Sunday, March 8, 2009

Gardens and goats

The weather this weekend was nice, which we used to its full advantage. Emma and Janne played outside almost all weekend, for the first time after winter. They had a blast!
Looking at her self-made piano, whose genes to you think she has?

Saturday, the ground workers came to level our front yard and to take out what was left of the plants in the back yard. We don't have a plan yet for either the front or the back yard, but the ground workers could do it this weekend or end of March. We opted for the 'now' plan, so as to get an early start.
This tree stump is one of the things they dragged out of our back yard

And this was the result; fortunately we (together with the neighbours) had already decided to replace the old fence ...

Today, we went to a local, though very famous, (milk) goat farm, 't Geitenboerke in Oerle. Every year, from March 1st until mid May, they open up their farm to visitors every Sunday afternoon. You can feed the goats, buy goat cheese and goat ice cream and you can even hold and give a little lambs the bottle. Emma was all excited when we told her, but she was a bit afraid of the goats and even the young. Still, she managed to feed a few goats and let one lamb drink the bottle.
Emma is really proud that she's feeding the little lamb the bottle; after all, that's what she came for!

After one try, Janne lost all fear and kept asking for more food. She even held a baby goat. All in all, we had a great afternoon, not in the least because there was also a little playground at the goat farm. Janne doing her best to feed the goats and pose for the picture at the same time :-)

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Carnival one more time

The pic below shows the entire carnival brass band in which Pieter plays. The band used to be dressed all in black-and-gold, but more and more bands are copying the look. Now they are rethinking their dressing-strategy, so it'll be a surprise to see what they'll be wearing next year.
The full 'Burgemeester Baron van Waayenberg Ensemble'