hump day nuggets: little bits of the season in photos and words about the last week
Did you know that milk chocolate covered raisins, red wine and a hot, quiet shower can be the most delicious dessert in the universe? Me neither. But it’s true when that’s what you’ve got. Heaven, I tell you.
Kids in bed late and it’s still light out. Birds are chatting outside and neighbors continue to walk by as if it’s just post-work when it’s really 10pm. My feet are filthy and the back door is just always open even though we still don’t have a screened door and, after six years, I’m thinking we won’t ever. So we live with flies, bees, an occasional chicken and muddy dog prints on the floor. Big whoop.
Summer.
Yeah, I know it could still snow and it will most def pour icy rain and all over my garden starts and beg for the thickest sweaters again. But, it’s June. And, in June, things leap for the sun in western Montana. Perennials wake up and stretch their limbs. People start to need things like rhubarb pie, sun-warmed spinach and spicy radish. We remember last year at this time when kids were a year younger, the peas were planted sooner and the beets later.
nuggets.
:: Oh how I love the river running through our town that is most famous for a river running through it.
I am thankful my daughters know rivers, notice high water, swim with beavers.
Every time Margot sees the Clark Fork, she says, mama, you want to swim with me? Yes, baby, I do. Let’s just let the melted snow warm a little bit…
:: And oh how I love spinach and beets and all the stuff that grows from nothing but a dried up kernel and some love.
:: And oh how I love that last Saturday we spent the morning at our friends’ house for a placenta celebration and the the afternoon at another friend’s buddhist ordination. And it was all within biking distance from our home.
:: And oh how I love gardening with my girls. How Margot begs to dig dirt every morning though her sleepy voice and Ruby is happy as a worm in a compost pile to just be outside.
:: And oh how I love having coffee with this every morning:
:: And oh how I love that four new little hen souls are healing our broken hearts. And, cheering our Paige right up. No eggs yet (anyone know how long it might be before she lays again?) but she adores her new coop mates who are nameless. Well, one has a name. Peanut because she is one.
^^^ Margot really wants to name this chicken ’16 Months.’ She kinda insists on it. And I have made her repeat it a number of times to be certain that is indeed what she is saying. And, yes, 16 Months. It just doesn’t seem very henny to me. I want to name her Honey because her comb is honey colored. Honey seems henny.
^^^ Plymouth Barred Rocks (name?)
^^^ The other Rhode Island Red on the left (name?) and Peanut, a fluffy little Silver Wyandotte on the right.
:: And how I love sisterly underdogs, big pink sunglasses and bonnets at a park where we’re the only ones and then an entire school arrives and I’m that mom…the mom who is staring, thinking kids these days. Shorts too short, faces too done up. As I sit there nursing Ruby and answering Margot’s every question. What are those kid doin’ mama? That girl sad? That guy have an owie? They play rough, those tweens.
:: And oh how I love that we walk two blocks to our polling place that is also the elementary school my kids will attend. And the trip there and back takes over an hour because we bump into all of our neighbors and none of them are in a hurry and all of them are so happy and chatty.
:: And oh how I love Margot Bea.
:: And oh how I love Ruby Jane.
:: And oh how I love their love.
The seasons are a continual and unforgiving measurement of time. And oh how I love it all.
Well, goodness, that turned into a sappy post. With all those oh how I loves all over the place. But, sometimes, I’m sappy. Actually, often I am. Especially when the seasons change. When events and feelings, remembered by the weather and clothes worn are only memorialized in thought (and on mama’s blog!).
