Rose Etta wants YOU to want a cow.

It’s a big word for a couple of little girls, but it’s one we should know. It might just sum up our days at the farm with Nanny Jane and her cows.

As an adjective, it’s used for or related to the keeping or grazing of sheep or cattle.

Little Beaumont was curious about the wheat grass we brought. The sound of a bucket brings the cows. They always come running when a bucket clangs.

Miss Daisy was happy to stop and graze in one place while we gave her some love. But we think the noun definition of pastoral describes our days at the farm even more perfectly. Pastoral is a work of literature portraying an idealized version of country life.

Miss Daisy, who gave birth to her first calf, Beaumont, almost three weeks ago, stayed with us for almost an hour while we brushed and petted her. Her eye lids closed and her head got lower and lower like she was sleeping standing up. Eventually she started swaying back and forth as we brushed and loved her with our little hands. She loves to be loved! Ideal country life, yes.

Let’s escape to one of England’s Wendy Houses.

What’s a Wendy House, right?

According to Wikipedia, “A Wendy house or playhouse is a small house for children, large enough for one or more children to enter. Size and solidity can vary from a plastic kit to something resembling a real house in a child’s size. Usually there is one room, a doorway with a window on either side, and little or no furniture other than that which the children improvise.”

Something, oh, like this little dandy on the grounds of Mona Vale, a historic homestead in Christchurch, New Zealand:

Photo by Ann (Helen) Devereux via Wikimedia Commons

Such a playhouse would suit any young Wendy … or Jane, as the case may be.

The original “Wendy House” was, as you might have guessed, built for Wendy Darling in J. M. Barrie’s 1904 play, Peter Pan. When Wendy was shot by one of the Lost Boys, Peter and the boys built a small house around her body, attempting to construct the cottage that their beloved Wendy had once wished for:

“I wish I had a darling house
The littlest ever seen,
With funny little red walls
And roof of mossy green.”

Illustration of Wendy’s house by Alice B. Woodward via Wikipedia

But, just as Peter Pan refused to grow up, even “big girls” hold fast to dreams of dwelling in a cottage like Wendy’s. How can we resist? The temptation is particularly irresistible in the face of houses such as these …

Photo by Len Williams via Geograph.org.uk

That’s beguiling brick Marycot at Chartwell, constructed for Winston Churchill’s youngest daughter, Mary. Below is a whimsical Wendy House on the grounds of Eaton Hall in Cheshire, England.

I think my favorite may be the marvelous Mawley Hall Wendy House in Shropshire, a wooden model of the estate’s summer house, built in the 1970s. It stands about 6 feet tall and contains scaled-down furnishings for little lords and ladies.

Photo by Alan Terrill via Geograph.org.uk

Last on our tour through Neverland is “Y Bwthyn Bach” (The Little Cottage) at the Royal Lodge in Windsor, given to the queen on her sixth birthday in 1932 “on behalf of the people of Wales” and renovated within the past few years by Princess Beatrice.

Photo courtesy of ApartmentTherapy.com

Lucky for us, the video below gives a precious peek inside (!) the queen’s cottage:

Now, if we could just find some of that “Drink Me” potion that shrunk Alice to miniature size …

But (sigh) they probably only have that in Wonderland.

I’m often curious what my girls think of each season. Even more so, I’ve wondered how many details they observe and notice. So, I decided to turn it into a craft project for their entire class. Buttons are always a good starting place. Stella’s kindergarten class was sure that the trees this time of year are all very pink, purple, white, and green, it being spring and all.

First, I traced their arms and hands. The students agreed the outlines make perfect tree trunks with branches for spring blossoms.

All 16 of them took a wee bit of time to cut out.

Each child’s interpretation of spring blossoms on a tree was unique. And obviously they’d noticed that some of the blossoms are set free by the wind.