a trip to the sea while the biggest man was away…  Always welcome, always grateful.

and to return to spring, real spring, was the most welcome of all

We spent almost all our hours entirely outdoors this past weekend; Sunburns to prove it.  The first bright, warm days of the season remind me how important those hats really are…  Oh these growing bodies and heads… I just can’t keep up.  Our roto-tiller was only working in fifteen second increments so we turned over the soil with a cultivator and shovel, turning in a winters worth of chicken coop towers.  I worried a bit about fly larvae perhaps eating up our tender greens one day… but I raked and mounded regardless, not knowing what other choice I had.  The sweaty baby stuck to my back enjoyed the rhythm of it all, and the wild playing boys piling rocks were quite entertained as well.   We flagged out the new bed to be placed in the sunny front pasture.  We stayed up late drinking beer and making terrible jokes while trying to discuss the different varieties of blueberries we wanted to plant, but mostly making terrible jokes.  Then woke up and did it all over again.  A few of the perennial beds were tamed, after last years chaos of the newly born Jasper we let it all go by the wayside. Crocus and daffodil stalks, poppy and tulip leaves, sorrel and thyme, all unearthed reminding us of the green this countryside brings us.  Finally, preparations for a possibly overwhelming number of baby chicks were made just as the sun was going down.  A full, warm weekend.  The first of the season, the first of many!