the season of OUT

We are officially into the season that sends us out and out and out...the laundry, the dishes, the cooking, the beds....ech, who has time?!?!?! All the girls want is out, so we do our best to balance that with everything else...It's meant bike riding to the garden to swing and plant and read our first Herb Fairy book (hm - there is no direct link to this anymore, but these are the folks who wrote them - more on those later).

small visitor on the page

It's meant hiking in the woods. For a bit. And then turning around because the poison ivy was just way too daunting, encroaching on the path and finally blocking it completely. Bummer.

Sassafrass

(A woman asked if Eliza were a hari krishna.  Funny, it was a woman who followed krishna who gave her this wrap she was wearing! She looked joyous and beautiful out on the trail.)

mating gold-backed snipe flies

tiger swallowtails enjoying the minerals from some bird poop. mmmmm.

trash. we left with a large bagful of cans and plastic. ugh.

 And of course every day has been peppered with "can we go swimming? how about a swim? when are we going swimming??"  So far our swimming has been impromptu - as in in their unders 'cause we didn't bring the swim bag  - and I realized that I am waiting for the sea of students to leave before committing to swimming season.  It's just not very pleasant (12 games of frisbee and football, large bodies launching themselves erratically about the beach, mug of booze in one hand, the other outstretched for a catch, cigarettes, lots of posing and posturing and conversations I'd rather my kids not listen to - kinda get the picture??), and I feel grinchy for not wanting to take them, but it'll just be another couple of weeks before they're all gone and the beaches are more or less ours again.

This worked the other night, though, and I heard Eliza continue to marvel at how a written note had brought about results.  I'm a sucker for a well-timed note.