Lamb cake

We're back from a fun 4 days in Louisiana (and about that many driving to and fro). We've got a bunch of fun photos to share here when I have a bit more time, but in the meantime, I thought I'd show off our lamb cake from Easter this year. Its collar is a bit crooked and its eyes look slightly, um, strange somehow, but I still think it's pretty cute. We weren't going to be getting back into town until late the night before Easter and I had already told the kids we probably wouldn't be having a lamb cake this year, much to their disappointment, especially Ellie.

However, thanks in no small part to our new friend, the portable DVD player, we made record time driving Saturday and I was able to bake it that night. We spent much of Easter morning decorating while hanging out with Uncle Dave (in town for a couple of days) before heading to Tommy & Deb's for a great Easter dinner. Still no Ukrainian Easter eggs this year (not even dyed eggs, though we're going to do that just for fun this weekend), but it was nice to still have our lamb cake tradition.

Notice the peep in the foreground next to the "baby lamb" -- a little chocolate lamb covered with buttercream frosting. There's another peep in the back to for a full 360-degree lamb cake diorama. Oh, and not to brag, but this cake was delicious! (And in case you're worried, no actual lambs were hurt in the making of this lamb cake!)

Aerial view of our place

Hey, check it out! We just got this cool photo of the homestead-lite. A fellow who pilots a small plane out of Lake Elmo Airport and does aerial photography came by with this picture he took last month. We've wanted to get one of these but the prices were always sky-high, so to speak, but not so with this guy. So now we finally have one to hang side-by-side with the aerial photo Ted and Michele had done in 1986. We'll have to figure out a way to get that one scanned into digital format as well, but in it, you can really see the huge differences in 22 years, especially in how grown the trees have become. The row of elms on the left-hand side of the new pic (between our place and Bud & Cora's) has really grown from practically nothing to the big windbreak you see here.

In the new photo, you can make out the paths we've made in the back 40, the prairie up front, and just the tippy top of Ted's chicken coop, poking up from behind the big barn. (You have to know what you're looking at to figure that one out.) Ellie and I thought that maybe we could make out Moose in the barnyard, but it may just be the slide from the goats' little playset. I think it's pretty cool that you can make out lots of deer tracks, especially in the front.

Below is the full picture the pilot took. (Click on either photo and you can see things much better.) You can see Bud & Cora's next door, Moon & Shifter (their horses) eating at their big hay bale, and a lot of the horses and cows from our neighbors on 22nd Street. You can also see part of our field to the north of the house, as well. When I zoom in, I can even see what I think is our little cat friend (a barn cat who's hung around almost every day for the last two years whom we now call Checkers) slinking across the Wamstads' field in back of ours. Too cool! We're hoping to have the pilot take another picture in the full of summer this year to compare.


What's next, satellite imagery?