Sunday - 121st

Go ahead and ask me about my creative day today, about how brilliantly I navigated all those hours of so called free time. Only don't rush to congratulate me on a day well spent, because I'd have to admit that things didn't go at all in the way I would want them to.

The morning was good. The weather is magnificent all day today. Sunny, mildly warm, breezy. Delicious! The bugs are biting still, but every time I am tempted to grumble about it, I run into someone (in this case our neighbor across the road) who has it much worse. Today, as I worked to give my nasturtium plants a little nitrogen, I shouted out -- how are the horseflies over where you are?
Ha! There must be 100 resting on my tractor right now!

He has it worse.

I snipped lily heads and pulled fistfuls of noxious weeds in those corners that I typically ignore because they are hidden and I don't have time.

Garden's looking okay!

















(the lilies of the lily field...)






Breakfast, late again. More like lunch.





And then I return to tax forms. I mean, I have to. I must do my own Wisconsin forms and my mom's federal and state ones. And none of it is particularly hard, but still, I miss things. New provisions, new forms, new deductions make an appearance. Like, who knew that this year you can deduct your Medicare premiums in Wisconsin? So I have to redo everything and it all takes so many hours! Too many hours.

Ed is unruffled and not very troubled by any of this. It's the way it is with our complicated filing system. (He's busy working on his own forms so it's not as if he gets an easy ride either.)

By the time I am "free" to create, improve, bake, add to my French vocabulary, it is 5 p.m.

Want to play tennis? Ed asks.

I hesitate. The day is moving way too quickly. I've done nothing but garden work and taxes. I should start in on dinner. Still, I give in.

We play at our local park on a very dilapidated court. But it is heavenly! Tall pines surround it on all sides. It's quiet. It smells profoundly of pine needles. It's ours.







There hadn't been a time on that court when I haven't felt transformed by the scent of those pines. Today is no exception.


(at home again, waiting for the kitties to finish their supper)






(and the sun recedes, and the lilies bloom...)






So we do eat a late dinner (chili, because I want to cook up a pot that will generate a lot of leftovers for the week), but it doesn't matter. The young family is enjoying days of water activities on one of this state's many many lakes and so there is no big Sunday farmette dinner this week. Just me and Ed and our comfy couch that we hauled over not so long ago from someone's house. A good couch for our quiet evenings together at the farmhouse.