Tuesday

This is when spring weather can turn ugly: pelting rain, with periods of sleet. The snow melts, but patches of slick ice remain. In case you'd like to avoid sliding on one, say because you value your neck and would like to keep bones in working order, you have the option of squishing your shoe instead into wet mud. At the farmette, that mud can run deep. We have no poured asphalt anywhere. Our walkway to the house is made of laid bricks on soft soil. Our driveway starts off with a short stretch of gravel but then rapidly deteriorates into a cover of wood chips which, for the most part, have decomposed, so -- more mud. Ed has promised to take out most of that muddy dirt come spring and replace it with freshly poured chips, but for now, we will have a late winter and an early spring of a heck of a lot of mud.

We are only a few days into February, but it sure does feel like we are moving in the direction of spring. There was a significant melting of the snow base overnight (with periods of rain) and this process will continue all week. I mean, I like early spring, but honestly, all this seems a little premature. 

(morning walk: oh, hi girls! back to leaving droppings our walkway, are you?)

Still, the smell of wet soil is potent and the markers of early spring are never anything but grand. The animals are happy. I'm happy.

But breakfast is quick and squeezed in between two long Zoom meetings that keep Ed busy from before sunrise until noon. 

I do house chores. Believe me, there are many.

In the afternoon, Snowdrop is here, briefly.

We get so lost in our book that I have us panting to make up the time afterwards to get ready for ballet. It is infuriatingly disconcerting not to know how the story will unfold and Snowdrop and I spend the car ride to ballet speculating what ending to the family saga would be appropriate. (There are five books in the series and so it will be a while before we find out.) We are not allowed to cheat and look ahead, though we can give ourselves hints by peaking at the back covers. She peaked at one, I "innocently glanced" at another and so between the two of us we have hints and then plenty of imagination to take the story in wild directions.

Ballet class: putting on her ballet slippers as only a young kid can do it -- in midair.

I have been watching kids do ballet for more than 15 years. Typically I track daughters' and now grandkids' progress with some care. But Covid interrupted that. First dancing was interrupted, then, when it resumed, the waiting room with the one-way  viewing window was too crowded, so I retreated. I'm still a bit in retreat. I spend most of the time on a bench in a hallway reading. But today I peeked and I had my camera and so I'll include two pics from class. I'll say this much -- Snowdrop surely looks serious about whatever it is that she is reenacting. 

Evening: Ed and I eat eggs (there are so many! the Bresse girls are such solid layers, even in the winter!) and then catch up on news of the day, wishing there was some way to make easier the lives of those in the Ukraine, in Turkey, in Syria. All we can do is take out our credit cards and keep giving. Places that I found easy to work with today: Oxfam (works with local partner organizations providing water, food, shelter and eventually reconstruction), and GlobalGiving (medicine, food, shelter, mental health support). 

With love...