A humid day -- first cool and drizzly then hazy and warm.
We aren't deterred. The bindweed has to be forked out of the ground, the tomatoes have to go in. The young orchard (apples, pears, cherries), surviving (for the first time!) a winter and spring of deer (Ed built sturdy cages), needs to be mulched, the melon, pea and bean seeds must be planted.
And so again we work in the rain.
We pause for breakfast...
... and then we return to it. (The cheepers are munching on their breakfast treat of a stale doughnut.)
I have to stop to meet my baby sitting commitments and this is a good thing, because it gives me a chance to take a few deep breaths and refocus. Yard-work can propel you from one task to the next and before you know it, you are dead to the world. Snowdrop requires a different set of skills, most of them Sherlock Holmesian: let me try to deduce what the baby wants now!
Snowdrop runs through her "exercises." She sits. (Yep, she's blowing a bubble!)
She tries to crawl.
And when she has had enough of it all, I bounce her around and show her the thrill of being agile and strong. (A series of selfies follows.)
And she is that.
With occasional breaks of a restorative kind.
Because Snowdrop and her parents have an appointment this afternoon and because the three of them are heading out together tomorrow for a day away from home and work, I say goodbye to the little girl earlier than usual and for a longer period than usual (I'll see her again Friday).
But the fact is, my pause in Snowdrop care comes at an okay time. I have my yard work list to guide me through an intense period of farmette chores. I'm psyched for it.
Today, I weed, I mow, I transplant. There is that heady scent of lilac in the air. The crab apple is in its most glorious point right now. It's an intensely beautiful moment here!
(one more view of the daffodils)
By evening I am ready to sit down. Ed is out biking tonight. I reheat chili and take out my laptop to write.
We aren't deterred. The bindweed has to be forked out of the ground, the tomatoes have to go in. The young orchard (apples, pears, cherries), surviving (for the first time!) a winter and spring of deer (Ed built sturdy cages), needs to be mulched, the melon, pea and bean seeds must be planted.
And so again we work in the rain.
We pause for breakfast...
... and then we return to it. (The cheepers are munching on their breakfast treat of a stale doughnut.)
I have to stop to meet my baby sitting commitments and this is a good thing, because it gives me a chance to take a few deep breaths and refocus. Yard-work can propel you from one task to the next and before you know it, you are dead to the world. Snowdrop requires a different set of skills, most of them Sherlock Holmesian: let me try to deduce what the baby wants now!
Snowdrop runs through her "exercises." She sits. (Yep, she's blowing a bubble!)
She tries to crawl.
And when she has had enough of it all, I bounce her around and show her the thrill of being agile and strong. (A series of selfies follows.)
And she is that.
With occasional breaks of a restorative kind.
Because Snowdrop and her parents have an appointment this afternoon and because the three of them are heading out together tomorrow for a day away from home and work, I say goodbye to the little girl earlier than usual and for a longer period than usual (I'll see her again Friday).
But the fact is, my pause in Snowdrop care comes at an okay time. I have my yard work list to guide me through an intense period of farmette chores. I'm psyched for it.
Today, I weed, I mow, I transplant. There is that heady scent of lilac in the air. The crab apple is in its most glorious point right now. It's an intensely beautiful moment here!
(one more view of the daffodils)
By evening I am ready to sit down. Ed is out biking tonight. I reheat chili and take out my laptop to write.
