Rural Living

A warning, this post might not be for the faint of heart, or for the young at heart. And it's a picture-less post. You'll thank me later...

I've been telling people that we live in a fairly rural area. I get the feeling that people often think "An hour outside of D.C.? How rural can that be?" How's this for a convincing picture? Right at this very moment, a mere 60-ish feet from where we are sitting, there lies a dead deer in our front yard.

I'll tell the story from my perspective.

Just after 7am, Kelly got home from her night on the town early morning swim training. I was on snooze alarm #3 when Kelly walks into the room and says: "There is a dead deer on the side of the road outside our house. I just pulled part of a car bumper from the road into our driveway."

"A dead deer? Seriously?!?" I replied. While the news was somewhat odd, I don't know why I would have doubted her.

There wasn't much to do at that moment - I had no real desire to go see the thing. I get a little squeamish seeing them on the side of the road when they aren't right next to our mailbox.

So, what should we do? Who do we call? Is there someone that takes care of this, or do we have to take care of it ourselves? Do we call animal control, or the highway department? Is there an animal control in our county? We decided to let Kelly handle the phone calls since the county offices weren't yet open and I needed to get to work. I walked out to my car and confirmed, yep, a dead deer in our front yard, just off the side of the road. Gross.

I told the story to a few people at work and didn't think much of it until I got a text from Kelly: "So I called and left a message. Saw a VW van here just now. Turns out the deer wasn't dead. They shot it. Wait till it stopped moving and left. Deer is now in our ditch."

What?!? Some guys in a Volkswagen van came and shot the deer? This conjured up vivid images in my head of hillbillies in flannel jumping out of their van with a rifle, shooting roadkill. And it wasn't dead? Kelly and I could have sworn it was. It definitely wasn't moving.

I text back "Whaa? Who was in the vw?"

"Animal control. I'm assuming they will wait for awhile to take the deer to make sure it's dead? I hope they come back for it." she replied.

Well, I hope so too! But why is animal control in a VW van? Now I'm picturing county hired hillbillies in uniform jumping out of their van with a rifle, shooting roadkill.

I get home and Kelly told me she ran to the window after hearing a few gunshots. She looked out and saw Animal control with a gun, standing next to the deer as it was kicking its last kicks. Pretty gruesome stuff. And why the VW? Turns out in the excitement I misread the text. She typed "vvan" which my brain read as "VW van".

And no, they never came back to pick it up. Looks like we'll be making a few more phone calls tomorrow. That is unless some hillbilly comes and picks it up tonight.

Tortellini Soup

Kelly made a delicious soup for dinner tonight and Audrey loved every last drop. I was watching her eat with complete focus and determination and decided that while it really isn't at all entertaining now, I will want to look back at her early efforts with a spoon when she gets older.

Washington DC

The weather has been warming up and we decided to make another day trip into DC. This gave us another test run before we start making these trips with family in the upcoming month (can't wait!).

We started off going to the Museum of Natural History. The best part about DC is all the museums are free, which is nice when you are traveling with a 17 month old. Did you run through the exhibits not really getting a chance to read much? No problem! Only visited two halls in the museum? No problem! Went to a natural history museum and didn't see any fossils? No problem! You can catch it next time. Maybe.

We only made it through the Ocean Hall and the Mammal Hall yesterday and Audrey's favorite parts were the giant whale suspended from the ceiling and the giraffe. She was having so much fun running around that it was hard to get her to stand still long enough for a picture.

After a nutritious lunch of street vendor hot dogs and eggrolls, we took a stroll over to the Jefferson Memorial. The peak blooming period of the cherry blossoms is predicted to be between March 29th and April 3rd - just in time for some of our visitors!

The quote on the wall in the picture was an interesting one: "I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

All in all, another successful trip. Audrey is ready to explore more of DC with her family!

Spring is Coming

The weather is getting nicer and nicer here. Friday made it into the seventies and with the sun staying up later we were able to have some good outdoor time after I got home from work.

One of Kelly's friends out here put together a fun outdoor "gardening" project to do with little ones. It involved dirt and Audrey was eager to dig in.

The idea is fairly simple: fill some baseball card holders (or maybe film holders? we don't know) with planting soil, drop a few seeds in each pouch, moisten, hang in your window with suction cups, cross your finger and hope they sprout. Filling nine pouches with dirt entertained her for about 15 minutes and pouring the remainder of dirt on her head entertained her for another 5.

Audrey could handle the one row of pea seeds, but the remainder were a little too small for her to do on her own. Kelly finished up with some cherry tomatoes, rainbow heirloom tomatoes, squash, and morning glories. We are probably much too late to start these by seed here and we have no idea if we are even going to attempt to transplant them, but we still had fun.

The rest of the evening was spent playing with the leaves that keeps appearing in the corner of our patio every time the wind kicks up a bit. I raked them into a big pile just to be sure we didn't get surprised by anything. The ever growing list of creatures we have been warned about now includes wasps, hornets, black widows, brown recluse spiders, and copperheads. On second thought...maybe we should just stay inside for the rest of the summer.

Kiss Me

No corned beef and cabbage, but we did all wear green. Kelly is a little embarrassed with her hair, though I think a little frizz after training for a triathlon is perfectly acceptable.

Mahna Mahna

Before you watch the video, I should explain that Audrey is a little camera shy. Usually as soon as the video camera comes out, she clams up. Conspicuously setting it on the dinner table is the only way we have found to get around this. Unfortunately that means all our videos are taken from the same spot.

Without any further delay, here she is, singing one of her favorite songs:



And in case you don't know the song, here is a link to her favorite version.

Monkey Shirts

Our little monkey took a few pictures in one of her many monkey shirts today:

Hair Style

Audrey says if nature wont give her long flowing locks, she will resort to accessorizing. Or maybe she is getting ready for a two-week no-hair-washing backpacking trip.