stellar Tuesday

We were gifted a pair of beautiful days! Today, June-like weather stayed with us, to the joy of all who just can't wait to see their garden grow!
















It cannot be said that Ed and I took it easy this morning. Shortly after breakfast (still indoors, because, you know, mornings are an iffy proposition in April)...






... armed with clippers big and small, we attacked the trees in the young orchard. Perhaps a handful of you will remember that we got ambitious some half dozen years ago and planted more than a dozen new fruit trees. They had a rocky start. Deer attacked them, beetles devoured them -- it was a brutal awakening to the hazards of life for a cherry, plum, apple or pear.

But the trees survived (though many have a very "nontraditional" shape!) and we learned to protect them and clip them. We have still to harvest fruit -- maybe a handful of cherries, an occasional apple. Birds and animals beat us to it and what is left on the branch, the beetle will happily finish off. Still, we keep at it. As the trees grow and mature, we're hoping they'll produce enough fruit for everyone. And in the meantime, their blooms in spring are gorgeous and of course, bees love them!

(clipping branches)






We grow grapes in back of the orchard. Their yield, too, is miserable. Another beetle favorite! By summer's end, there are too many mosquitoes out there for us to care! Still, we try: enough to clip them now into proper shape.

(by late morning, all sweaters and jackets are tossed aside!)





Afterwards, Ed mends the coop and I set to work on the Big Flower Field. Some plants have to be controlled (I'm lookin' at you, beebalm!), some merely need a quick weed and a tidying hand.

As the time to pick up Snowdrop draws near, I take a quick walk through the remaining flower fields and tick off in my head all that I need to do there. Not today though. And not the rest of this week either: we're getting quite the downturn in the weather. But I'm not complaining: we have had a remarkable pair of days!

(what's blooming at the farmette...)







And now I'm ready for Snowdrop!

As we drive from school to the farmette, I ask her about her day.
Good -- she tells me. Then -- gaga, did you know humpback whales used to be extinct?  Now they just take your breath away! Interesting observations, albeit not about school.
I press her -- did you spend a lot of time outside?
Yes. Indeed. She seems to have had her fill. Now, after a brief conversation with the cheepers, she runs inside the house.






Books, pretend play.






They fill her time.






She is not ready to stop, even though the clock says it's time for me to take her home.





Clocks have a way of ordering our lives. Sometimes that's good. Other times -- it ruins a fun play.

Still, Snowdrop is a girl who does not like to stay on the rebellious side of the line for long. She asks if I will give her a time out for resisting the need to clean up and get going.
No little one. No time outs from Gaga. That's a job for teachers and parents. You and me -- we'll just talk.


Evening. I'm not cooking again. We eat Chipotle bowls and watch Finding Your Roots on television (we're both terrific fans of it) and try not to think about the winter storm forecast for tomorrow.