First of all, I must admit it: I am a weed addict.
I heard a story on the news about a guy like me, who just wouldn't face up to it until his wife spelled it out for him: what started for you as a minor event turned into an obsessive drive. From a trivial thing there came the addiction.
Yes, I suppose the same is true for me.
Indeed, my first thoughts when I get up this morning are not -- I must finish cleaning the kitchen after yesterday's dinner, but -- I must find time today to go out to my flower fields, because it's too hard to be eating breakfast on the porch with a view toward spent lily blooms and sprouted locust and creeping wood sorrel and who knows what else.
Yep. A weed addict.
Despite promises of dry weather, the rains keep popping up in forceful cloudbursts and the bugs rejoice and multiply. Yet I will withstand it all just to pull the weeds, snip the blooms and tend to my flowers.
But not immediately. Ed and I have a quick and small breakfast interlude. There is a family brunch later on and one cannot be totally piggish about eating before the noon hour.
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And here's the second truth: I do love all family meals, whether they're at the farmhouse, or at daughters' houses, or restaurants here, or Chicago. They are always festive, comfortable, happy events. But just as I have a special fondness for breakfast with Ed each morning, so, too, I hold a reserved spot -- a sweet special love for family brunches. Maybe it's because I never otherwise eat brunch -- not with friends, not with just Ed -- it's always with daughters and their families. It is, therefore, always wonderful.
This morning we are all at Forequarter -- a longtime family favorite that has only recently (to my knowledge) offered Sunday brunch.
And guess who else loves, loves, loves it when the young families come together here, in Madison?
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Yep: Snowdrop. She just cannot stop smiling.
So many laps to sit on!
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So many faces smiling right back at her...
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Even the bear, with a claw suspended over the little girl seems... well, at leas nonthreatening.
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It is true that after a Sunday brunch, there is the inevitable good bye to the young couple as they must head back home to Chicago.
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Just one more chance for Snowdrop to hold her aunt's hand...
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And they're off. But, Chicago isn't the other end of the world and even if I don't quite see them as often as I would like, knowing that they're close by makes it easier to see them drive off.
Now I must get back to the farmette, past freshly harvested fields where sandhill cranes have taken to hanging out...
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And into my netted armor, so that I can take a big bucket and head out to do my work in the flower fields.
There, things are in order once more!
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I have to admit to one more thing: when I work on a mature flower bed, I always, always have a song running through my head, for the entire time I'm there. Lately, it's been this one: "Nymphs and Shepherds" by Purcell.
The mood is exactly right. As perfect as the lilies that are standing proud proud and tall!
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Jollity and love. Renewal, growth, beauty, expressed in a field of flowers.
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Evening. The young family is here for Sunday dinner.
Snowdrop is growing alright: stronger, more patient, she and Ed do things that even a month ago would have been too tough for her.
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We eat on the porch and occasionally, I'll throw a glance toward the cleaned up garden, feeling the satisfaction of having kept up with its demands today.
But mostly, my gaze is in this direction:
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A happy girl! She had a grand weekend. And so did I!
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