there was a little girl

Who had a little curl.

Well, not in the middle of her forehead, but right at the nape of that kissable neck. She has, suddenly, gotten so tall and grown up it seems. Not too grown up for cuddles, but still...

Every time I see that curl I want to run over and kiss her. In fact, most of the time. That's just what I do.

chicks and bees

It occurred to me yesterday afternoon, as I stood in a grubbier than normal barnyard wearing my new summer tunic (finished that morning because I can't seem to sleep in, even on Mother's Day), my best wool pants and my favorite strappy heels picking out chickens that, in our 17 years together, Will's best surprises have all been marked by me being inappropriately dressed for the situation.

There was that time in college when he woke me up before dawn, handed me a backpack and talked me into walking halfway across Eugene in my Pajamas to surprise me with a train trip to Seattle. In my pajamas.

Or there was the night he proposed to me while I was wearing a pair of his old jeans held up with a rope belt and my oldest, grubbiest sweater because I thought we were going crabbing. Actually,w e did go crabbing, but only after the proposal.

And then yesterday, when he and the kids plotted to surprise me with chickens for Mother's Day.

All awesome, wonderful, totally perfect for me surprises. The inappropriate dress is just part of the game I think.

We have had a very busy weekend here at our house. Or gosh, maybe I should start calling it a farm, the way we're going. Bees and chicks and hens and a finished (barely in the nick of time) coop and progress on the garden and lots of hand drawn cards from my sweet babes. The bees arrived safe and sounds, although half a day late so that we rushed to get them in before the sun went down. The only hiccup in transferring them to their new home was me forgetting to change my shoes from sandals (another instance of inappropriate dress, clearly it's me) and getting a wee little sting on one foot when I stepped on a bee. My fault entirely. Otherwise they were gentle and well mannered and much more interested in bumming around together and eating than what I was doing. I did order Italian bees for a reason. This morning I opened the hive again to check that the queen had escaped her cage, which she had. I did not manage to spot her but the bees were busy building comb and were clumped around one spot so I imagine she was in there being pampered.

The chicks, three Buff Orpington named Rose, Dorothy and Blanch, aka "The Golden Girls" and two Americanas named Feather and Princess Leia, are safely ensconced under a heat lamp in our bathroom, peeping their little hearts out and their elderly sisters, two adult Barred Rocks who are a little camera shy but are named Henny Penny and Minerva Louise are whooping it up in the coop from the sound of their clucking this morning. Hopefully we'll have a few eggs by nightfall.

So, whew, busy. And lovely. And perfect.

a little nervous

 

I've wanted bees for years. Honestly, I'm not exaggerating, years. I think I took my beekeeping class three years ago, and at that point I was SERIOUS about bees. But for as long as I can remember, the beekeeping pages of my dad's (and then later my own copy) of John Seymour (yes, it's very strange that I enjoyed reading that as a teenager, I know, what can I say?) were among my favorite.

But now that we are one day away from the bees actually arriving, I'm nervous. Because the thing is, after all the reading and classes and videos, I still feel like I have NO IDEA what I'm doing. Actually I know I have no idea what I'm doing. Will and I watched the slightly hilarious DVD that came with our hive and at the end he looked at me and asked "you know how to do all that?"

"Sure!"

"Yeah!"

NO! I do NOT know how to dump 3 pounds of buzzing, stinging, live bees into the hive that may or may not be in the right place in our garden. No I do not know how to make the right sugar solution to feed them while they get established and I DEFINITELY  do not know how to check and see if my colony is healthy. I don't. I've read about it and watched countless videos and asked lots of questions....but still....

Deep Breath.

Nothing like learning on the job, right?

prepping

Thank goodness spring evenings are long. Time enough between dinner - which has lately been eaten hurridly on the porch instead of at the table, the better to get it doen quickly and get outside - and bedtime to have a few precious hours of time in the yard. I won't say garden, because it isn't, yet, but we're getting there. There are so many things I want to do to the yard, too many. Landscaping and grass for playing and tree thinning here and planting there and the vegetable garden and the bee yard and the chicken yarn and a place to sit and eat and laze the summer days away. Too many to realiztically get it done this year. I keep reminding myself that there will be other springs and summers to turn our little bit of neglected woods into the something we have in mind.

