feels like July, only without the bugs

 Clearly our blood hasn't yet hit the summer reset: it feels so toasty warm outside! Dare I say it? Too warm! I do some work in a sunny flower bed, then check the thermometer to affirm my right to feel like I've just been sizzled over a campfire. 80F (26.5C). Seriously? That's it? We are expecting it to crank up to near 90F (32C) by the weekend. How did we get so quickly from "too cold to eat on the porch" to "maybe we should bring up the fan from the basement...?"

(morning walk)

Wait a minute. If it's already warm in the morning, would this be a fine day to reenter cafe life? Shouldn't we go to Finca? (On the terrace of course. We're not brave enough to enjoy a coffee moment indoors.)

Ed is agreeable. I am excited! I loved our leisurely hours at this local cafe run by lovely people who happen to bring in incredible coffee (and food ideas) from El Salvador.

It's a two minute drive for us. As we pull up, we notice that there are only five tables outside and only two empty ones are in the shade. Inside, it's so very familiar, so genuinely friendly and warm in the cheerful and welcoming meaning of the word. I note that they no longer carry croissants. I suppose that makes sense. I'm sure they're struggling. Why sell someone else's baked product. 

And then, in the two minutes that we're standing there, the two shaded tables fill and suddenly we're at a loss. Should we come back another day? 

We pick up a couple of sweet cheese quesadillas (they're like a Salvadoran pound cake) and head back to the farmhouse. I suppose you could say that our first return to cafe life was a bust. That we can't move ourselves from our own sheltered environment. But you would be wrong: we tried, after all. It's just that on this warm, too warm day, our own shady porch seemed so much preferable for a leisurely morning meal. With the quesadillas of course.

I worked a little in the flower beds, but I stopped in midstream to Zoom with my Polish friends. It was a superb excuse to get myself out of the sun, though the whole lot of them had little sympathy for my hot weather gripes. Poland and indeed much of northern Europe has had an unusually cool spring. I am in shorts (funky ones at that and not at all discreetly long as would be appropriate for a grandma), they are in sweaters. That tells you something.

In the evening Ed goes out on his bike ride and me, well, I do something that again I haven't done for quite a while, though for reasons having nothing to do with Covid: I go for a walk in our local county park. (We've been way too busy working the land to do any hiking this spring!) Oh, the familiar drive, with the sightings of the magnificent cranes...

 

And the deer staring right back at you...

 

Two months have passed since we've come to these favorite local trails. Time to see the forest with its young canopy of shade.

I think of it as a place that brought us the peace we needed during the tougher times of this past year. I suppose today I gave it my own small thanks. 

With love.