Wednesday - 96th

The second half of June. Is any summer flower blooming yet? Well, there is this very unusual color in my June garden.






Mostly though, I see the remains of spring. This peony is having a second wave of blossoms.  Then there's the white David phlox next to it: it's your transitional flower: one foot stuck in spring, the other testing the waters of summer)...






Oh, but see this? A day lily. That is one sweet summer girl.






(Looking out at the beds from the porch, you still mostly see a sea of green...)






We clicked on the AC today. Hot days are back and they bring with them the lethargy of a lazy summer season. I smelled that idleness when our breakfast lasted way past the normal fifteen or so minutes we typically allocate to it.






And I could also see it in the kids. They arrived peppy...






But our nature walk resulted in this:






And no one felt like running on the way back.











(A pause at the barn: he wanted to see Happy the rooster, she wanted to see if there were any eggs. Ooops! Two girls are laying right now!)






So I flipped the switch and the cool air filled the farmhouse (it's never really that cold -- I truly dislike an over-air conditioned space) and everyone felt bouncy happy again.


I'm only in the third day of Gaga's Summer School, but already I'm spotting some pretty determined students who are happy to guide me through what they feel would be an optimal school schedule.

Gaga, we always start the day with free time in school. Always! -- from Snowdrop. Sparrow let's me know this as well by getting up and leaving "group time" in search of his favorite books.

You mean you want to go off and play first?
No. I think we should have choice and one of the choices should be painting.
But didn't I say we'd do painting every other day? (My theory is: keep the excitement going by taking pauses.)
No, Gaga. Absolutely not. In school it was always available -- she says with such great hope. Her pleading eyes melt me to the core.






I do suggest a theme. We'd been to the meadow. Let's paint meadows!






For Sparrow, this meant introducing blue to his already available yellow. He got the green grass going pretty quickly and so vigorously, that even the sturdy art paper wilted under the onslaught.






Happy kids and clean kids. If I expected Sparrow to take the brush to his clothes, to his toys, indeed, to the walls, I was to be pleasantly surprised:. He is a very neat painter and so is Snowdrop. The smock hangs, unused, unnecessary for these two.





Music follows. I had tuned my guitar and I came up with a repertoire for the summer where I might teach them some classic folk songs. Ones that wouldn't make anyone wince. (I hesitated before throwing in Home on the Range, but then decided I could interpret it as a person's lament over the degradation of the environment and a longing for what once was. I mean, if you look at the words of the original poem (written in 1872) that was then set to music, you may conclude that my interpretation isn't all whimsy. Every American knows the first verse:

Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam,
And the deer and the antelope play,
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,
And the skies are not cloudy all day.

 But add now the last two verses:

I love the wild flowers in this bright land of ours,
I love the wild curlew's shrill scream;
The bluffs and white rocks, and antelope flocks
That graze on the mountains so green.

The air is so pure and the breezes so fine,
The zephyrs so balmy and light,
That I would not exchange my home here to range
Forever in azures so bright.

Wildflowers and curlews running through prairie grasses... How evocative is that!

Where did the rest of our time fly? Oh, the usual. Books. Pretend play. Arithmetic puzzles. Buffing up little frozen pizzas with extra cheese for lunch, eating watermelon and ice cream bars. Take a look:















In the late afternoon Ed is off biking. Should I at least take a walk? It's a splendid evening!

But the very idea that I "should" pushes me away from it. For the first time in quite a while, I am not terribly busy. Oh, I have a mountain of mom paperwork, of my own paperwork (taxes come to mind), of delinquent chores and projects, but it can all wait. I put on music and do none of it. Reheated soup for supper, burnt popcorn (Ed! You need to finish biking in time for popcorm!). But, too, a sense of inner quiet.

How I wish everyone had the time and life's circumstances to reach, even if only for a few minutes each day, that sense of inner quiet!