Tuesday

I am up very early today. I want to go back to writing, beyond what I do here, on Ocean and the early morning offers up the best hours. The evening fog has lifted from the brain, the phone is quiet, I've read the headlines, nothing beckons.

I sit at my computer at the kitchen table and watch the steady rain outside. I see Isie boy coming up the path despite the wetness. He is still banished from the farmhouse, but he retains a great desire to consider and reject food about ten times a day and so if Ed is not in the sheep shed with him, he comes calling. I hide under the kitchen table so that he can't see me and continue to type.

Since it's Tuesday, Snowdrop will be coming to the farmhouse just around noon and so any farmette work must be done before that. Outdoor jobs are out of the question, but we do want to go to a lumber company to consider yet another door for the porch, this one possibly installed by someone other than us. Ed, having figured out how to do this job, having taken apart the window that's to be replaced, is willing to hand over the work to someone else. Maybe.

And so immediately after breakfast (which is rushed and therefore inside the farmhouse)...






And right after I take my flower photos of the day (an unusually peachy tinted penstemon, and a flowering shrub --  the weigela florida wine)...











...after those morning essentials, we take off in Lily (my gray mazda) to look again at patio doors. You'd think there was great variation there, but in our price range (the bottom), there really isn't. Still,  we must go back and make a final decision.

Unfortunately, the "specialists" at the lumber company that features these doors give Ed a lot of incorrect information about them  (an ever doubting Ed calls the manufacturer to confirm his own reading of the specs) and now he is back to thinking that the job wont be done right unless he does it himself.

Doesn't it seem like we're going around in circles with this? I'm used to it. Ed is a careful type in both construction and design and he has the patience of an alligator, waiting until everything is just so before opening those jaws for the final move.
 

Right when we return, Snowdrop comes over and now the afternoon turns from drippy wet and discouragingly inconclusive to cheerful and golden.



(by Ed)





(by Ed)



As always, a very active set of hours will lead to tiredness. The best remedy for this is a sweet short nap...






And after, wake up time!






And of course,  mealtime!






 Her energies restored, Snowdrop bounces around from sitting to standing to swaying to rocking. I'm thinking -- perhaps we could channel all that energy to the outdoor world. The skies have (provisionally and not too certainly) cleared and the air is gusty warm.

We feed the chickens bread and as always, she stares at the brood with utter disbelief: how is it that they don't look like you and me, she seems to be thinking...

I'm guessing that the weather is stable enough for us to go out for a rural walk. I place her into the stroller and as I get ready to set out, Ed brings Oreo for a closer inspection.






Snowdrop still has this air of disbelief about her.  Oreo, of course, when cradled in Ed's big hands, is as docile as the morning dove that has taken to resting on our porch glass roof. I whisper to Snowdrop -- there's more to this bird than meets the eye and I push the stroller forward to take advantage of the window of good weather.





Toward evening, back at the farmhouse, Snowdrop and I play ball, and stand up-sit down, and bite the giraffe. Something about that last game causes her great anguish (teething is the usual suspect). As she sobs her heart out to let me know the full extent of her tribulations, I note that quite suddenly, a heavy shower is starting to pound the farmhouse windows. I had left the stroller on the path outside and I tell Snowdrop that we must go out and rescue it.

We come out to a very wet landscape and the minute the first drops of rain hit her sweet fluffy head, she grows quiet, curious and indeed, blissfully content again.

Her parents come to pick her up and I tell them that they have a child who loves rain. Who knew?!