Heart Day

I meant to post about Valentine's Day but got busy with farm stuff and forgot.

We are not huge Valentine's Day fans. We can take it or leave it, and personally I think it's a made up holiday to sell candy and cards and flowers. The last thing I want my kids consuming during flu season is tons of sugar, but we did spend the day doing some crafts and hosting a get together.

I always pull my favorite storybook out for some readings as soon as we get into the  month of February.

I have looked high and low for other books for Valentine's Day but most of the books are just silly. This book, however, is perfect.

We decided to make our own heart rain clouds.

Tissue paper crumbled up and glued to the back of a cardboard cloud shape.

Some hearts cut from paper and taped to dollar store string was easy enough too.

Soon we had heart clouds decorating the kitchen.

The kids also chose Valentines to make for their homeschool co-op classes. They spent an entire day crafting them and hand writing on them for a co-op party. Sadly, the co-op was canceled because so many kids were sick with the flu.

We wanted to still have a Valentine hang out though, so we invited some friends over for treats and some outside playtime. Because the flu has been rampant we served kefir and yogurt smoothies and lower sugar queen cakes. We also had hummus and fresh veggies.

Perfect Valentine's Day? Absolutely!

Another Heart Day in the books! Now bring on spring!

Valentine

I am happy to announce that our calf is getting stronger each day. No doubt the super nice, spring-like weather we had the past several days contributed! It might have been too nice since I see little leaves budding out on my Japanese Maple tree. Cold, rainy weather is headed this way again tomorrow.

We also have a new milk cow, although she is not *ours*, but we are keeping care of her and milking her.

Valentine belongs to my farmer neighbor. She calved a little over a week ago and lost her calf to the elements. She had no problem calving and she is young and sound. Because my neighbor doesn't have time to milk a cow, he offered for me to keep her. This was perfect timing since my cows are getting low in production and I am making lots of cheese these days.

Valentine is a large cow, especially compared to my other ladies, but she is super nice. In fact we joke that she is half cow, half hound dog.
She really took to Devin over the weekend and follows him around until he scratches her neck.

Like most new milk cows, it took a couple of days to get the *milking* routine down, but she is good as gold now.

She's a welcome addition to the farm, and we are really enjoying her milk! Now, if we could just get spring to arrive early!

Happy Hump Day Ya'll!