It will be the start of summer on June 21st and unlike the last season, which was slower than slow in coming, summer is very much with us already. Even if you didn't know that it is steamy warm here today, you can tell we've left spring behind, just by casting your eye on the flower fields.
I spend the morning doing all that one does when a big family weekend has come and gone: wash linens (to have things ready for a future visit), fold napkins from the wonderful family meals, straighten this, put away that, thinking all the while how good it was to have everyone here.
And in this way, slowly, I transition to the week ahead.
(Morning walk, just to check up on possible garden trouble spots, with a detour to feed the chickens...)
It really is too steamy hot (and truck noisy!) to eat breakfast on the porch. The morning meal is supposed to transition us to the demands of the day, no matter what they may be. But if you're fighting the heat and noise, you've lost your calm already. That wont do.
(View toward the gardens, from the porch...)
We eat in the kitchen.
The day is a bit interesting: Sparrow comes to the farmhouse to be left here while parents attend to stuff. It's when you're alone with your youngest ones that you really begin to study them as individuals, separate from their parents. It is when they learn to tolerate your peculiarities and you begin to notice the tiny stuff that make them uniquely delightful.
(Here, Sparrow is testing Snowdrop's old play quilt: he doesn't mind the occasional pink... he's cool about color.)
(With eyes wide open...)
And now the rains start coming, one cloudburst at a time. Snowdrop comes to the farm straight from camp and she considers her options.
Inside. Everything about the day suggests that we play inside.
For the few hours she is here, we do nothing more (and nothing less) than play pretend. Here, we're in the thick of Art Class. I'm the teacher (so says Snowdrop). The assignment is to draw a house with something in it. A family! -- she tells me.
And now her stories begin.
And so we've all found our new normal. True, nothing about young children remains the same from one day to the next. Still, we search for patterns and slowly we find them. And a Monday becomes a Monday once more.
I spend the morning doing all that one does when a big family weekend has come and gone: wash linens (to have things ready for a future visit), fold napkins from the wonderful family meals, straighten this, put away that, thinking all the while how good it was to have everyone here.
And in this way, slowly, I transition to the week ahead.
(Morning walk, just to check up on possible garden trouble spots, with a detour to feed the chickens...)
It really is too steamy hot (and truck noisy!) to eat breakfast on the porch. The morning meal is supposed to transition us to the demands of the day, no matter what they may be. But if you're fighting the heat and noise, you've lost your calm already. That wont do.
(View toward the gardens, from the porch...)
We eat in the kitchen.
The day is a bit interesting: Sparrow comes to the farmhouse to be left here while parents attend to stuff. It's when you're alone with your youngest ones that you really begin to study them as individuals, separate from their parents. It is when they learn to tolerate your peculiarities and you begin to notice the tiny stuff that make them uniquely delightful.
(Here, Sparrow is testing Snowdrop's old play quilt: he doesn't mind the occasional pink... he's cool about color.)
(With eyes wide open...)
And now the rains start coming, one cloudburst at a time. Snowdrop comes to the farm straight from camp and she considers her options.
Inside. Everything about the day suggests that we play inside.
For the few hours she is here, we do nothing more (and nothing less) than play pretend. Here, we're in the thick of Art Class. I'm the teacher (so says Snowdrop). The assignment is to draw a house with something in it. A family! -- she tells me.
And now her stories begin.
And so we've all found our new normal. True, nothing about young children remains the same from one day to the next. Still, we search for patterns and slowly we find them. And a Monday becomes a Monday once more.
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