Tuesday

We have  a large number of humming birds passing through the farmette each day. I remember years when I'd run with my camera just to catch their crazy dance by a flower head. Not any more. They are as common as the white butterfly you see out in the meadows. Both are pretty, but their repeat presence makes you smile and move on. Is it my idleness or is that we are always in search of the unusual?

Must be idleness, because there is nothing unusual about this photo!





Of course, Ed is easier to photograph than a butterfly or a bird. But, too, though each morning photo looks like yesterday's and the one before that, and each bowl of fruit awfully resembles the other bowls of fruit you've seen here, the feel of those few minutes is never the same, never mundane, never boring.



Early in the morning I water the pots of flowers and I think how much the annuals I stick in there love the beginning and the tail end of summer. The purples haven't looked this vibrant since May!






I water the new front bed too, because it's been a while since there'd been rain and the roots are young and not yet strong. And again, the beauty of the lavender, deeply purple, wins me over.






(And of course, the minute I put down the hose, the National Service issues a severe weather bulletin for tonight: heavy rain, coming out way.)

It is a warm day. Warm enough for the AC to come back on (we set it at 75). Warm enough that when I bring Snowdrop here from school, I only stay out with her for a handful of minutes.






Of course, the cheepers are excited to see her arrive.

 Scotch, she doesn't have anything for you...






We don't believe you...
It's true. She's admiring the flowers, that's all.
Flowers? Is she eating them? Should we eat them?






Cheepers, you're hopeless. But pretty in your own spoiled way. Alright, wait here, I'll get you some bread.






Meanwhile, Snowdrop runs off with her own piece of bread. (Well she might: when Scotch sees her holding bread she looks for opportunities to snatch it away.)






And she practices walking backwards with it. (It's very hard to photograph the act of someone walking backwards.)







Inside again, she wants to play with ah-ah (grandpa Ed). He tosses her the moose she's had since early infancy. She catches it. He's very impressed! They do this again and again and of course she gets better at it, much to her own delight.






After her nap, I tell her it's time to bake some cookies for ah-ah. Our trips to the coffee shop have dwindled and there isn't a grocery store oatmeal raisin cookie that he likes.
Ed, 1140 people reviewed this recipe online and it gets a rousing 5 stars. If you kvetch, you'll be going against a tsunami of approval. (Ed is very fussy about his cookies.)


Put on the aprons and get to work.

(I should note that she is a pro at this: not only has she baked before at the farmhouse, but, too, she's mixed up cookie dough at home.)

 She knows her ingredients. Egg! She tells me and proceeds to put it (all of it) into the batter.
I explain we have to crack it open first. She's agreeable. I dump it into the little cup, she dumps it into the batter.







I use the handmixer. We move it around together. (Ed takes a picture.)






Happy? Yes.






When the cookies are baked, she is delighted. (As is Ed: delicious, he tells us.)  Snowdrop likes the cookie, yes, but, too, she loves the fact that I've eliminated her high chair tray and pulled her up to the grown up table.






That, and drinking from her big girl cups: her happiness runneth over. (As do dribbles of milk and water.)






And then there is a brief cloudburst, followed by a hot blue sky and I wonder if there might be a rainbow. We'd talked about rainbows, read about rainbows, sang songs about rainbows, but they seemed rather imaginary. Sort of like sheep in a jeep and cats that get their shoes wet.

But in fact, today there was a rainbow.






I don't know that she recognizes it. Maybe she does. I do.