Shaking It Up!
April 29, 2022
Spring sproinged at last this month, but wait! Every other day or so it seemed to desproing with more cold temps and tiny bits of swirling snow or icy rain. And then nice warm temps would turn to hotness and thunderstorms, then back to frigidity! I think I take back my comment in last month’s Doodle about March being the cruelest month. T.S. Eliot was correct after all. April is the cruelest month, but Spring as a whole is the cruelest season. After a cold snowy Winter (which I do enjoy during that season), Spring needs to just get with it and warm up already!
One extremely wondrous thing about Spring, though, is all the birthing of baby animals, and lovely greening and flowering that goes on! Bret and I met up with two daughters at Shaker Village in Pleasant Hill, Kentucky last weekend. Thankfully, the sproinged spring was in full glory that day. We wandered around enjoying all the countryside and old buildings, but our favorite part was the farmyard. We wandered around petting baby goats, baby lambs (both wooly and hairy), one baby cow with his big brown eyes, and one colorful turkey in the chicken pen. We learned all kinds of farmish stuff, such as oxen are not a separate species. They are simply huge bulls that are allowed to grow more that other ones, because of some icky procedure that isn’t done to them, or is done to them. It’s a farming mystery to this city girl that I don’t want to contemplate.
We also learned all about the Shakers and their worship traditions inside their church, where we were serenaded with Shaker songs and dances by a nice young lady. And we tasted some fresh black walnut syrup, which was quite tasty. As we wandered around, we found some big horses to pet and more goats cavorting in a field, as well as the big oxen. We finished our visit with a hike to a waterfall where there were all kinds of wildflowers in full bloom. And of course, we had to buy some souvenirs from the gift shop. It was a fun day! If you have never visited Shaker Village, it is worth the trip, especially in the Spring when the baby animals burst forth!
