Wednesday - 89th

Post storm quiet. Winds die down. We're not done with this steamy weather yet, but for this morning, all is calm.

I can't yet look at the flower beds. They need snipping, weeding, straightening. That's for the weekend. Right now I merely cut down some fallen peonies and bring them inside. (Not all of them tumbled. The single blossom ones aren't as heavy. They're still swaying and dancing, as if nothing had happened.)






Breakfast, on the porch, with an abundance of peonies.






Cutting: the path through the once-and-future meadows (in the farmette's young orchard) is rapidly overpowered by grasses following rainstorms. They are desperately in need of a trim. I take out the big tractor mower and mow them down.

And then I get ready for Primrose. Her parents are bringing her here at lunchtime and she is staying with me at the farmhouse while they go off on what has to be the first overnight for them in three months without childcare or work nipping at their heels.

Hi little one!






Lunch.






And now I have to say goodbye to my daughter and her husband and that's hard for me. I wont see them again, as they're doing a curbside pick up of their daughter tomorrow afternoon. (They'll have broken the isolation bubble we're maintaining and so we wont have contact with them again until at least two weeks will have passed and even that is iffy, considering the iffyness of everything these days.)

My most beloved younger girl -- how I will miss having her close to me!






But, for now, I have sweet Primrose here and that's a rare treat!

(seeking artistic inspiration)






I let her take the lead in play. She's two years and two months old. She knows her own mind.

The little one does want to do art. But markers are so yesterday! Especially when there's a pair of scissors to work with. ("I'm making little pictures")






(Primrose loves to poke around the kitchen cabinets. She makes periodic runs to them to see if anything's changed.)






(She is a good counter, but the numeric symbols are not something she encounters very often. I tell her that's an 8. She retorts: looks like a B.)






(Playing with toy foods. That's my basket of fruits and cookies, grandma. Don't steal it!)






And as evening approaches and rains sweep over our region once again, I take out the ingredients for supper. It's pizza making time!






(Not bad, given the specifications and the ages of the cooking crew)






And it's bedtime too, but hey, we can push things a little. What good is an overnight at grandma's if we don't break just a few rules! Besides, all the excitement of the past eight days surely has an effect on her. She has gone from predictable days at home with only parents as her sounding board to... the chaos of a larger family. She has held up supremely well, rolling with the intensity of cousin days, grandma presence, birthdays, swimming adventures (her cousin received a big inflatable pool for his birthday: all three kids have benefited from this timely gift), large family dinners and now a sleepover at the farmhouse. She is one together kid to have weathered it all so well.


Quiet. Evening quiet. This is the time to think about everything. There's so much and it's coming from all sides. But this week has been uniquely beautiful for us. In these strange and tumultuous times, it's been so very beautiful.