gardening | Good to be Home

I’ve been enjoying the gardens this spring, more than I ever have. I think it’s because for the first time in almost 2o years I don’t have any children younger than five years old. Although with Seth in my life it is still questionable whether I should turn my back on him…for the most part the children can be trusted to play while I lose myself in the garden for brief periods of time.

I want to fill the house with vases of lilacs.

This is six year old Seth in the stream, peering into the pipe that allows the water to run under the road near our house. He was looking for snake skin. It is common knowledge to the boys that the local snakes use these pipes to pull dead skins off themselves. He counted six of them but after reaching one, he would not get the rest because he also saw a spider.

This morning Seth had a hard time waking up and getting motivated for a day of Kindergarten. He tried the typical “I don’t feel good” but I wasn’t falling for it. I put together his backpack and was quite pleased that I made him a nice lunch and remembered to put the strawberries in his bag for tomorrow’s event. I hung his bag on the doorknob right where he could grab it on his way to the bus. 20 minutes later the bus came…..and what in the??? no backpack to be found–was I going crazy?….I started running around the kitchen as the bus sat and waited. “WHERE is your backpack?” “I don’t know!” “I’ll bring it to you when I find it!” Seth looked at me in shock when I (GENTLY) pushed him out the door. He couldn’t believe that he had to go to school without it. It took some persuading to get him on the bus.

I found the backpack LOCKED IN THE BATHROOM.

I had to drive it to school.

When he gets home I am going to have to talk to him about ~~problem solving, creative thinking~~, telling the truth, responsibility, and the fact that the little trust I had in him is now damaged.

Anyway, back to the snakes. After pocketing the one snake skin that he was able to reach from the pipe, and the two of us talking a lot about how a snake takes it’s skin off like that and whether humans also shed skin (hard to explain), we entered the field not far from our house. I was on a quest to see if the wild rose bush was in bloom.

The wild rose bush was neatly clipped off at the end of each branch (deer?) with no buds to be seen on it (so disappointing) but we did find some wild strawberries.

Little ruby treasures.

There was spit everywhere…..inside of the spit there are little spit bugs to be found…

….they look like this.

water reflections in our pond

the daisies are in bloom

There was a nest was nearby and he did his best to keep me away from it by constant chirping.

This morning I have a cold, Sarah is coughing up a storm, and Ethan is home from school feeling wretched. The entire outdoors is in gloomy suspended animation as we wait and wonder if it will rain. A cool breeze blows through now and then, causing the wind chimes to flutter and play it’s notes.

“He satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.” Psalm 107:9

Guess what I am listening to right now? You’ll never guess so I will tell you.

a hundred, give or take, TOADS.

You see, every spring, toads hop to our property to mate in our two ponds. Part of this mating ritual is the continuous singing and calling sounds that they make to gather each other from hither and yon area lands. The sound is a long sustained high note that falls a half step. Sounds kind of scary, sort of sci-fi. In fact, it makes me tense. I’m trying to enjoy it, though, because it is another sign that spring has in fact arrived.

I’m sitting on my bed with Billy cat grooming himself next to me. My windows are open and gusts of wind blow through, making the wind chimes rattle on the porch. I hung clothes outside on the line for the first time this year.

This weekend was nuts. This was our agenda for Saturday:

1. Take Ethan to SAT’s half an hour away.
2. Target for much needed supplies
3. Doctor’s appointment for Seth, where we learned he had double ear infections and bronchitis.
4. Little League Opening Day for David and Caleb
5. Baseball game for Ethan
6. Pick up prescription at Pharmacy
7. Grace to be at the H.S. at 4
8. Mom and Dad coming from out of town.
9. Go to H.S. for Grace’s play: Tarzan.

And this was just Saturday. Rich and I had to work separately, so he took Ethan to the SAT’s while I did numbers 2, 3, 4, and 7 by myself. No one went to E’s game. Rich was also preparing to preach on Sunday. I went to half of the opening day, and when Rich arrived I left in order to be home to greet Mom and Dad.

David in the parade. (the only player looking at me is my Dave).

And Caleb. It was fun, the weather was great, and thankfully Jacob was home to watch Sarah. I only had to keep track of Seth…who is a special challenge these days because he can hardly hear, what with the ear infections. They aren’t slowing him down any though.

Dad and Mom with my two youngest. I love it. Mom brought me a bunch of perennials from her garden for which I was extremely thankful. Dad played some whiffle ball with the kids outside.

Mom and I

Jacob with his Grandma, who was laughing over the height difference. 🙂

Mom and Dad at the High School.

Sweet Emily and Jacob.

The drama kids performed Tarzan this year. Grace was a gorilla, a spider, and a plant. She also performed sign language for one of the songs. Here is a video of it, but it is important to note that she is not doing the SINGING, only the SIGNING.

I wish it were taped better but this at least gives an idea of the beauty of the song and signing.

They did so well, it was wonderful, I was so proud of them all.

Mom hugging Grace after the show.

Dad and Mom with Grace the Gorilla.

Yesterday was the final performance of Tarzan and I attended it with my brother Isaac and his wife Cassandra.

Meanwhile, I have baby chicks. The post office called on Friday morning at 5:15 am and I went down to get them.

There are 30. And they are so very cute right now. We like to go in the garage and just sit in front of the cage and watch them.

Do you see in the very back of the cage, there is a dangling piece of cardboard paper…little chicks take turns trying to get it off. It’s so cute.

This is what I have:

FIVE each of Barred Plymouth Rock, Rhode Island Red, Brown Leghorn, and Easter Egger. Then, I have NINE Cuckoo Maran, and I am most excited about these because they lay a darker shade of brown than any I’ve owned previously.

Discovered in the woods as I picked up trash this morning.

wildflowers

As I was walking by the edge of the pond I scared a toad (not this one) into the water where a fish promptly grabbed it by the legs and went down deep with it. I gasped as I watched it happen… the poor toad was held by both his back legs, which were half inside the fish’s mouth. It’s little front arms were straight out to the sides with stiff fingers, it was the picture of terror as it was carried away. I watched for a while and it appeared once again with two fish in hot pursuit. I don’t know the ending to the story. I sat by the edge of the pond for a while and also saw a turtle. But the horrors continued when I put my hand in the grass to stand back up. I narrowly missed putting it down on two disemboweled toads! It’s truly a life and death world out there……..

Last but not least, Mom, as I promised I did plant all the plants on Sunday.

This is a little garden Rich made for me a few weeks ago. It was empty and I ordered the animals and flag from amazon. I bought 2 perennials but all the rest were from Mom.