The Nana Ritual

Our little family was in Colorado for a couple days visiting both sides of the family.  Both sets of parents are only an hour apart so Charissa and Brandt received tons of grandparent and aunt/uncle loving. 

When visiting my family, Charissa loves helping Nana with barn chores.  My parents supply all of their own milk & eggs along with a good deal of meat from their own critters and a lot of tender loving care.  Some of the critters might also-maybe-perhaps be half-spoiled pets, too. 

Charissa will ask, "can I have some cocoa, Nana?"  And making cocoa, of course, begins in the barn!  So she dons a barn coat and heads down the hill with Nana and my sister, Laurel - she's 7 months Charissa's senior. 

Come with us!

The grain for those in the "billy pen".  They need grain and hay.

The males are kept separate from the females so there is no hanky-panky and also to keep the milk tasting sweet.  If you've ever smelled a billy goat, you know you don't want to drink...that smell.

 Charissa has no fear of these marauding grain munchers.

"Hi, goatie!"

Aunt Laurel loves the goats.  

Don't you love the sweet hat my sister Katherine crocheted for her?

During our visit Charissa would come to me occasionally and say, "Dats War-oh (Laurel).  She's my aunt."  Then she'd go about whatever she was doing.  I think she just wanted to solidify it in her mind.  

And remind me how bizarre my life is.  

Not many people go through pregnancy simultaneously with their mother.

I love having a bizarre life.

Charissa milks the goat!  She has to earn her keep somehow.

 This is Tilly-blue.  Isn't she pretty?

 This is Oliver, our geriatric "barn cat" who eats a whole lot more food than mice.  

He's sweet and one of the first kittens born on our wee farm.

 The barn crew all finished with chores!

Time to head back to the house.

 Nana pours the milk through a strainer to catch all the bits of hay and such that land in the milk.

 Charissa is a rapt audience.

"Where did all the milk go?"

 Now begins the Nana ritual...

 Pouring the nice, warm milk into a sippy cup...

 Adding "Bunny Sugar"...

 Mixing it up...

 And drinking it!

 "Thanks, Nana!"  Yummy, naturally warmed cocoa :-)

So much fun!!!