Flying Through the Air

"Mommy, my heart is blue. Sparkly blue." Elspeth said this, and I'm glad to know her heart is not melancholy but glorious like the ocean at noon.

Tonight we hit a deer on the way back home from Washington, PA, where we were celebrating my making a deadline for a short story contest (just a submission, understand, but making a deadline is no small thing for a parent of three). The children were safe at home with a babysitter, and we were chilling to some Flaming Lips songs, when

Gracefully, rapidly, like a ballerina with muscles rippling under smooth brown skin, luminous eyes--

WHACK!

We've never hit a deer before, and we count ourselves as lucky, since we lost only our right headlight and now sport an enormous dent that continues back to the passenger door. A minivan next to us just missed contacting the doe, and the driver pulled over immediately, and then, somewhat casually, strolled back to see us.

"I knew it was going to get one of us!" she said with a smile. "I've hit two before! I'm from West Virginia and they've got to do something about the deer population. There are people starving. . .how about opening deer season for an extra week?"

In the cool weather I was trembling but Martin was smooth and sensible until we reached home, whereupon he shuddered twice and put on the tea kettle.

Elspeth was still awake upstairs, and when I kissed her goodnight, she said, "I wish I could fly through the air back home." (Her babysitter reads the girls installments of Wizard of Oz).

Then the baby awakened, and when I went in to feed her, I was glad that I was there to hold her in her distress. And tonight, I'm just glad we didn't fly through the air, and that we're safe at home.

Peonies and Piano and Early Summer

Martin's downstairs, spinning out a soothing piece on the piano. The rain is soaking the thirsty tomato plants and curling peas and strawberries.
The roses began to bloom two days ago, and we broke in our new picnic table yesterday with friends who sat around our fire ring, chatted, swung on swings, played badminton, and tore around our yard, yelling and playing soccer.
The days have been hot, hot enough for hours of water play in the Children's Garden under the Moses Rock.


The children have covered themselves with sand on multiple occasions and we've all browned in the sun despite good coatings of sunscreen.

We've been to the Children's Museum twice

(This is Texas Grandma making a spiffy man with the huge Light-Bright)

and the zoo twice, once with my sweet folks and again with Martin's sweet folks. The Pittsburgh Zoo, by the way, is the best I've ever experienced, anywhere. The only thing that beats it are the game parks in East Africa!


We've been eating perfect garden strawberries and salads of our own baby gourmet lettuce.

A few holes in the greens means ORGANIC goodness! Yeah! Our friend John M. (of the Rooster Sauce Brothers) ate a slug with his meal the other night. . .on purpose. He has eaten goldfish in the past, not a kind thing for the fish but a little extra protein for our friend J.M.-the-Slugman.

The baby thinks she's seven, and the peonies smell sweeter this year than any year before. My mother agreed to come while Martin's away in June for ten days, thus ending my blind panic. All in all, it's a happy time here at Wazoo Farm.

Here's a peony for my sweet Aunty Phyllis, who celebrated her birthday last week. Aunty Phyllis reminds me of a peony, and not just because she smells rather nice.

Martin's moved on to the guitar. . .I sense big projects this week, since (o joy!) our neighbor has lent Martin his pick-up for the entire week. He's tripping over himself in the delightful prospect of filling the bed with huge rocks from the cemetery . .I just need to get some writing projects wrapped up. And some burpless cukes (doesn't that sound LOVERLY) planted.

Lost the Tomatoes

Tomatoes, RIP. Blackened by frost. Even though I tucked them into little paper bags, they were weak.

The children survived, however, snug in their own little beds.

So I collected two baskets of sheets and blankets and hope I won't have to put them out again.

Cause for celebration: the strawberries, green fruits and blossoms and all, were saved. Not too bad, all in all. And two bitty pumpkins gone. The roses are feeling sorry for themselves, but they'll get over it.

Yes. We have a good excuse to shop at the nursery again. And no more frost in the forecast! Huzzah!

Thanks to Martin's Dad for the pictures! We had a good visit with you folks! Come on back soon!

Ghosts Surviving the Frost

Two close or breaking record frosts in a row. . .(click on the picture to see our strawberries, perrenials, annual veggies, etc., battling it out with the PA elements.)

Our garden looks like it's full of ghosts. Merry jumped into her favorite mode: PREPARE FOR IMMINENT DISASTER, and peppered the paper bag/sheet brigade with comments like, "I have to put away the chickens!" or when we went into the house, to my mother-in-law, "I was just putting away the pigs." Laura Ingalls Wilder, eat your heart out. But unlike the Ingalls' crops, our plants seem to have survived disaster one night. Can they make it another?

Guess what we'll be doing for the next few days? You got it! Washing sheets!

Tickseed Coreopsis

I love coreopsis, the cheery yellow faces, the light feathery foliage. It makes me happy. And browsing the perennials at our local nursery, I felt satisfied remembering that my tickseed coreopsis is returning even as I forgot it was in my garden.

But what an awful name it bears. . .cut to the scene at our kitchen, where Martin picks up something off our floor, pops it into a tupperware, and says calmly, "I think this is a tick."

Ticks give me the heebie-jeebies. I sent all the children to the bath and Martin disappeared outside, where I assumed he was smashing the tick with a hammer. Instead, he came inside again with the empty tupperware container.

--Did you get rid of it? I asked.

--Yes. (But he looked sneaky).

--You did smash it?

--No, I released it. Shh, shh. . .(because I'm beginning to rant hysterically. Martin has released flying cockroaches, spiders, all kinds of things into the outdoors instead of killing them--okay. But a TICK?)

--YOU GO RIGHT BACK AND KILL THAT TICK!

--I released it into the garden. It's a little garden friend.

* * * *
End of story? So he's really kidding, getting my goat in front of his parents, especially his father, to whom Martin had boasted he was particularly good at goat-getting.

Me? I just have to comb meticulously through three children's heads. And I've got the itches myself.

Merry Berry Jumping Bean

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Quick Update

Hello, duckies all!

Rain o rain o rain some more. Martin carped diem yesterday and whipped the lawn into shape. Power to the Irish. And Martin.

Also, my mother has been saving our sorry selves for going on three weeks now. Power to the mothers. Especially since, with the end of school imminent, we saw neither hide nor hair of Martin for a while.

Peas are up. Strawberries are blossoming, raspberries shooting, flowers blooming, the redbuds have just started and the crabapples are turning frilly pink into sensible leaves.

Birds are happy, and I disturbed a nest of young snakes (offspring of Sammy whom Martin saved last year)? near some new young shrubs.

Pictures later.

And tomorrow night, 80 people at our house--actually, Martin clarifies, he invited more like 60. This is why I smeared dirt on my face, put on sackcloth, and begged my mother to stay for another week.

And now I just have time for one more baby goat picture, from our friends, Mike and Donna's Toboggan Hill farm (by the way, all their exquisite pork--the only reason I am not vegetarian--is now 20% off):