Wednesday in photos

It rained during the night. Pounding rain -- the kind the fells your flowers. Still, I'm glad. In the long run, the flower fields were made better for it.

In the morning, the clouds lingered. I surveyed the beds -- not too bad. Here's a purple on purple photo. If you garden, you'll recognize the phlox and the spiderwort (what a name!).






And here's a different spiderwort -- a more contained one that looks regal and lovely, especially with bits of rain still clinging to its graceful leaves.






The rabbit reminded me that, in addition to the trampling chickens, the groundhogs, the deer, the chipmunks, we have another powerful set of teeth at work in my flower beds. We're surrounded by fields of vegetables, market flowers, fruits -- why are you here, instead of elsewhere?






Here's a very drenched lupine and four hens going through their morning beautification rituals.






Breakfast. At first, just with these two, eventually to be joined by my friend's husband.






And then I leave them all and take the old rose-ah-roo to Snowdrop's home.

And here's a surprise! Let this be the day that I first see her displaying a strong interest in a doll. It was a first birthday gift and she has ignored it completely from the moment she laid eyes on it (well, except that she really enjoyed taking the baby's fake bottle and chewing on it). No one cared. The doll got pushed aside. Snowdrop focused on outer space. She really loves things having to do with rockets and astronauts.

But today, the little astronaut (see p.j.'s) decided to display ferocious nurturing instincts. No one could quite understand the wheres and whys of it, but suddenly, Snowdrop is into this piece of plastic that she affectionately calls "baby."






After her bath, she and I walk over to the distant coffee shop. It's beastly hot, but she doesn't mind. We are, after all, going out!

I tell her we will see my friend there (Diane has work to do and she is doing a bit of it at this same coffee shop). Snowdrop has never met her and she is a bit surprised in a pleasant sort of way by the unexpected encounter. She does her most genial hand wave and high five.






That's it for cookie crumbs, grandma?
Yep.






We leave my friend to her stuff and now, perhaps fortified by the raisins from the cookie, Snowdrop wants to do her most favorite bit: push that darn stroller. In the heat. (I'd forgotten her sunhat. She has now turned into a summer blond.)






At home, it's a sweet, sweet combination of rockets and baby doll.






And then it's time for me to scoot home. This is the best kind of day for a moped ride. The air is warm and the breeze of zipping fast creates a tunnel of coolness for you. I take the longer route, coming in on the back of the farmers' fields. Are these the same strips of land that just two months ago lay bare and lifeless? It's so lovely here now!






In the evening, Ed goes off for his weekly bike ride. I pan fry Wisconsin trout and steam Michigan asparagus. I bring out the farmette rhubarb cake, and serve a prize winning Wisconsin cheese with it all. Remember your Midwestern roots, my friends!






As the light fades, the bats and fireflies come out to give us their version of a spring dance. Remember this season, they seem to say. Remember all that it gives us each year.