a thousand faces of Snowdrop

She is my granddaughter, but when I write about her here, on Ocean, she is also something else: Snowdrop is my everyone. She is my little love and my stand-in for those whom I love. Today, as I take more than my usual share of photos of her, I note to her mom that perhaps I should spread my photo shoot more broadly. Nah, she tells me. Snowdrop says it all for all of us (or words to that effect).

So on my last full day here (before I take off tomorrow), you'll see a thousand faces of Snowdrop, but do see in her all that my world is now: love for family, for my farmette life, love for my days that bring all these precious faces into my orbit.

I still need to travel. I'm sure I will always need to travel. But it's not easy to leave all this behind. No, not easy.

Let's look at "all this." Today, it was the usual Friday stuff: a bit of a rushed breakfast, because Ed has his tech meetings. Plenty of sunshine once again!







And then I get stuck on my computer trying to integrate Lightroom photo editing software into my new laptop. In the end, I have to resubscribe and start from the beginning, but it takes hours before I reach that endpoint. It doesn't matter. I had done grocery shopping yesterday. I had planned my suitcase packing the day before. I am way more organized than I used to be when I was younger, more spontaneous and yes, a bit more insane about stuffing in too much in too few hours.

My one set task (besides figuring out the photo editing download) for today is to do laundry. And in going down to the basement (where we keep the washing machine) I notice that once again we trapped a mouse. That's  a mouse a day, no exceptions, all since the kitties have left.

Ed wont be home until late and I wont be home until even later. I better deal with the mouse now. I make a trip of it: I take the darn thing to the fields where Ed and I had spotted the cranes in recent weeks. Are the sandhills all gone?

Not yet.






Just as I am about to release the mouse, I spot a black kittie. Not one of "ours," but clearly a feral, on the prowl. Out goes the mouse. Will the cat chase it down? I do not want to know.


I pick up Snowdrop.

That is, I try to pick her up. She is completely out. All her classmates are already onto their afternoon activities, but the little one is quite lost to the world.

Well now, I'm not surprised. She hasn't napped since Sunday. Nothing is more important than giving her this moment to rest and indeed, the school is quite willing to have me stay and wait, but her classmates are too eager to have their friend up and present and so in the end, the sleepy little one is brought back into reality quite abruptly.

Normally, this would have been a tough ride, but I only needed to remind her that we will be picking up mommy and then going to get the Christmas tree (from the annual sale by our university's forestry department).

Happy girl!

Here are a thousand faces of Snowdrop at the Ag Hall, where we search for the perfect tree for Snowdrop's home.

From there, it's a hop and a skip over to Clasen's Bakery -- the place we love at the holiday season because honestly, I am certain they have the best chocolate covered gingerbread on this side of the ocean.

Again, a thousand faces of Snowdrop at Clasen's -- her face is one of pure joy, especially once she discovers their gingerbread house.






















Finally, home. Snowdrop's home. I help the young family with the tree. It's not a wee project. And it's not a wee tree. But Snowdrop is not a wee girl anymore. She is involved!

A thousand faces of Snowdrop at tree trimming:






















And then I come home, with leftover pizza for Ed and a bag full of photos to play with while we watch reruns of Seinfeld as Ed proves that he actually does have most of the famous Seinfeld lines neatly memorized.

So why leave all this? I can't answer that. But it is hard to go. Even as I know I must.