September 1st

My September begins with the calm of farmette life and with a flurry of family life. I could not ask for a better combination. Well, I suppose if you were handing out time, I'd take some more of that!

I wont be wordy today... Photos will have to suffice. Here we go -- a roll of images from a grand beginning to non-summer days:

Breakfast. Hi Ed.






Garden: a little bit of yellow here, a little bit of yellow there...






A resilient lily!






Stop Sign, the feral cat, is getting to be a finicky feral cat. He complains a lot if the cat food is not to his liking. I want to say -- it's this or mice or whatever else you can catch out there. Usually he caves and chooses the cat food.






Now here's the big deal event: the youngest family is coming up from Chicago to spend the weekend with us! Included in this is a visit with my mother. Here's your classic picture: four generations of women.






There is a lot of hanging out to the rest of the day. We all do this very very well. Here's Primrose, balanced on her dad's leg, reaching for her own toes to nibble on.






Snowdrop is thrilled to see us all here. She is engaging us in a complicated game of elevator...







Evening: we all walk over to a local gastro pub (Longtable Beer Cafe) for dinner.






Dinner. A blur of family faces....






Cousin love...






He does well with all three.






Snowdrop just loves these family days...






Walking back... Two sisters and a babe...






Crossing carefully...






Enjoying the gift of a beautiful evening.






The sky grows darker and still no one wants to call it quits. We play basketball with Snowdrop...






We read books. We help this child settle, that child go down.

It's like so many family moments played out in so many homes tonight. We are not unique, we are, all of us, so ordinary. And yet, each of these evenings is beyond special. It's as good as it gets.