It's a cool start to the day -- of course it is! The night before nearly wrecked our tomatoes. (Yes, "nearly." We were lucky -- at its coldest, the fields registered 36F degrees. Never have four degrees felt so toasty good!)
Cheepers first. They are so insistent in the morning: bread, do you have our daily bread?
Our breakfast then. In the sun room.
And the remaining hours of the morning? I throw kisses at the flower fields. Because this is what it is now -- what's left is the small touch: a few flowers to move, a couple of branches to clip, a handful of weeds to pull out. They're little pecks, tweaks, caresses. Against a brilliant sky. I offer you a bird's eye view from the glass roof, where I'm doing a spring sweep of the spring debris that collects there.
Too dizzy? Okay, here I am, surveying things from the ground again.
Yep, looking up into the eyes of a... a man and his rooster.
I've promised you a show of perennials from now until the end of September. Here's today's combination: two perennials, two annuals, all in full bloom. Such a grand partnership!
Then comes the afternoon with Snowdrop. Oh, happy child, you could lift the spirits of the most stubborn grump!
Today she shows off her love of the upright.
There is energy in that girl! (And in that girl's hair!)
And because it is such a beautiful day and we have time for this -- my daughter and I decide to take Snowdrop to the zoo. It's a 40 minute walk each way and Snowdrop is thrilled to have a chance to sit back and exhale in the stroller.
You are lucky: I am going to post five and only five photos from the zoo trip. If you think about it, a first zoo visit is a game changer, no? You show the baby book after book with pictures of animals. You give her stuffies that are called lion, or tiger, or bear. What does it all mean?? Ah, there are animals out there! Here, want to see? Enter -- the zoo trip.
giraffe!
tiger!
an animal whose name wasn't in my vocabulary when I was a kid and still isn't today!
flamingo!
and finally -- goats!
Snowdrop is surprised, puzzled, dare I say it -- amazed.
On the way home, she naps. Maybe when she wakes up, she'll think it was all a strange dream. All the more reason to go back soon, to reinforce that reality: we are but one part of that wonderful kingdom -- of giraffes, of monkeys and goats, and of flowers too!