So we're rolling in summer once again. You know how rains often clear away hot humid weather and usher in a cool spell? Well they did the opposite. Yesterday's storms chased away the brisk cool air and today we are back with the heat.
It's summer at the farmette.
But not yet July and so the garden still waits to really open up. (There's a reason why in past years I always took my travel break in the last weeks of June, coming back just in time for the flower power of July.)
(the sweet peas are just beginning to bloom)
I have the usual set of activities today: farmette chores, kids, food washing, file deleting on my overcrowded computer. But I do have a resolve: to get to Ocean writing earlier than in the past few days. Yesterday I did not finish until right about midnight and I did not have time to do a quick re-check this morning. As a result, I managed to bungle a paragraph and two photos and they sat there in a sorry state until I had the time late today to fix it.
I will try to do better.
Even as there is so much to do!
Let's start the day together with breakfast.
From there it's just a hop and a skip to the kids' arrival.
Our time outside is modest. The mosquitoes are starting to appear in the shade and the trucks are rumbling loudly on the plot of land next door that is supposed to be someday converted to community gardens. Sparrow thinks it's too noisy.
We go inside.
As we work through our Summer School program (loosely, very loosely), I think about how the kids are growing up quickly and how old worries seem so dated and new challenges are forever cropping up, only to fizzle the next day, or next month, or next year.
Today, for instance, I notice that Snowdrop is unreasonably hard on herself when she draws. She has a vision. If the execution isn't up to snuff, she is despondent. Sparrow, on the other hand, has grown tired of running a marker back and forth across a page and way prefers these days to read a book than to slump over a blank piece of paper with a marker in hand.
Art class is very brief.
But the kids are bouncy and playful and Snowdrop has returned to making up games with her dolls and so Sparrow, too, will follow along and there is this cooperation now that grew out of many months of struggling to find a way to play side by side.
(farmette cherries make great earrings!)
Later, much later, in the early evening, Ed and I walk over to the plot of land just across the road from us. Much of it has been handed over for conservation as well as for educational farming.
It is like a painting right now. Stunning.
We return home to our evening chores, to animals clamoring for food and attention, to leftovers for supper and a quiet evening on the couch. So quiet that Ed falls asleep even before we're done with the night's episode of Stewart and Bailey.
It's summer at the farmette.
But not yet July and so the garden still waits to really open up. (There's a reason why in past years I always took my travel break in the last weeks of June, coming back just in time for the flower power of July.)
(the sweet peas are just beginning to bloom)
I have the usual set of activities today: farmette chores, kids, food washing, file deleting on my overcrowded computer. But I do have a resolve: to get to Ocean writing earlier than in the past few days. Yesterday I did not finish until right about midnight and I did not have time to do a quick re-check this morning. As a result, I managed to bungle a paragraph and two photos and they sat there in a sorry state until I had the time late today to fix it.
I will try to do better.
Even as there is so much to do!
Let's start the day together with breakfast.
From there it's just a hop and a skip to the kids' arrival.
Our time outside is modest. The mosquitoes are starting to appear in the shade and the trucks are rumbling loudly on the plot of land next door that is supposed to be someday converted to community gardens. Sparrow thinks it's too noisy.
We go inside.
As we work through our Summer School program (loosely, very loosely), I think about how the kids are growing up quickly and how old worries seem so dated and new challenges are forever cropping up, only to fizzle the next day, or next month, or next year.
Today, for instance, I notice that Snowdrop is unreasonably hard on herself when she draws. She has a vision. If the execution isn't up to snuff, she is despondent. Sparrow, on the other hand, has grown tired of running a marker back and forth across a page and way prefers these days to read a book than to slump over a blank piece of paper with a marker in hand.
Art class is very brief.
But the kids are bouncy and playful and Snowdrop has returned to making up games with her dolls and so Sparrow, too, will follow along and there is this cooperation now that grew out of many months of struggling to find a way to play side by side.
(farmette cherries make great earrings!)
Later, much later, in the early evening, Ed and I walk over to the plot of land just across the road from us. Much of it has been handed over for conservation as well as for educational farming.
It is like a painting right now. Stunning.
We return home to our evening chores, to animals clamoring for food and attention, to leftovers for supper and a quiet evening on the couch. So quiet that Ed falls asleep even before we're done with the night's episode of Stewart and Bailey.
