Sunday

Well, I overslept. Just a little. If on other days I let the chickens out by 6, today it would be a half hour later.

So I'm in a bit of a rush. Isis wants breakfast. Can you wait? No? Okay, but listen! I can hear the chickens squawking! I have to hurry!

I step outside. A beautiful day again! Maybe I should take a photo now... what's this?? The cheepers are running down the path toward me with an exuberant greeting, except wait: running down the path?? Who let them out?!

The better question is -- who forgot to lock them in last night?!

It's easy to forget. They retire to the coop, all is quiet, you think you've done it (actually Ed has been doing it most nights) because frankly, the routine doesn't vary and so there is an image imprinted somewhere in your brain that you did lock them up.

Thank you, racoons, possums, coyotes and whatever else could have made a meal of them overnight for staying away.

So, a pretty morning with four live chickens:











Lovely breakfast:






Boring beginning to the day: we wash the farmhouse upstairs windows. There are only seven, but it takes time, especially since I go out on the roof to do the outside panes (the windows swing in, but it's easier just to climb out). Ah, but it's pretty from up here!





And then it's the usual: planting, digging up raspberries for a Craigslist buyers (driving in all the way from Iowa! And again there were three children along for the ride and I was about to put Oreo away, but he seemed nearly asleep under the crab apple and so I let it go), finishing up mowing (it's a tedious multi stage process: today Ed did the front on the big mower and I tidied up around the trees and beds with the little mower), more planting, more watering.

And if this sounds terribly repetitive, remember please that just a month ago, toward the end of April, we were only beginning to notice the first buds on trees.

What a difference a month makes!
















And June will be different too. This year, because of my little one's wedding, I wont be leaving the country until the end of the month. But even as outdoor work will continue, it'll be of a different caliber. Finessing rather than overhauling. Tending rather than redesigning.


Evening. My older girl and her husband are here...







...and it's the first time that we decide to take our dinner foods outside.







The lilac continues to fill the porch with a spicy perfume. The birds provide all the music anyone could need. A gorgeous end of day. And yes, we remembered to close the coop for the night.