Something the girlies are doing right now...

The is our second experience of hatching a monarch butterfly. The first time we hatched "Queenie" and released her the day we got home from Wawa. We have grown milkweed in our front garden to attract butterflies there (there are millions of milkweed plants growing out back). We collected 2 leaves with tiny white eggs and within a few days these little caterpillars emerged. The girls feed "Princess Flower" and "Tiny" fresh milkweed leaves every day.

The night before we left for Wawa, I watched a beautiful movie called "Four Wings and a Prayer" about the life of Monarch Butterflies. We thought it was kind of cool to be witnessing "Queenie" and her transformation, but after seeing this movie, the experience took on even more meaning.

Stay tuned for updates...

In the neighbourhood

While we were away on vacation, Patrick's friend's grandfather left a message on our machine. He told us that he had a new foal and he wanted to know if the kids wanted to come and see him. Redundant question. So we called him back and after lunch we got in the car and headed over (He lives 2 roads over from us). These are Haflingers that are trained to pull wagons. G uses them in parades, and gives rides either for free or he sometimes does it as a fundraiser for charities. Earlier in the summer, G was nice enough to take us out in a wagon pulled by 2 of his other haflingers.

The girls picked weed flowers and put them in the colt's halter.


Griffin had no fear. After looking at the mare and colt, we went to the cattle barn, where G has retired dairy cows on one side and beef cattle on the other side. Griffin tried to climb in with them. He had his hand outreached to them to pet them and he was so disappointed when they backed away from him. G grabbed a dairy cow and brought her close enough for him to pet and he was happy.