Monday

One good way to start the week: have breakfast with a good friend, first thing! Well, after feeding the animals.

(No great pics today, but hey, I'm teaching myself not to erase. My new strategy: never press delete until you say the magic words. And never say the magic words until you have checked that everything is uploaded safely onto your computer.)

Not especially stunning, but very much Novemberish:

My friend Barbara is in town and we have a very long breakfast together at Madison Sourdough. The sun streams in, the pastries are perfect, the morning hours slip away in animated sharing...

Honestly, I can't imagine a finer set of early day hours. And mind you, we are in for an Arctic blast this week, so we need to tuck in all the warm glow we can get. Friends do that for you -- they wrap you in a blanket of sweetness. The almond croissants are just icing to an already delicious cake.

In the afternoon, Snowdrop is at the farmhouse. School is closed today (again!) and so she comes straight from home, not as tired, not as hungry as on school days, but equally eager to repeat favorite routines: outdoor run, indoor read, play.

And very quickly the day fades into dusk, then evening. I return the girl, and head back home to the cats, the chickens, Ed. With so much love...