Farmer Peep

We had a MOMS Club playgroup this morning, but with an added bonus - the hostess has chickens!

Peeper got a real kick out of petting them, and she spent a good bit of time with her nose up against the fence of their pen, saying "How cute ahre dey?"

How cute is she?

The coolest thing about these ladies is that they lay blue and green eggs. We brought home a dozen of them, and Peeper quite enjoyed helping to break them for scrambling. Luckily, that happened out on the patio, because she made quite the mess of, well, everything.

She also spent a good portion of the visit going up and down the toddler-sized version of a "chicken ramp" which the daddy of the house built to keep their two year old off of the one that the hens actually use.

And this is the closest she came to driving this thing.

When we got home, we discovered that Mommy had moved her "new" (hand-me-down last year from a friend who was moving, in "well-loved" condition, it's been sitting in the garage since then) playhouse out onto the patio!

This is why I was doing my egg prep outside. Once she saw this, she wasn't coming back in. Needless to say, we had a picnic. Well, technically, Shrike and I had a picnic and Peeper ate in her house. Sort of.

"Little kid, little kid, let me in!"

Then she sat in Mommy's lap and ate her eggs.

At one point, she started slipping off Shrike's lap, and Shrike grabbed her before she fell. I just happened to be taking pictures at the time, and caught it as it happened. The amazing thing about this picture is that Shrike knows she's falling, and is lunging to catch her, and Peeper has no idea yet that it's happening. It's like she's Super-Psychic Mommmy!

She was playing in the dirt and started saying "Peeper growin!" We realized that she meant "Peeper growin' some plants!" and then she told us all about them.

"Growing peppuhs an' tatuhs an' pumkins!"

She also mentioned carrots, lettuce, strawberries, berries, fruit, and flowers, she "planted" seeds (dirt) and "fed duh plants" (dirt) and picked berries and carrots (rocks).

I can't wait to get some compost so we can plant real things. I've had several talks with her about how she will have to "listen to Mama and follow directions and cooperate" about what to do with the plants, and that she won't be able to play in the raised bed box after we put dirt in it.

We'll see how that goes.

"Peeper take a nap in dere!"

No, I don't know why she was "napping" with her feet up in the air, but she did it repeatedly. I suspect she may have gotten it from The Wizard of Oz, because when the Cowardly Lion conks out in the poppies, he falls down with his feet up like that.

I swear, she doesn't usually sleep in that position.