The last week of April is, weather-wise, a crap shoot in Wisconsin. There are bound to be disappointments. Last year, after a nice, bouncy spring-like set of days, the weather turned mean. We had snow on April 28th. Ed and I had to carry all flower pots with annuals indoors. It was brutal!
This year isn't so extreme, but nor are we sustaining any warm spells. One good day is followed by three or four cool ones. Nothing terribly damaging, but still, you prefer to stay indoors.
On the upside, our flowers, trees, shrubs -- they're racing ahead. They aren't going to be fussing about a nippy 50F (10C). Look at today's bloomers!
(Cheepers, leave the alyssum alone!)
Breakfast.
Both kids come to the farmhouse early. For whatever reason, it is one of their super good play mornings.
After our reading time...
... Snowdrop goes over to the sun room (where I keep the drawing paraphernalia) and sets up an art station. I note she has put in place three chairs.
Lately, we've been drawing together. This is Snowdrop's idea. I am not terrible with a sketch pad, but nor am I particularly talented. I can draw the basics, in that people can more or less tell what I'm getting at. Still, I discovered with my own two kids that little ones really love it when you draw with them. And if you don't try to outperform them -- so much the better! And so, while Snowdrop works on her Super Pigs books and Sparrow practices making circles and squiggles, I work on pages from a Gaga "book" called The Family of Five. Snowdrop and I decide the content together (meaning she improves on any idea I come up with) and, too, she contributes to my picture with her own additions and colorings.
We can keep going like this for a long, long time. (Sparrow had enough after about an hour, but was willing to stick with it longer when I shifted to adding apples to his picture. The guy loves counting apples.) There we are: she on my page, me on his, he on his own, me on my own, she on hers. Markers are flying!
Lunch.
Post lunch downtime.
And then I return the kids home. (A reminder -- the young family, like us, is following a strict quarantining, which allows us to cocoon together.)
On my way back to the farmette, I stop to refill the car with gas. Two things of note: first, the price is at $1.14 per gallon. Second -- the fact that no one at the station was wearing a mask. So much for compliance with (admittedly weakly delivered) recommendations.
In the evening, I cook up a pot of vegetable soup with those cannellini beans that are taking up space in the pantry. Someday we will have warm weather again and the idea of hot soup will seem passe. That someday is not today.
My thanks today? Every day it grows. Endlessly grateful to all the people who have to go out to work, feeling a level of stress way over and beyond what we, the stay-at-homes feel. During a recent car ride, Snowdrop and I took turns listing all the essential workers out there. An impressive list of such an impressive group of people.
With love.
This year isn't so extreme, but nor are we sustaining any warm spells. One good day is followed by three or four cool ones. Nothing terribly damaging, but still, you prefer to stay indoors.
On the upside, our flowers, trees, shrubs -- they're racing ahead. They aren't going to be fussing about a nippy 50F (10C). Look at today's bloomers!
(Cheepers, leave the alyssum alone!)
Breakfast.
Both kids come to the farmhouse early. For whatever reason, it is one of their super good play mornings.
After our reading time...
... Snowdrop goes over to the sun room (where I keep the drawing paraphernalia) and sets up an art station. I note she has put in place three chairs.
Lately, we've been drawing together. This is Snowdrop's idea. I am not terrible with a sketch pad, but nor am I particularly talented. I can draw the basics, in that people can more or less tell what I'm getting at. Still, I discovered with my own two kids that little ones really love it when you draw with them. And if you don't try to outperform them -- so much the better! And so, while Snowdrop works on her Super Pigs books and Sparrow practices making circles and squiggles, I work on pages from a Gaga "book" called The Family of Five. Snowdrop and I decide the content together (meaning she improves on any idea I come up with) and, too, she contributes to my picture with her own additions and colorings.
We can keep going like this for a long, long time. (Sparrow had enough after about an hour, but was willing to stick with it longer when I shifted to adding apples to his picture. The guy loves counting apples.) There we are: she on my page, me on his, he on his own, me on my own, she on hers. Markers are flying!
Lunch.
Post lunch downtime.
And then I return the kids home. (A reminder -- the young family, like us, is following a strict quarantining, which allows us to cocoon together.)
On my way back to the farmette, I stop to refill the car with gas. Two things of note: first, the price is at $1.14 per gallon. Second -- the fact that no one at the station was wearing a mask. So much for compliance with (admittedly weakly delivered) recommendations.
In the evening, I cook up a pot of vegetable soup with those cannellini beans that are taking up space in the pantry. Someday we will have warm weather again and the idea of hot soup will seem passe. That someday is not today.
My thanks today? Every day it grows. Endlessly grateful to all the people who have to go out to work, feeling a level of stress way over and beyond what we, the stay-at-homes feel. During a recent car ride, Snowdrop and I took turns listing all the essential workers out there. An impressive list of such an impressive group of people.
With love.
