Hanging out with Jami, Jason and Little Chicken

So while we were in America this time we made sure to visit our friends Jami and Jason at their home in Mount Vernon, Ohio, since it had been nearly two years since we had last seen them. A lot can happen in two years. In that time, Jami has changed jobs, I've left my job, myself and Eric have moved country and Jami and Jason have also expanded their family, with their newest member, Jason's niece, Leah, who we were very keen to meet. The picture above is of Leah showing us around their vegetable garden (those are broccoli plants beside her, impressive!).

Jami had already told us a bit about Leah before we arrived. She is 10 years old. Her favourite colour is blue. She likes animals and is curious about more or less everything. She enjoys knitting, is very creative and loves music (more on this topic later). As we are animal-lovers, an avid knitter (that's me when the mood takes me), music-loving creative types that also happen to like the colour blue, we knew we were going to like her. Also, see the picture above? That is a picture by Leah of John McCain and Barack Obama. McCain is green with a funky hair-do because he is an ogre. Obama is on a taller podium with gold stars, because well, he's Obama. Also, for some reason, McCain has a handbag while Obama has a briefcase. How can you not like a kid that came up with this?

As well as catching up, we spent our days with them eating, cooking, and exploring the Mount Vernon-Kenyon area. The weather turned out to be pretty fabulous on our second day there, so Jason brought us up to see his beehives. Jason is seasoned beekeeper, whose bees make excellent honey. We didn't get to see any bees as they were busy keeping warm in their hives.

We also took a walk in a nearby forest where Jason had planted some paw-paw trees. Apparently paw-paws are a fruit native to Ohio that taste like a mango but have the texture of custard. Strange but true.

Later that day Eric and Leah got out their guitars and Eric showed Leah some new chords. She picked it very quickly and since then she's even written some of her own songs. Anyway, they jammed together for a while. One of my favourites was a song that I had made up, which Eric turned into a kind of rootsy children's song called 'Little Chicken'. It doesn't sound much written down but it was very catchy (honest!) and quite hilarious. It ended up being the song for the weekend and since then has become our nickname for our new friend Leah.

Check out next blog on our cheese making adventures in Ohio.