Right now we are focusing on the impending needs. Seedlings that need to go into the ground in the next week, bees that will arrive in a matter of days, chickens that need to be bought before it becomes too hard to find what we want. So it's a few beds, instead of many. And if the coop is unpainted for a while, well, so be it. There is no pretty path to the bee yard, just an area wide enough to walk where the blackberries have (I hope) been whacked back into oblivion (the rest have been left alone because...well...blackberry honey sounds pretty good, doesn't it?) There is a lot of bare earth where the bread oven or the flower beds or the grill or the grass will go, when we get to it. In time. I just have to keep chanting that. All in good time.

liberty (fabric)

I've been sewing more lately. I think now that the weather is warming up and I don't need a sweater and socks and a blanket and a pile of knitting on me all the time to keep me cozy it's opened up a little of my time for sewing. Evelyn, Eliza (or Eleanor) and I have all gotten a new outfit or two out of my sewing bender. I'm on my third incarnation of this tunic, which gets better each time I make it. I used the leftover fabric that I bought (way to much of) for Evelyn's school uniforms last year to make one and am currently in the middle of a buttercup yellow linen version, hopefully to be finished before the weekend so I can wear it in the sun.

But it's not the tunic that's driving this current sewing obsession. It's the Liberty.

I've known about Liberty fabric for a long time. When I was thirteen we spent Christmas visiting family in London and I bought myself a Liberty print notebook that I still have, tucked up in my old trunk. I'm not really a floral kind of girl but there was something about Liberty floral that I loved, even then. My raincoat is lined with Liberty print, which is a sort of secret treat because no one really sees it but me, but I've never sewn with it until recently and I'm absolutely in love.

This summer Evelyn is going to be a flower girl in my best friend's wedding and before I make her dress out of the official flower girl yellow polka dot fabric (so cute) I wanted to do a trial run to make sure the pattern fit. And a good thing too because my skinny minnie is going to need a 4T top and a 6x bottom to have it be the right length. This test run seemed like a good excuse to buy a little Liberty, which I've been petting every time I visit Nido in Burlington. It's honestly a little swoon-worthy. The nicest fabric I've ever sewn with. I'm not sure what it is about it. It's so soft and smooth and is sews beautifully and washes even better. The trial dress has become her favorite thing to wear. In fact, I'm tempted to make another out of some more Liberty. Just so I can sew with it some more.

Eleanor/Eliza got a dress out of the scraps and then another out of another little chunk I bought - Evie picked the blue and I didn't really love it at first, which is why I bought the other to "try" on the doll. But in the end the blue turned out to be so very...Evie, that I love it. I'm not sure if I would ever wear a dress made out of it. Not that I could ever bring myself to pay for the amount of Liberty it would take to make me a dress. Little girl dresses are just barely under the threshold of "how much is that fabric?" as it is. But oh I'm tempted. It's so ridiculously fun to sew with.

lake days

We spent the evening at the lake, for the first time since early fall. Hauling fishing poles and knitting baskets and digging buckets and blankets and dinner down to the shore. It's funny, its such a small lake, almost a big pond really. If we wanted we could drive to Lake Champlain or the Green Mountain Reservoir, bigger, fancier lakes. But we don't, at least not often. We come here. To this little lake we love.

Briton, who has a hard time sitting still for much of anything, can fish for hours, standing silently on the edge of the water, watching his bobber for the slightest twitch. He and Will wander down the paths, through the tall grass, to the quite spots they know the fish like. I sit on the bank, knitting, reading, watching the ducks and geese and hawks. Evelyn traipses back and forth between. Fishing for a moment, and then back to the beachy edge to look for tadpoles. Last night she discovered a rock just a few feet into the water, just the right size for her feet and nothing else. It wasn't there last summer. It might not be there next week. Who knows. She waded out to it ans stood there, watching the waves, dancing, singing her new favorite song - "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" It looked a little like she was standing on water. My little nymph.

For a long time we were the only ones there, which is my favorite way to find our lake. Quiet and still. The kids like it when there is a crowd. Dogs and kids and canoes and people. But I love it when it's just us. It feels like the most beautiful place in the world. The lake. The sky. The tress. The four of us.

warm enough

It's warm enough to play outside. For hours and hours and hours. To wade in the creek and catch the first baby minnows. To tromp down the bike path and find hidden treasures. Flowers we didn't know were there, wild strawberry plants, the fairy house porch with little plants growing in the flowerpots after the long winter. To play catch (away from the windows please!) and eat dinner on the front steps and come inside for the night exhausted and filthy and happy.

Glorious, wonderful spring.