sproing!

Yes, that is GARLIC, coming up in our tiny front "yarden" as Ani calls it!! WAHOOO!! It's really happening, people; spring has come again!  We celebrated the warmth and promise in the air with a couple of juicy walks...these photos are from yesterday's venture into the woods at Fox Lake, in search of the first of spring's wildflowers...

We were not disappointed - hepatica everywhere.  So beautiful.

It was a walk that expanded our better selves, full of happy chatter and content silence.  Eliza wandered ahead, alone, while Ani hung back with me, talking about everything she saw and thought.  I never knew I could find hepatica before, but now that I see it, I know it!

Lunch - sandwiches, spring green soup, dates - on "our" log, serenaded by every woodpecker in the forest.  (E's been low this week with a cold.  She found comfy spots along the way to rest, enjoying the fresh air, and the sun.)

Mama, I'm going to be a scientist that studies plants - a botanist - and a scientist that studies mosses, and probably a poet and I'll also be a scuptor sometimes.  I just love moss! There are so many different kinds! Just give me a rock with moss on it and I'll be happy for hours...

Her exuberance. Her certainty. Her joyful declarations...I love these things about her so much.

Spring Beauty!

This love was content to sit and draw the characters from Frozen which we just (finally) saw. They can already recite every word.

Replenished.

Fowler's Toad

Happy Spring! 

(I know, it really happened over a week ago, but these things in real-time take time, dontcha know...)