spirited Tuesday

We all have our own definition of challenge, spirit, drive. And we update it over time. Ed would say I tame mine by the day.

True, I am not the kind of Pole who wants to conquer the impossible. (I write that having just finished reading this article on the Polish climbers who will be the first to attempt a climb up the world's toughest mountain. In the winter.) But I do love a spirited day. And so this day ranks high for me: everyone around me was in good form and I found that mood to be wonderfully contagious!

Even though it was a damp and rather cool morning.

Ah, but the lilac looks especially luminous after a rainfall! That sag of the wet clumps of flowers just takes my breath away!






Of course, we eat in the kitchen. (Some of the lilac blooms have made it to the kitchen table.)






With front row seats to this (the spring trilogy -- apple blossoms, lilac and daffodils):






And when I pick up Snowdrop at school, I can tell she is in fine form! Yes, she needs a bite to eat. We pause at the coffee shop. She takes in her surroundings.

What's that in the window? 
I don't know, little one. Maybe a sled? No? Maybe a dollhouse -- I tease her. It's not a dollhouse and she knows it. She laughs.






After a bite to eat, she is eager to go.






And instead of resting in the stroller, she tells me she wants to help push it. All the way to the distant car. Chatting her heart out the whole way long. (Grandma and I, we're pushing the stroller. All the way to my school! Look, there is the mail carrier! And a black car. What's in that car? And there is my friend from school with her mommy! Can I pick the blue flower?)






At the farmette, I cannot let her play in the sandbox. It's just too cool to sit in damp sand right now. But Snowdrop is easily distracted.






She sees me sweeping.
I want to do that!
I have to sweep up the chicken poop from the walkway.
I'm sweeping the chicken poop!






Mission accomplished. We head inside.






Everything makes her happy! Fruit? What kind? Mango? Cherries? Yummy!






Playtime is shorter than she would like it... (I have two babies!)






And it is tough to be firm about naps when she is so in love with everything. Never mind. It will all be here when you wake up.


It's nice to know this, isn't it? If you can't get to it today, it will still be here tomorrow. Excited about the possibilities -- that, to me, is the best way to face another day. 

sandy Monday

I suppose I could fret about the fact that it is too cool in the morning to eat breakfast on the porch.

(Scotch, our oldest hen, doesn't mind cool temps in the slightest. Her breakfast this morning: a few flower petals, many bugs and a stale remanent of a croissant.)






But really, that would be picky and ungrateful. It's another gorgeous day here, on the farmette and the lilacs are adding spice to the already heady mixture of sweet fragrances.






And the crab apples wont give up their sublime performance!






We eat in the kitchen, to take in the prettiness of it all.






And immediately after, we work on improving the edges of the front flower field.


It's getting close to noon. I'm a little apprehensive about picking up Snowdrop at school, because I know that for reasons of travel and visits and such, the girl is coasting today on too little sleep. But the good weather helps us out. A quiet stroller walk, a few minutes in her favorite playground swing...






...and a few bites of a snack help keep her spirits high.

Then of course there is the promise of a surprise at the farmette. I tell her that ahah built it for her. She understands that to mean that it must be something in the sheep shed. She makes a dash for it.






No little one, no! Come back here! It's in the yard.

Ah, the much discussed, disputed sandbox!

She is greatly surprised to see it. All yellow and white, just like the farmhouse! All yours, Snowdrop!

You'd think that she never have anything in her life that was "all hers!" Or that she hadn't had the opportunity to run her hand through the fine crystals of sand before. She is absolutely tickled to see it.

I start off by giving her a couple of John Deere toy trucks. She likes them...






... but they get ignored once I introduce the tea and cake molds (for sand play).






I had been a bit concerned that the cheepers would want to jump in and scratch sand, but to my great relief, they think the whole sand project is a bit silly.






When Ed joins her in building molds and sculpting who knows what, her joy is complete.






She does seem to like it... he tells me.






Yes, I have a very hard time getting her back indoors. Thank goodness for chopped fruits and croissants. And Duplo characters.






After her nap, Snowdrop just wants quiet time. Like reading the equivalent of a comic book with ahah.






When her parents come to pick her up, she wants so much to show them her sandbox. I catch them walking back. Snowdrop with parents. Crab apple and lilacs.

dreamy day, with the most beautiful array of spring blooms and fragrances and plenty of warming sunshine

The title of today's post says it all. I need write nothing more.

Just a couple of sentences, by way of explanation: a slightly chilly morning kept us indoors for breakfast (ed: why don't we eat at the kitchen table so we stare at the most beautiful blooming tree in the world? Okay!).





But after that, I stay outside the entire day to work in the gardens. Every time I looked up, bits of farmette scenery would appear and I paused in my work to take it in. Occasionally, I would reach for my camera (I hang it on a crinkly willow branch).  You've seen most every scrap of this land before, but today it is all so exquisite, so full of radiance and joy that I had to include it in the record of this day.

So, here are my camera grabs and shoots:



















(This is the time that the woodland garden, to the east of the farmhouse walkway, is at its finest.)






