rain, rain, rain....

The sun is shining now, off and on, for the first time in several days.  In celebration we spent some time this afternoon, the three of us, working in the yard.  He in the bees with me looking on and marveling over how industrious and selfless those girls are.  She and I together in and around (well, not really in) her fairy house and garden.  I in the garden, helping the cucumber vines along as they climb, reaching for the sun.   I also weeded the strawberry beds, picked raspberries, and took a look at the garlic~ harvesting some, discarding much, waiting still for others.  It will be a small garlic year, as much seems to have succumbed to some kind of rot or disease.  Or maybe it's just from soaking in so much wetness.  Indeed, there seems to be a collective sense of relief, from flora and fauna alike, to have this respite from the nonstop deluge we've been experiencing, and to feel the warmth and the comforting kiss of the sun.  The forecast for the weekend and coming week calls for still more rain, rain, rain.  I don't mind, really.  I like the excuse to snuggle up with books and tea and movies.  As long as I can get out now and then and my garden doesn't completely wash away, I'm good.  I suppose maybe I should just take her out for some rainy day walks and hikes, too- if you can't beat it, join it, right?

But yesterday was a hanging in the kitchen kind of day.  Vanilla extract infusing, granola making, cauliflower roasting, and preparing for another batch of raspberry jam... swapping out the smaller stainless steel utility rack in the kitchen for the much larger one that was in the basement.  It works, and now I can have all of my staples in jars neatly out on a shelf instead of tucked away here and there.  My favorite kind of organizing and reorganizing.

There were sparklers on the front porch last night, as thunder stood in for the fireworks.  Though there were quite a few more of those than I expected as well.

And there are books.  Last night I finished Telling the Bees, one that Mike checked out from the library.  He sticks almost exclusively to the new nonfiction section and this novel had been wrongly re-shelved into 'his' section and so he picked it up, realizing a bit into it that it was indeed not nonfiction.  He read it anyway and, thinking I'd enjoy it, passed it along.  And I did.  Very much.  Now I'm onto Farm City, which isn't in the picture.  It's been on my radar for a while and a friend recently recommended it so I figured now was the time.  Up next in the queue are The Cassoulet Saved Our Marriage and Hatteras Blues.  And I'm still working on Anna Karenina.  I say working, but it isn't that I'm not enjoying it, rather that I don't find it to be the kind of book that has me sucked in and wondering what is coming next.  Not yet, anyway.  And I'm already about 300 pages in, so I'm not turning back now.  Just checking in with the main characters to see what they're up to on an every now and then kind of basis.  I expect that will change further in.

I've got a short little piece on the Kindred site today.  A poem of sorts touching on some of the delicate parts of mothering.  You can find it here if you are interested~