It's noisy out here in the country!

We have lived out in the country for a little over a month... and it's pretty noisy out here.

At night, we hear the owls, sometimes the "spring peepers" (frogs), the mice scurrying above us and the bats flying into and out of the attic.  And our new favorite noise (sarcasm noted), the loud muscle cars that squeal their tires and rev their engines most weekend nights-- we live in a hilly area that is pretty fun to drive!  J and I might have to hid in our bushes and try and get down some license plate numbers.

During the day we hear lots of bird calls, chicken peeps, the lawnmower (as J has to pretty much mow every dry day to keep up with the lawn), and many loud, little children noises.  Over the weekend, we have also heard lots of thunder as many thunderstorms have come through the area.

We are also trying to decide if we are more in favor of bird watching or having mice on the farm.  We have been thinking about getting a "barn cat" (as our oldest is way too allergic to have a cat in the house) to decrease our mice population; however, the presence of a barn cat would definitely decrease our beautiful, colorful birds that frequent our bird feeders all day long.  So far, we are trying mouse traps.  We just set them today.  I'll let you know how that goes...

This weekend has been pretty quiet but we had numerous visitors this week.  J's parents and some of their lovely friends came to visit on Thursday.  The rain stopped long enough for a nature walk, checking out the chickens and the coop, some mushroom hunting and sitting out on the front porch shooting the breeze (I need to find some more rocking chairs).  A lifelong dream came true that day: sitting on my front porch drinking sweet tea.  Of course, the serenity of my daydream was not quite realized as I had numerous children trying to steal my tea and then the mosquitoes arrived.   But there are many more opportunities for quite times on our porch... especially as that is the best location for using our mobile phones.