Friday

Gardeners of the world will agree that what we have here today is totally unfair: The brief cloudburst yesterday did not give enough water to the roots of my plants to keep them healthy and strong, but it did provide enough moisture to the top layer of soil to sprout some new weeds. In vast quantities. (So guess what I did immediately after my morning walk to feed the animals?!) Too, I always hope that a thunder shower will clear the air and lower the temperatures. It did. Yesterday. For about an hour. Today, we're in the thick of the heat wave again, with another near record high in the low 90sF (so 33 or 34C) and with no sustained rainfall in sight. I hear El Niño is in part to blame. It's a tough spring season for new plants!

Here, at the farmette, we're still being hounded at night by raccoons. So far we've kept them away from the hens, but it's been dicey over there in the barn. Why this uptick in predators? Maybe it's the new development. Or maybe raccoons are well aware of the quality of Bresse chicken meat! They haven't caught any of the Bresse girls yet, but not for want of trying!

Still, these rural life tribulations notwithstanding, it is a beautiful morning.

(Unie, barely visible, using the path through the newer, the one and only sun-filled flower field!)

(I love this Meadow Rue, though I admit it's lost in the Big Bed. I feel it's more of a meadow flower, or something you'd find in a damp partly shady garden. Still, it comes back with its delicate flowers each June and it takes my breath away!)

With breakfast on the porch. We eat pie. Not my own -- it's from the bakery that gets our donations of rhubarb. Don't you think that strawberry rhubarb pie is a great breakfast indulgence?

I do go for a short walk somewhere around the horribly hot noon hour, just to keep that leg actively engaged, but I'm equally happy to do some work inside the cool old farmhouse. I did a hard pause with weeding when the deer flies came out. They're a June bug that scores high on the annoyance meter. Buzz buzz buzz bite. I dislike them even more than I dislike mosquitoes because they're expert evaders of your futilely waving hand. 

Ed says the flower fields are looking strong, so my weekend watering marathon did help. Let's hope I don't have to repeat it again later this month!

In the afternoon, Snowdrop is here. I ask her if she "cherished" her last Friday of school.

Yes! Best Friday ever! Happiest and saddest, all at the same time! (On top of it all, it was a fun "mismatch day," hence the shoe pairing.)

Later, in the car, she and I talk about how her future may play out. Already Snowdrop feels the nostalgia of a childhood speeding by, as she imagines herself to be soon in Middle School and yes, even High School. I read recently that kids of this generation aren't in a hurry to grow up. I think that's true for her as well: children have fewer worries than adults and she, like so many others, recognizes that, even without having a full understanding of all that adults worry about. Oh, may that joy of the everyday last well into her senior years! I'd wish that for every child who intuitively, at a young age, knows how to be silly and how to smile through all the inevitable disappointments. May those gifts stay forever with them, with her!

(the "secret path" from the driveway to the farmhouse door that the kids love to use and that the adults never use...)