Sunday

It's so good to wake up to sunshine (even if it does wake our farmhouse guest earlier than one would hope)! We're just below freezing and this has created a curious confluence of puddles and ice: the surface is frozen, but the underbelly is water. The cheepers learn from sad experience that even their weight will make the ice snap. So they hold back.






It's at once lovely and horrible and definitely slippery and/or wet out there!






Snowdrop is up! And she picks up where she left off last night. She is committed to her storyline!






Me, I just shamelessly pander to her wee preferences. Cornflakes this morning? Sure! Want to keep your pajama bottoms on? Of course! Into ballet? Check this out: a magnetic paper doll called Nina Ballerina!






Ed playing with magnetic paper dolls is a first.






Our big breakfast is at the big table. She dresses up for it.






After, we create an "art museum."






Back to play with characters. It's sunny in the front room. She squints hard, then finally asks for her sunglasses.






Eventually: can we please go outside??
It's one degree above freezing and the winds are howling...
Sure! Let's go to the front yard -- there's less ice there. We can pretend there's a campfire!






We're roasting broccoli!






Always taking the load onto her shoulders...





I help her pull the wagon up the hill. Singing makes it easier.
We're going home, we're going home, we're going home home home, we're going home...

Thirty rounds into this, she suggests we make up another song.


Back at the farmhouse, I give her lunch choices. There's no question: she wants corn and pb&j. I'm not sure she's had pb&j (they don't allow it at school), but she surely has heard of it. I have supplies!

Can I help?
Sure: can you clean the corn?






Lunch. We're giving the new table a real workout!





More play. Nap. Then she goes home.

The house feels very quiet without Snowdrop.

Well, we have to head out anyway. Even though it's nearly evening, we have errands: my brand new computer died (for no good reason!) and so a trip to the Apple store is in order. Never go to an Apple store on Sunday. You'll just be told to come back another day. I do. I will.

So long as Ed and I are this close to Owen Woods, maybe we can take a walk there?

Well, we do it, but it is a brutal trail: what's not ice is mud and what's not ice or mud is a puddle. And yet -- it is lovely to be there at this late afternoon hour...





... at the cusp of spring.