Sunday - 170th

I don't care what the calendar says -- when the night temps dip to the low 50s F (about 11C), we're in Fall. When Snowdrop wakes up (having spent the night at the farmhouse with her mom), she tells me -- Gaga, turn down the air conditioning, it's cold!

We moved very quickly from humid and hot to this. Just yesterday we flipped on the AC for a few minutes to cool off the upstairs. Today? Time to reach for a sweater. (Even if it's my sweater!)






I'd fed the cats and checked on the garden.






I can't really save it anymore. It's so dry that I think we just have to let it go. For the most part. (Yes, there are always the flowers that defy everything.)






Breakfast. That lovely meal, today set for four. Snowdrop asks for bread and cherry jam. Bacon. Fruit. Milk. Delivered!






For Ed? Just fruits.






Such a beautiful way to start a day!






And now we have a little bit of everything: we finish the mystery book we had put aside for a few days.






We draw. We play hair cut salon. And we talk about next week.






A new school, remote learning, new baby sitters, only social distanced meetups with Gogs. She protests, of course she does. Deep in my soul, I protest them too. But we do what we have to do.

(One last spin with her babes...)






My daughter takes Snowdrop home for a bit and then they all come back for one final farmhouse meal. It could not be a sunnier, lovelier day. It should be terrifically exciting! Snowdrop should be looking forward to her first school bus ride. Sparrow should be moving up to his second year at Montessori. Instead, we have this best possible effort at normality, patched carefully together by parents, educators, scientists, with the hope that families will be safe and that someday we will all look back at this school year and say -- wasn't that just so weird?! Yeah, we're so glad that we didn't get sick though. And we'll laugh and hug and move on to something far far less weird.


Last farmhouse visit, so lots of photos. Can you stand a dozen more? You're getting a dozen more.

(I'm not sure anyone wants an evening nature walk, but they humor me...)





















(Pre-dinner cheese and roasted beets: a farmhouse standard)






(Spaghetti with squid and shrimp in a tomato preparation: everyone's favorite. And corn. Because it's still August.)


















(Oh, those two....)


 



Last hugs, lots of them. Lots.






(I remember too well when she was just their age...)






(yeah...)





And then an empty house.