The purple lilac jumps in just as the crabs are peaking.












The farmhouse, framed by both. Oh, the sweet sweet smell of spring at the farmette!






The young family is away for the day and so Ed and I are eating alone, but there is a celebratory mood at the farmhouse. You know -- the weather, the flowers, the progress on the sandbox (he's making a see through cover for it as I write), and the 66-34 results in France -- all this surely calls for my mixing up a celebratory bubbly cocktail tonight. To beauty, to reason, to a calmer, saner future for us all.

Saturday

How grand it would be for all if we could just will away all our large and small aches and pains! The weekend promises beautiful weather and I want to work outside, so back pain -- be gone! Poof!

Miraculously, except for a few whispered, tiny reminders, I woke up to a more or less normal state. The back ache recognized my need to move ahead with yard work today. How good is that!

Morning walk through the garden to see what's what...







The chickens accompany me...






Breakfast!





And then we have a somewhat shortened walk around the Farmers Market. Snowdrop so wanted her own flower, that I splurged.






A brief hide and seek game...






... and then I part ways with the young family.


And most of the remaining daylight hours I spend in the gardens of the farmette. Yes, with the cheepers following my every move. (They are convinced that there is no greater purpose to life than to unearth worms and so surely I must be in pursuit of just that.)





In the meantime, Ed has begun the project of building a sandbox.

It took him FOREVER to come up with a design that would make use of existing resources: odd boards, plywood sheets and strips of wood that he stacks in the garage, and paint, left over from our farmhouse remodeling project. The usual Ed, piecing together something out of nothing.






By evening, the structure is ready for a paint job: yellow with white trim. Just like the farmhouse!






The cheepers don't get our fascination with this sandbox. They retire to a supper en plein air, underneath the fiercely blooming crab apples.






A good day, don't you think? Yes, a good day. And so I read with a half-smile the article in the NYTimes that talks of the content on social media: the authors claim that the good, the wondrous, the perfect stuff posted on social media (FaceBook, to be precise) simply makes readers feel miserable about their own lives. As in -- why isn't my husband be perfect and why don't we ever take these fantastic Caribbean vacations?

Ocean isn't social media, but there are similarities. And the suggestion is that postings that do not present the miserable side of life make those who suffer feel more alone.

Well maybe. On the other hand, when, in the past, everything for me seemed to be unraveling,  reading stuff where people had similar tragedies and poor outcomes made me feel worse rather than vindicated.

Choice is a wonderful thing: you can hide from content that makes you cringe and you can reread anything out there that gives you a chuckle.

I can only hope that Ocean gives you that occasional chuckle. One that comes straight from the belly.

In the alternative, a gentle smile will do. It's grand to find reasons to smile. Maybe reading a post here can push you now and then toward that grin. If even one person is made better, calmer, happier by some anecdote he or she will have read here, well then, the time I spend on writing posts will be time not wasted.

Happy weekend to all!

Friday

Such days come only in May! The world's a riot of blooms and fragrances, the sunshine is still gentle and the greens of new growth are young and innocent.






(And those crabs! In the wee hours of the morning...)






It takes my a while to limber up today (oh that back! -- as Snowdrop would say), but once I do, I try to plunge back into a normal rhythm. I can't quite dig and plant, but I can certainly admire the garden.

And fix breakfast -- in the sun room!






And I can grocery shop. (I must be moving with a bit of stiffness, as the clerk asks -- Do you need help taking the bags to the car? Yes!)

And I can pick up Snowdrop. They are finishing a picnic in the playground when I arrive. She proudly shows me where there is a "library box" of books.






Anxious to head out adventuring!






Then home to the farmette. Ed is (finally!) mowing and she runs happily to greet him, but as she gets closer, the noise of the mower puts her off...






Do you want a ride?
No! It's too loud!

We look at the tomatoes instead.






Ed takes a pause (possibly because he does not like mowing) and she runs up to him with pinwheels twirling!






Inside, they settle down to read. Snowdrop knows this particular book like the back of her hand, but she still treats it as quite the dramatic story.






And outside, the birds sing, the bees buzz and the flowers would make the sternest person's heart sing!

Yeah, only in May!

Post nap vignettes:

An appreciative look at the tulips that are coming despite the inital chomp down by local animals.






The post-nap little one, wanting to sweep.






Watering: a tad hastily, but with great respect for each pot.






What[s this?
Boards. Ahah will be making you a sandbox.
Where is the sand??
In the store. We'll buy it soon.
Now? Can we go to the store now?
First ahah has to build the sandbox.
Can I help? I will build it too!






In the end, she had to be pulled away from her dream of an immediately ready sandbox. Oh, the turmoil this one square piece of nothing has triggered!

In fact, though, it's a non issue. There will be sand in a box, there will be other dreams and days of grand weather. There will be flowers. There will be love.

(A combo that sort of reminds me of the Polish flag...)






So much beauty! Almost impossible to take it all in. Sometimes you worry that May offers too much. But mostly, you're just so happy to be in the thick of spring again.