farmette

It was the finest of fine days! (Even as at the end of it, I can hardly move: too much digging.) Warm, sunny, insistent: come out, come out!

Okay okay okay... But first, there's breakfast.






A rushed meal. Ed has a meeting and I fuss to trim his hair so it looks as if the man has some modicum of style.






I have work to do, but I can hardly concentrate.






The day bees hover over my newly planted alyssum is the day that I must finally stop thinking that this spring is just a passing event.






In between school tasks I put in solid time outside sawing off broken branches, digging up soil, making sense out of the chaos that rules at the farmette right now. I can never quite restore order to the place, but every small job brings me closer. That's all that we ever aim for really -- closer.






Ed comes back in the early afternoon and we work together for a while. We do this so well, he and I. We fumble, we heave, we make wild guesses as to what should be where and in which order and inevitably things go a bit awry and I laugh so hard and he grins slightly and we try something else and eventually we pull out some semblance of a farmette cohesion -- or at least in some small corner of it and we did that today: we moved the pea and bean trellis to the far sunny spot .





And now we have the whole planting season before us and much of it will be a failed effort, but so much more will be a wild success. Especially if you count the hours of hard work and the boisterous laughter. Do not forget to count the laughter.


In the evening I make chicken brats with local sauerkraut. And salad. It's the type of meal we'd have in the thick of summer. On the porch maybe. Not tonight. Not quite warm enough yet. But soon.