Gotcha Day! - A Year in Review

Time certainly does fly. I sit here tonight, reflecting on this past year.

Exactly 365 days ago, around this time, we were just exiting immigration at Boston International airport. We had left Florida that morning as a family of 2...

 ...and arrived home from Haiti as a family of 5, with our 3 little men in tow.

Here we are one year later celebrating our first "Gotcha Day!" 

The boys have all grown about 3 inches.  They continue to amaze us with their intelligence, crack us up with their goofiness and drive us insane (as all kids are required to do to their parents).  

We've certainly had happy moments of celebration, but joy cannot fully be appreciated without the moments of sorrow.  In January, we said goodbye to our dear Piper.  Our "little monster" will always be remembered for her never-ending love for all baby creatures and her immense love of food.  She died holding her bone in her mouth, a feat our vet said she's never seen in her 20+ years of work. It was beautiful to witness her companions loving her, even after she passed.  

Amidst the loss, we've continued expanding the farm with lots of new life.  We now host our 6 laying hens, 30 meat birds, 2 cows (Oakley and Acorn), 11 goats (5 bucklings and 1 doeling born within the past month - whom the boys all named after Star Wars characters), 17 rabbits (Clover, Bluebell and Hazel along with 14 babies - our new meat rabbit adventure), and a tank full of tadpoles the boys collected at a river.

This journey will certainly never get boring!

Baby Racoons

 Teresa was hiking up the road with the dogs and heard "peeping" sounds coming from the woods.  She saw 3 baby raccoons scurrying up a nearby tree.

  After taking the dogs home, she immediately ran back with the camera to try and photograph the little coons, only to find them in a different tree.  They had rearranged themselves from a circle to a line.

Long Trail - section #5 (5.5 miles)

 We completed another section of trail.  It was a beautiful sunny day with a nice breeze.

We had great views from the top of Bromley Mountain. We then descended back down to the Mad Tom Notch trailhead, where we'll pick up our next section, maybe next weekend.

Make Way for Goose-lings

The other morning Eric looks out the window upstairs and very calmly states, "There's a family of Canadian geese in the pasture."  Teresa looked out the window expecting to see a flock of Canadian geese, only to see, literally what Eric said...a "family."

The geese walked around the entire perimeter of the pasture fence and exited out the open gate.  They wandered back behind the barn and never reappeared out the other side.  Eric ran out to open the large gate in case they were trying to access the large puddle behind the pig barn.  They waddled back towards Teresa, who had opened the smaller side gate.  The family passed in front of her, through the gate, honking cheerily and disappeared up the hill into the woods.

Where they came from and where they were headed, we will never know.  It certainly was a fun morning surprise though.

 

Long Trail - section #4 (17.5 miles)

 We started the day hiking up Stratton Mountain and had amazing 360 degree views from the fire tower at the summit.  From there we went into the Lye Brook Wilderness area, passing past Stratton Pond.

The weather was in the high 80's, but a much improved forecast compared to last weekend's snow.

Onward...

Long Trail - section #3 (22.6 miles)

Today, we completed our third section of the Long Trail.  

The hike started off fairly normal.  We had rain, but were in high spirits and as we slowly traveled uphill, we stopped to take a few fun photos.

As the day wore on, the rain continued, making the "trail" into small streams...

 

Turning into snow and ice at higher elevations...

We quickly became soaked as water crept through our rain gear and boots  Fatigue set in, the cold made it difficult for us to use our fingers.  We began to think that perhaps attempting a 22+ mile day hike in challenging weather was not the wisest of ideas.  We moved slowly just putting one foot in front of the other.  

The highlight of the hike was a surprise "treasure" that Eric found just off the trail.  Who knows how far this purple star-shaped helium balloon had traveled before it landed in the woods to lie as trash.  On this cold, rainy day however, the bright balloon was a cheery discovery.

We finished the day with a few miles of gradual downhill slope to the trail, rounding a bunch of picturesque beaver ponds, and rare moments of the sun trying to peak through the clouds.  Overall, we were exhausted, but it was a successful trip.

Tomorrow...out to purchase new rain gear (that repels water)!

Long Trail - section #2 (11.2 miles)

 Today, we completed another section of the Long Trail. We spent 4 1/2 hours hiking and close to 5 hours driving our shuttle.

We greatly enjoyed the varied features this section of trail provided.  Along with the beautiful scenery, we also encountered an abundance of wildlife.  Look closely to see the moose!