Friday

There is a book that I recently read to Snowdrop that's called "Let's Do Nothing." In it, two boys, brothers as I recall, attempt to do nothing and fail miserably at it. At the very least, they wind up blinking their eyelids which, of course, is doing something.

It's kid humor of the best kind, to be taken with a grain of salt, of course, because I want to assure you that I am perfectly capable of doing nothing. Looking back, there have been years when I seem to have done not all that much. Oh, I plodded through school routines and I took out my skateboard or later on, my guitar, but honestly, I may as well have been twiddling my thumbs.

Simply put -- I know I am quite good at engaging in the art of far niente. And I swear, tomorrow afternoon, I am going to twiddle my thumbs until they blister. I am going to do nothing!

Today, however, was a little more stressful.

It starts with an early Ed call, infuriating in its utter leisureliness. Oh, we wont be sailing much today. Maybe 25 miles. We're taking it easy.

Honestly, I would have tilted the boat over and dumped them all into the water were I within reach.

But I am not within reach. Instead, I hear the chickens kvetching and the cat meowing and so I begin my morning farmette chores.





















(The last of the day lilies in the roadside flower bed.)





The flower fields are still lovely and they will always be lovely and as long as I am here, I will tend to them with great affection, but as I walk to the barn, I see how much of the farmette that is not a flower field has been neglected lately. So many weeds in so many places! The path to the barn is hardly a path. The creeping charlie has crept where it shouldn't have crept. Branches hang too low, raspberry canes have spread again, shrubs have emerged out of nowhere.

I think the farmette has finally managed to overwhelm my capabilities, especially this month when the big guy has gone a sailin'. Slowly, leisurely.

After farmette chores comes farmette breakfast, but it's a fast one (albeit ever so pretty).






I am having computer issues again (this time with my little travel computer which is only 5.5 years old but is acting like an old lady without functional mental capacities).

Not surprisingly, working through this takes forever.

Now comes the sweet part: a brief visit with Sparrow whom I may as well call Big Sparrow (though perhaps I shouldn't use such labels) because at his two month appointment, he formally weighs in to be now larger than his four month old cousin who herself is no little peanut.







(Sparrow is actually very good at doing not much of anything. Most two month olds share this skill.)






And as always, in the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop.

We start off adventuring, but the heat becomes rather oppressive, so we side step into a cafe and stay there. For a while at least.






It's the kind of August day that makes you think that autumn isn't such a bad thing after all.

For today, we stick with indoor play.






(On our way out, she is puzzled and perhaps a bit intimidated by all that chicken attention: cheepers, what do you want??? What do they ever want -- love, attention, bread... especially bread.)






I take her home, pausing to visit for a little while with the whole lot of them.












No, not done yet! I'm at the farmhouse now and I need to eat. I had big plans to cut back on cooking while Ed was gone, but it turns out I am incapable of cutting back when it is August and the markets are so abundant! Of course I'm going to stir fry shrimp with garlic, corn, bok choy and cauliflower! Of course I am!





And I'm still not done with the day: the chicken sitter plus boyfriend (he's tall! he can reach! may he remain her boyfriend at least through next week!) arrive after dusk so that we can walk through some of the evening chicken care routines for the few days that I'll be away.

And now it's dark and I am done for the day. What's that you say? A post to write still? I'm on it! Just let me open a bottle of rosé wine first.