with moss and fairy figurines, "moss" rug, and more that I can't describe with words too well. My friend loved it!

The longer days and slightly warmer weather have more of our hens coming on line again. We are getting literally a half dozen eggs a day most days. And they are so beautiful to boot! We can't wait to add eggs back into our diet March 1st (they were part of the elimination diet, but we decided 1 month was long enough without them!)

Sweet Lily Mae is our new talker. (We just thought Elsie was chatty!) Lily Mae follows both of us around the yard, inside the coop, and has even walked behind me into the kitchen! She must have been the elderly gentleman's pet as she loves chatting to us. This week while I was cleaning the coop she hopped up on the roosting bar and gave me a perky monologue.

In addition to our domestic birds, our wild bird feeders have been very active the last few days. We even participated in the Great Backyard Bird Count Sunday morning. In just 15 minutes we had a downy woodpecker, bluebirds, and, new visitor, an acadian flycatcher on our suet feeder. At our birdseed and sunflower feeders we had house finches, sparrows, and chickadees. A few days before I watched a cardinal splash around in the bird bath and a pair of doves relaxing on our fence.

Work has me scanning photographs of the library from bygone eras and there are some real gems hidden in the archive! That hair!