a mother's Sunday

While lingering over a very prolonged and very late breakfast on the porch, Ed says -- this could well be the most beautiful day of the year. The crab apple is at its peak, the lilac is blossoming, the sun is out, the air is pleasantly warm...

So true.

It is, of course Mother's Day and I hope that if you are a mom, you're feeling good about all that you have done in that role, because I'm sure it's a lot. I hope, too, that you have a chance to smile today at the joys that went along with all that hard work. And if you're not a mom, well, you surely had one in your own life in some small or large fashion. You can muse a bit about that connection. I hope, in the end, the day brought you many smiles and pleasant thoughts.



Because of all this good weather, I am, once more, in the yard shortly after 6. I want to finish planting today! I start with the front bed and work my way inward.

After putting in the last plant (for now; flower fields are always a work in progress), I am tempted to take a photo of the entire bed, but the field is too long and it runs parallel to the road and so it doesn't lend itself to a good panorama. So for now, I'll just include a photo of what's blooming there and of course, it's sort of a cheat, because these two (the gaura and the lavender) were planted with buds ready to pop. Still, they are awfully pretty at this early hour of the morning.






I'm not the only one working at this hour. In the fields to our east, the truck farmers are tilling and planting as well...






This is our day! The one where the outside world is so very inviting!

(Perhaps the best perspective right now is one that acknowledges the lilac by the farmhouse. I didn't plant it -- it's old and though I keep trimming it each year, I have to work with what I have there. I have no complaints. It's a great bloomer with a heady perfume and the cheepers love hiding underneath its bushy twigs.)






(That is, when they are not messing with my plants.)






(I mind it less when they go after the little buds in the pots: those always grow back. Here's Butter enjoying a salad of alyssum.)






Our own breakfast is exquisite.






Since it's Mother's Day, I hand the camera over to Ed -- somehow I feel it's right to be part of the breakfast post today.





If there is one flaw to this beautiful set of minutes, it's that the gang of five chooses this time to come look for grub. Hawks. Typically, I do not worry once the trees have dense foliage. The girls know to hide. But this group is particularly aggressive. A few of them settle on the silo and I hear a racket there. Do they go after the pair of doves that live inside? I hear a cooing sound for the rest of the afternoon. Is it a sad mother who has lost her chicks? Or is it a content mother, glad that everyone is safe?

Too, Henny has just finished laying and there is a skittish innocence about that girl! The hawks are in the yard and two land on the barn right when she leaves the coop. I'm out shouting and waving my arms and the big birds eventually leave. Our girls are safe.

The day picks up its gentle rhythm again.






In the evening, the young family and my daughter's visiting friend are here for dinner. It's time to use farmette bounty: eggs for baking, rhubarb that is exploding right now.






Everything's ready just as our guests arrive...






We take the meal outside to the porch.






And it's glorious -- it really is (though I do miss my younger daughter -- but hey, I'll be seeing her and her husband soon!).  Snowdrop loves shrimp and they are part of dinner. But honestly, since she arrived, she has wanted so very badly to walk the land. She reminds us, plaintively, passionately.

Finally, she walks. First with her mom and friend...





Later, with her dad too. How she adores that stroll through the flower fields, under the willow, around the barn and up by the raspberries! Perhaps almost as much as I do.

She is at first reluctant to get back in her high chair, but when rhubarb and strawberry "pudding cake" with whipped cream are put before her, Snowdrop digs in with joyful enthusiasm.





I'll end with that  phrase -- joyful enthusiasm. Those are good words that quite accurately describe my own mothering adventures. Grandmothering as well!