Sunday, May 04, 2014

highlights

There are the obvious ones:

My daughter and her husband came over for dinner.

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I served quinoa salad and shrimp. Ed left a handful of quinoa on his plate. Shocking. Ed never leaves food on a plate. I tell him -- you eat such garbage (dont ask me to elaborate) and you cant finish quinoa?
I ate some...
You cant be a vegetarian and not like quinoa. Or eggplant. Or zucchini. Or beets...
I like beets!
There's leftover beet soup in the fridge and it's getting mighty old.

I'll eat it tomorrow!
And the quinoa?

That too! Tomorrow I'm going to die of healthiness!

Anyway, the dinner with daughter and her husband was delightful. And good and healthy, darn it!


Other highlights:

The chickens woke to a new world, a puzzling world, but not an awful world. And for me, the sunrise was at a different slant.


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And everything looked just a little special. Lovely, there by the barn.


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Other highlights:

Breakfast was in the sun room and it was... sunny!


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More:

The daffodils dazzled!


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And, friends came over to meet our chickens and so we were motivated to put a little oomph into Sunday morning farmhouse cleaning.

These same friends are planning a trip to France and after their visit, I remarked to Ed how wonderful it is to hear their pleasurable anticipation. Of how romantic it must be to go at it together. Ed listened, considered it and answered -- we do romantic things!
You're thinking of what now?
I invited you to go with me to Farm & Fleet this afternoon! (He needed to return some V-belts for the Zero-turn.)



Let me add a few more tidbits here to the highlight jigsaw:

For example, there's the fact that I did not use that Zero-turn to mow the prairie grasses back of the farmette. I used the ancient, absolutely ancient John Deere instead.


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It felt solid. I broke nothing. I got the job done. Ed watched from the rooftop where he was making some trivial adjustments to our porch glass roof.



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And on our trip to Farm & Fleet, we stopped at Felly's Gardening Center. Just to see. I was tremendously impressed with how this store has evolved over the years: from a ho hum flower shop in the city, to a place of robust annuals and perennials for the serious gardener. Since Ed decided to take a nap in the car, I used the opportunity to stuff the car trunk with a number of lovely farmette flowering enhancements. When he woke up, he didn't even protest. Much.

At Farm & Fleet, too, we had some stellar moments.

Buying corn for the chickens.
Not that one! That's sold by the ton!
No it's not!
Yes it is!

Look here: fancy small bags. $6. Not by the ton.
Look there: big sacks. Priced by the ton.
(It's nice when we both can be right.)

And finding unusual veggies to plant in the garden. Horseradish, for example. (Is that a veggie?)


In the evening, after my daughter and husband had left, We look out and see Whitney, the white chick, wandering around the space of the old pen. She clearly has lost her sense of place. Ed goes out and she flies to him with glee. You could say it was in anticipation of a potential treat. Or you could say it was for a chicken's love of the familiar.  The person who helps fill her dream world of nibbles and water and a good soft place to rest her head.

And speaking of a good place to rest the chicken head, I did today place a few springs of lavender on the chips where the hens lay their eggs. Sort of like a thank you card. Maybe they wont be lulled into a sweet moment of comfort and security. But maybe they will. I hope they will.


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