bits

It's raining again - I can hear the slosh of cars going by on the street, the sound of it running down the spouts - but there is a promise of finer weather coming.  Our quiet day this week was Thursday, and this is what it looked like from here...

Dan came downstairs in the morning to the cats chasing a mouse, which got Eliza worked up to catch it herself so she could make a pet of it, which led to a basement search with flashlight, garden gloves and the mouse's new plastic home...no luck. Settled for researching "pet wild mice" on the computer.  Apparently there is a right age to catch a wild mouse to keep as a pet: somewhere in the minutes between newborn, no hair, and furry but eyes still closed.  Sounds like a pretty small window to me...

(If she looks frustrated, it's 'cause she was...)

Outside beckoned....Ani found the ladder the workmen had left in the backyard and discovered that she is quite brave enough to climb it to the lower roof.

To the garden then, to see what survived in our absence.  Garlic, kale, spinach, onions..we planted lettuce, beets and carrots...it felt so good to be out there, the girls digging their toes into the dirt, the sun heating up our hair and backs.

We are definitely experiencing a rough transition home from our trip. Not as bad as the transitions used to be when Eliza was younger, but high emotions, lots of bickering, scowling and chin-thrusting...When I brought up the various summer camps that are happening around here in the next few months, Eliza said, Mama, I just want to be with my family and my friends. Doing whatever we want to do. Can we do that this summer?  I forget that she needs a large amount of downtime still, as do I, to feel grounded.  We are all looking forward to farm school ending in a couple of weeks, to having stretches of time that is open for us to fill...