100% rain

And again the weather forecast sets the morning activities for us. I read that by late morning we will for sure have rain. 100% sure. Well this is perfect: I'll seed the patches in the new orchard just before the rains come and then thank the clouds for sprinkling the planted soil with showers. That's the plan.

But three events messed with these good intentions. First, I had not given the new orchard wild flower patches (I don't count them as flower beds) much attention and so I had not noticed that they were completely overgrown with quack grass, dandelions and who knows what else. Out come the weed buckets, out comes the shovel. I set to work. Lots of digging in very saturated soil. Tedious work.

Now comes the second interference: the cheepers find me and delight in my shovel work. The wet soil unearths plenty of good bugs for them. Yummy.

That's fine, but the cheeper presence is most unwelcome when the time comes to sow the seeds. (And there are seeds I can put in now, even as we are not yet past our frost date). Their scratching and eating will undo all my work. Cheepers! 

(daffodils du jour...)

And here's another thing worthy of an eye roll: that 100% certainty? Can it be retracted? The pouting clouds are there, but the rains hold back. 

That's okay. It will rain. I'm as sure as anything. In go the seeds. And only then are we ready for breakfast. And so we sit down to our "morning" meal...

... just as the mob arrives for Saturday lunch!

Because there is that threat of rain (I felt a drop! Me too! Not me! Ah well...), we don't stay out long. A brief romp -- she climbs the tree...

(he wishes he could...)

(she comes down, he's happy with that...)

... then in we go. I'd say the orange couch was very popular on this soggy and yes, eventually rainy day!

Snowdrop discovered that she could quickly type in messages on her mom's phone (guess what! I typed in S and my name popped up immediately! And L brought up love!) and she occupied herself with this for a while. Sparrow (I'm sure) wished he could do the same.

A rainy day is also good for art and Snowdrop returned to her super pig sketches, while Sparrow concentrated on trying to do a picture of a baby. To his dismay, babies proved to be a difficult subject. 

We let Unie out for a brief romp, but she is now too big and too fast to be let loose in the house.

Sorry girls. We'll all have to wait for better weather before I can put you outside. 

The young family leaves, I reach for my kindle and lose myself in a story set in a place where I would like to visit for real, even as I know that's not going to happen anytime soon.