Birth (this time not goats) and gorgeous scenery

Easter morning I thought I would burst. I had gotten up at 3 am to support my friend when she was giving birth to her baby girl, which was an amazing experience. (Head over here to my other blog to read about it, especially if you are a mother.)  I promise, it's worth it with a beautiful message.

I came home after the baby was born, just in time to watch Eva hunt for Easter eggs.  Her older brothers were too cool for that, but they still watched and later shared in the sweet bounty their generous sister distributed among them.

It was warm and sunny that morning, and as I drank a rare cup of coffee on the deck, telling Steve about the beautiful birthing experience with my friend, I felt like I could burst with happiness.

In order to channel this excessive energy (thank you, coffee, and thank you,  bonding-hormone-oxytocin), we went for a hike, which literally starts in our backyard and leads to this:

I know, right?

When I keep telling you we live at the edge of the wilderness, I'm not kidding.  We walk out of our front door and hike up to these mossy cliffs with a view in 45 minutes.

The trail meanders through a magical mossy fern-covered forest, along a roaring creek, dotted with huge boulders and giant cedars.  

It's the kind of place that makes your heart expand wide and makes you realize what a beautiful planet we live on.

All day long, we saw signs of spring: blooming salmonberries and trillium, nesting swallows, sunshine.  

What a beautiful day to be born!  The whole day, I was flying high from this birthing experience and couldn't stop thinking about it.

And talking of birthing, did I tell you that my other goat gave birth to twins?  We now have two goat mamas with two sets of twins, and a barn with feisty baby goats full of themselves.

I like to escape to the barn in the evenings and let Steve deal with the human kids' chaos in the house.  

Then I immerse myself in the goat kids' chaos, sitting in the straw, letting them chew on my jacket, jump up and down on my lap, and watching them head butt each other.

It's a pure comedy show, that.

Although we do see signs of spring, it has been incredibly wet and yucky outside.  It gets on my nerves, this weather, especially since I am itching to put seedlings in the ground.  But I can't work the soil when it's so soggy, so we just wait, wait, wait.

I will leave you with images of Luke and me holding our chickens to trim their wings.  They kept flying over the fence to scratch in my garden, which could be murderous for my garlic greens poking out of the soil.

Once the garden is planted, the chickens have to be securely contained, because they would destroy it with their scratching and pecking.  So their flight feathers had to go.  It doesn't hurt them, and they are so tame they like to be held.

PS: In case you forgot, click here to read my blog post about my birth-assisting experience and what it means for us mothers.