April Armchair Traveling

Yesterday I spent some time looking at pictures from April 2015 for an Instagram account I started a few years ago.  We've been able to visit so many beautiful places in the past 5 1/2 years, and I liked the idea of having a place to catalog some of those lovely landscapes and details.  Early on I fell into the habit of only posting pictures from the same month of previous years.  I love following the movement of the seasons in pictures.

The first April day I re-visited was a Friday when I think we had a church meeting wrapping up our Easter Holiday Bible Club in North Yorkshire.  K.J. drove with the kids while I took my camera and walked on a public footpath behind the kids' school because I'd caught a glimpse of lambs earlier in the day.  This was our first spring in North Yorkshire, and I was terrified I'd somehow miss lambing season.  The thing about seasons is that they come once a year, and then they're gone.  You have to pay attention in the moment.  I'm happy to report I didn't miss out on frolicking lambs in 2015.

In addition to photographing lambs, I grew slightly obsessed with bees going about their business (beez-iness, bizzzz-iness?) in the spring and summer.  England's moderate climate, and the English genius about gardening means flowers that don't prematurely wither away.  They last so much longer than in Alabama.  I spent a lot of time that first summer watching the bees in the lavender outside my kitchen window while I washed dishes.  

I got this lucky shot experimenting with the macro function on one of my lenses at Newby Hall.  It still brings me a lot of joy.  I also got a lot of joy watching these lambs play follow the leader that day.

Ella took ballet lessons in a small village nearby, and while I usually went back home while she had her lesson, one April day I took a walk instead, exploring a public footpath.  I was captivated to live in a place that had ridings.

But of course the most magical April night of all was when our entire family got to be present for the birth of twin lambs at a local farm. I was over the moon that night.

That seems like a good stopping place for now.  Thanks for coming armchair traveling with me.  It's fun to re-live past Aprils and to look forward to the day we can leave our houses and do some exploring once more.

Les Obiones: Staying at a Lamb Farm

For the past couple of years when we travel K.J. has used Airbnb to find us a place to stay.  It's been a great way to stay somewhere reasonably priced, be able to cook our own meals, and most importantly--have a separate bedroom from the kids. 😊  It's also just fun to stay somewhere charming, old, different, or some combination of the three.  

When K.J. was researching our two-night stay in Brittany he discovered a sheep farm that was opening part of the old stone farmhouse as an Airbnb.  I loved photographing the lambs in North Yorkshire , so I was really hopeful our trip would coincide with lambing time in Bretagne.

Our hosts at Les Obiones were a young couple who left their former jobs and spent a year learning from the previous owner how to run the farm before taking over for themselves in October.  Felix invited us to come to the barn at feeding time.  The barn is a very loud place at feeding time; a chorus of maaa-maaaas greeted us.

A few lambs whose mothers weren't able to feed them were kept in a special pen.  They ran to greet us when we walked up and made a huge racket.  I think they knew what time it was.

Felix filled the tubs with milk and gave us the opportunity to bottle-feed the two who needed special attention. 

All was quiet for a few minutes.  The lambs were eager and contented eaters.

What a floppy-eared darling.