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It was finally a quiet year at the Marsh household in 2019. Or, at least I thought it was until I started writing up this year-in-summary!
While we didn’t have any major international trips this year or anything, the boys definitely got some miles in with trips to San Antonio (where Winchester got to mutton-bust at a local rodeo!), New Hampshire to visit Dianna’s childhood cottage retreat, Thanksgiving with family in West Virginia, Ithaca/Taughannock Falls to visit Fake Aunt Missa, Boston to visit family and a wedding, Pennsylvania for 4th of July, and even a trip to Disney with the Parisi side of the family. Even locally, there were plenty of trips to Flint and Lansing to museums, zoos, parades, parks, playgrounds, and exploring the area via canoe and kayak (including in our own flooded front yard!).
The same flooding was the impetus that finally convinced me to add some variety to the flock this year. We only ever had chickens, but if it was going to flood this much, we might as well add some ducks so that *someone* could enjoy it. And enjoy it they did! So much fun to open the coop in the morning and see 30+ birds rush out and the ducks go zooming over to the water and splash around. We also added 5 turkeys to the flock this year, which was a blast. They are dumb as bricks, but very sweet and curious with a ton of personality. All of the above are also super tasty. We got to have our very own homegrown free-range turkey for Thanksgiving this year and it was *marvelous*.
The year also saw the loss of two of our pets, unfortunately. Opie the rabbit/fuzzball was 9 years old and passed soon after we lost our previous rabbit last year. Mina, the first ever Marsh cat who was added last year became very ill and had to be put down at only a few years old. It was heartbreaking after how long we had searched for her and how short we had her, but she will always have the legacy of being the cat ambassador that sold us on how great felines could be. It was because of how much we loved Mina that convinced us to take in Jodie Whitticat (hopefully some of our Whovian friends will appreciate the name), a stray that had been hanging around one of Dianna’s camps all winter. She is an even snugglier and more child-tolerant addition to the shop than before. And an excellent mouser to boot!
Dianna, in particular, had an eventful year! Not only was she selected to be Section Director for the Program Director program at National Camp School. Not only was she selected to be a panel moderator for an invitation-only Outdoor Program conference at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. Dianna was also promoted to Assistant Director of Outdoor Adventures of the Michigan Crossroads Council! She now oversees all of Michigan scouting’s outdoor programming including Cub Scouts, Scouts BSA (formerly the Boy Scouts), Venture Scouts, the Explorer’s program. All that added responsibility means many more hours in the car, so we have added yet another vehicle to the garage. After a *lot* of research and debating, Dianna purchased a 2018 Acura TLX AWD A-Spec in Still Night Blue Pearl with a red leather interior! “Superman Spec”, as our brother who works at Acura has informed us the engineers call it. A quiet, comfortable, powerful AWD vehicle is just the ticket to enjoy the many hours touring the various camps throughout the state.
Geoff had a quiet but productive year on various projects. He added a 12’x20’ extension to the chicken coop, locked down to a ¼” to keep the birds safe and free even when we are away. The conversion of the old chicken coop into a versatile and functional workshop continued and has been instrumental in a number of other projects including getting the Honda CB350Four motorcycle back on the road and hot-rodding a Baja Viper minibike with a 212cc engine swap. It was great to finally have a space to maintain all the firewood tools (including a new-to-us Stihl chainsaw and YardMax 28 ton log splitter! Wohoo!) There were a number of sewing projects but the big items were the boys’ halloween costumes of Batman and Shazam, which came out fabulous, and even a Scarlet Spider costume for Geoff for Winchester’s first Comicon!
In addition to first-ever comic convention (he went as The Flash to the Motor City Comicon), Winchseter had quite a few other firsts. He completed his first-ever Triathlon this year with Geoff, he joined the Cub Scouts as a Lion, and he started Kindergarten! He is loving school. He has a fabulous teacher and his reading and math skills have exploded.
Rutherford is now officially in the ‘big kids’ room at daycare and has been having a great time and meeting lots of friends. He is getting taller at a rate we are not ready for and is getting to be such a sincere and happy kiddo, but we’re pretty grateful that he has retained much of the snuggliness of the “little ball of Rutherford” that we adore.
So even when we plan for a quieter year, the universe fills it up with all manner of items from the exciting to the mundane to the inevitable march of time. We had a fabulous 2019 and we are excited to see what 2020 holds for us!