![farmette life-9.jpg](https://c4.staticflickr.com/9/8689/28024849643_bd4b1dfa41_c.jpg)
Breakfast. Ed is exhausted. Launching his machining project has been incredibly taxing, but he never complains. In all my years with him, I've never heard him grumble about anything. He just forges on.
![farmette life-6.jpg](https://c3.staticflickr.com/9/8898/28608540266_58758e7357.jpg)
I go over to be with Snowdrop and guess what? She wants to go outside. Right away. Forever and ever.
![farmette life-13.jpg](https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7737/28534392192_8f9c32f151.jpg)
There's an unusual twist to this day, as I have a prearranged meet up with my closest of friends in town. Snowdrop is happy to find in her a kindred soul.
![farmette life-18.jpg](https://c8.staticflickr.com/9/8614/28024855903_95ab66ab33.jpg)
We spend a few good minutes on the playground before a rain sets in.
![farmette life-20.jpg](https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8279/28356585520_ea7caa9449.jpg)
Towards evening, Snowdrop comes to the farmette. The place of yellows and golds, in my eyes.
![farmette life-35.jpg](https://c2.staticflickr.com/9/8581/28641047225_8c46a4e1b5_c.jpg)
The little one is delighted to see Ed as he returns from his weekly engineering meetings. She'll not know that he's had some trying times with his project. He would never impose that on her, on me, on anyone.
![farmette life-44.jpg](https://c2.staticflickr.com/9/8270/28641051665_6968cdef45.jpg)
I make pizza, in part because I know Snowdrop loves both the process and the end result. Here, she's questioning the necessity of baking anything at all. The cheese was good, the marinara sauce? Superb straight out of the jar.
![farmette life-48.jpg](https://c4.staticflickr.com/9/8402/28562365171_b3138090d9.jpg)
As the pizza bakes, I ask Ed why a mechanical toy of Snowdrop's has ceased to work. He fixes it for her and she insists on helping him with this job. Only now do I realize that this girl already has helped me weed her mommy's flower bed, helped me make the pizza, and now is hell bent on helping Ed fix her toy. (Ah-ah, use this screwdriver!)
![farmette life-52.jpg](https://c3.staticflickr.com/9/8126/28023815194_c788608036.jpg)
After dinner, she again wants to be outside. I gently rub some miraculous ointment on her -- miraculous, in that it claims to be wonderfully natural, at the same time that it promises to keep all insects at a mile's radius away from you. Or some such nonsense. Ah well -- we haven't a terrible bug problem at the moment, thank goodness.
I tell her I want to deadhead some spent flowers. You wont be surprised to learn that she wants to help.
And she does help, pulling out stuff that... well, wont be hurt by her enthusiastic gardening tactics.
![farmette life-62.jpg](https://c4.staticflickr.com/9/8437/28641059755_e6769f04b2_z.jpg)
Snowdrop does not shy away from tough jobs.
![farmette life-69.jpg](https://c6.staticflickr.com/9/8706/28562373261_65b777cfa3_z.jpg)
That's the lesson for this day: kids are born with a desire to contribute. To do more than their fair share. To be independent and capable, humorous and kind. Oh, but to keep those impulses alive and going strong in all of them, in all of us!
We can but try.
To put it in teacher-speak... the farmette is full of STEAM, perfect for a growing learning experimenting girl!
ReplyDeleteSteam -- I do really love teacher-speak!
DeleteThis teacher was so glad when A for Arts was added to STEM... so many kids love it all.
DeleteSnowdrop sure does!
Gems amongst gems - S on swing, in discussion with Ed, conducting flowers ...
ReplyDelete