How warm is it today?
This warm!
A brief summer interlude. It may be a record high. Right around 86F (30C).
Oh, what a day it is!
Of course, it doesn't all hang together. There are no pesky summer mosquitoes. And for Pete's sake, the lilac is still blooming! Weighed down now by the flowers and the wetness of the night, it is brilliant in its full loveliness.
(We eat breakfast on the porch.)
As is the case in mid May, hardly anything else is blooming yet. Just at the cusp, nearly nearly, but not yet.
(Well, there are exceptions: the lily of the valley -- a flower I adore but have removed from all my flower beds because it's just too invasive. So it grows wild and strong in the front of the farmhouse. And I always pick a bunch and it smells of my childhood -- a sweetness so intense that I want to share it. Ed, smell these!)
Not a week of many new blooms, but most definitely a week of rhubarb.
I no longer have a big list of gardening chores (just lists of little things), which perhaps is a good thing, but then a morning passes and I wonder -- what did I accomplish today?
Never mind, time to pick up Snowdrop...
... who continues to be very attached to her sweater.
Little one, shed your wraps!
I don't want to, gaga.
I try peer pressure again: look at all the kids in short sleeves!
She gives me that look of disappointment, as in -- I thought you'd understand, gaga...
Alright. I'm contrite. Let's go to the coffee shop and share a cherry scone.
We eat it outside and coincidently, at the table next to ours, a school friend is also eating a cherry scone. Snowdrop pays attention.
I throw out an incentive: after you're done, we can go to the farm and if you take off your sweater and put on a bathing suit, we could take out the little pool...
The sweater is off instantly. As if the pool was there, on the sidewalk, waiting.
She swings it, wraps it, parades with it off, right next to her school chum (who, as it happens, also has a fondness for sweaters and sweatshirts)...
... and proclaims: I'm taking my sweater now for a walk!
And away she goes.
At the farmette, Ed and I had set out her pool earlier, anticipating the extremely warm afternoon. Snowdrop is joyous!
Want to come in, ahah?
I'll just sit here...
She's up, she's down. She dips, pours, drinks, splashes. In other words she is a kid. In love with summer.
(And back in the farmhouse, in love with that book about families, babies, sisters and brothers, coming to visit grandma...)
Can we read it? Can we?
Yes, Snowdrop.
Evening. These days, Snowdrop asks to go out. For an evening walk. I always hesitate. This isn't a good time to play, to open up the sandbox. What will she want to do outside? I don't want to end the day with a series of "nos."
But mostly, she just wants to touch the evening.
Maybe pick a tulip, but this is easy -- they're past their prime anyway...
Maybe run to the barn to check on the state of the coop...
Maybe sit in the grass in the front yard and watch the cars go by.
Snowdrop, that grass is taller than you! I must tell ahah to cut it.
Ahah will mow the grass!
Ever the optimist...
How good is that!
This warm!
A brief summer interlude. It may be a record high. Right around 86F (30C).
Oh, what a day it is!
Of course, it doesn't all hang together. There are no pesky summer mosquitoes. And for Pete's sake, the lilac is still blooming! Weighed down now by the flowers and the wetness of the night, it is brilliant in its full loveliness.
(We eat breakfast on the porch.)
As is the case in mid May, hardly anything else is blooming yet. Just at the cusp, nearly nearly, but not yet.
(Well, there are exceptions: the lily of the valley -- a flower I adore but have removed from all my flower beds because it's just too invasive. So it grows wild and strong in the front of the farmhouse. And I always pick a bunch and it smells of my childhood -- a sweetness so intense that I want to share it. Ed, smell these!)
Not a week of many new blooms, but most definitely a week of rhubarb.
I no longer have a big list of gardening chores (just lists of little things), which perhaps is a good thing, but then a morning passes and I wonder -- what did I accomplish today?
Never mind, time to pick up Snowdrop...
... who continues to be very attached to her sweater.
Little one, shed your wraps!
I don't want to, gaga.
I try peer pressure again: look at all the kids in short sleeves!
She gives me that look of disappointment, as in -- I thought you'd understand, gaga...
Alright. I'm contrite. Let's go to the coffee shop and share a cherry scone.
We eat it outside and coincidently, at the table next to ours, a school friend is also eating a cherry scone. Snowdrop pays attention.
I throw out an incentive: after you're done, we can go to the farm and if you take off your sweater and put on a bathing suit, we could take out the little pool...
The sweater is off instantly. As if the pool was there, on the sidewalk, waiting.
She swings it, wraps it, parades with it off, right next to her school chum (who, as it happens, also has a fondness for sweaters and sweatshirts)...
... and proclaims: I'm taking my sweater now for a walk!
And away she goes.
At the farmette, Ed and I had set out her pool earlier, anticipating the extremely warm afternoon. Snowdrop is joyous!
Want to come in, ahah?
I'll just sit here...
She's up, she's down. She dips, pours, drinks, splashes. In other words she is a kid. In love with summer.
(And back in the farmhouse, in love with that book about families, babies, sisters and brothers, coming to visit grandma...)
Can we read it? Can we?
Yes, Snowdrop.
Evening. These days, Snowdrop asks to go out. For an evening walk. I always hesitate. This isn't a good time to play, to open up the sandbox. What will she want to do outside? I don't want to end the day with a series of "nos."
But mostly, she just wants to touch the evening.
Maybe pick a tulip, but this is easy -- they're past their prime anyway...
Maybe run to the barn to check on the state of the coop...
Maybe sit in the grass in the front yard and watch the cars go by.
Snowdrop, that grass is taller than you! I must tell ahah to cut it.
Ahah will mow the grass!
Ever the optimist...
How good is that!
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