Thursday

Well, I was supposed to go to Chicago today for a visit with daughter and grandkids, but that got derailed, so here I am, on this perfectly gorgeous September day, enjoying the sunshine and the quiet of the farmhouse.

Good morning, animals! Good morning September flower beds!

Ed, having fixed the furnace yesterday (it was the micro switch on the air pressure sensor -- it seemed to have developed a nonconductive film over the summer), is ready to attack the leaky shower pipe. After our breakfast moment.

This leak has had our kitchen ceiling dripping down water for months! Not anymore. Late in the morning, he proclaimed the pipe to be refitted, sealed, and moisture free!

And immediately after, we set out on our bikes for Stoneman's farm. They have corn today, and as you know, we love their corn. 

We asked how much of their crop was lost to the drought. They estimate that they're getting this year about 20% of their regular yield. What a bummer! On the good side -- their season is extended now and we can expect one more haul after this. Our freezer will be humming away happily with several freezer bags of kernels for winter cooking.

Naturally, I allocate time to take those kernels off quickly and freeze them now, while hot off the fields. 

And I allocate time for ballet.

And then it's pick up time. Just Snowdrop today. Don't ask. Our plans are still in a flux.

She'd been asking for a visit to the Chocolate Shoppe (an ice cream place nearby) and the weather seems just right for it.

(She's thinking about what new ice cream flavors might win the "name a new flavor" contest they're sponsoring. We entered her idea!)

From there it's home, for a replay of countless afternoons of years past: lots of uninterrupted reading, some play, some discussion of important things like...whether a daughter of a cousin's child on her father's side is the same relation to her as a daughter of my sister's son. (It is!)

The day flew by.

Just as the sun gets close to the horizon, Ed and I pull weeds. He wants to plant next year's garlic patch (you do that in the fall), I just need to get those flower beds cleaned up.

And in the evening, for the first time in a long long time, we no longer listen to the drip drip drip of water leaking from the kitchen ceiling into a bowl. Heavenly quiet!