Wanting to Open for the sun

A big fuzzy bee has just found our newly opened cherry blossoms (I know family down in Oregon and Idaho, your cherry blossoms have bloomed long ago, but ours just popped this morning.)  It really makes me happy.  Oh, and here's another one buzzing in for a pollen pickup and transference of necessary dust.  Amazing.  Dave's got inspirational music playing in the other room and even the sound of the clothes falling from the top of their ride in the dryer sound comforting on this day when life is burgeoning all around me and I feel myself wanting to open and name my thanks.
I walked the little labyrinth behind our church today and the new green leaves looked so shiny and wet, I had to reach up and touch one.  Not wet - but tacky - kinda sticky like fly paper!
And before that, I had a long calico colored fox rise up out of a gully, snort at me and take off down the gravel lane.  Magical.
Dave goes to Calgary today and tomorrow for a voice over workshop, so the boys and I will abide here without him, dividing our time between eating, cleaning, electronic devices and time outside.

It's so stinkin' hot!  no wonder life is bursting out of its hibernation with a vengeance!

I feel the same urge and I wonder what to do with my many wishes and ambitions.  Which one do start with?  How come time still flies by and I haven't finished the first one?  It's hard to manage free time when there's no one keeping me to account.
But then, maybe sitting and writing a bit and listening to the birds and the music and the dryer accompany the busy working bees outside and seeing the Canada and Alberta flags blow in the breeze over at the Inn - IS a productive use of my time.

[Sorry I don't have pictures of the actual things I described, but I do have a few taken a couple days ago - and already things have changed!]

You know the saying "be careful what you ask for"?  Well the past three months I've heard lots of complaining about the weather.  And I'm sure many prayers have gone up for spring to come and for this long winter to cease.   Well, I think all those prayers have resulted in an answer: SUMMER.

Yep.  Time to break out the ice tea and lemonade.  No more mending the knees of my son's jeans -- cut offs it is!

I've got plants on my window sill that are itching to get in the ground and spread their roots deep into new earth, searching for nutrients and buried treasure.  Buried treasure?  Yes.

On Saturday our neighbor Paul kindly came to till our garden for planting and kept hitting something solid deep down!  Well a half hour later we surfaced with an old rusty bed frame - or is it a car windshield?  Who knows?  Anyway, that was an unexpected adventure in archeology and ended with a shared dinner as thank you last night.
I'm so glad summer is here.

Out of hibernation, but still needing sleep.

Spring is still in the air and in the blood.  There is giddiness all around as students and staff suddenly run or hop on their bikes.  The roads are clear and we all have dirt under our nails.

With this burst of energy, however, still comes fatigue and tiredness.  We're productive, but still sleepy at the end of the day.

Which reminds me to go shower the white streaks out of my hair from the show and go to bed!  Sigh.  It's so late.  --But I wish I could stay up late and watch North and South again by the BBC.  So great! (Elizabeth Gaskell novel put to a miniseries... I can't get it out of my head!)

I at least had to post these shots of my beautiful children, rose-cheeked with "hotness" as Weston calls it, and full of new skills.  They're like bears out of hibernation and are running, jumping and riding with more agility in their longer bodies after their winter nap.

They're eating more ferociously too!  Bed time snacks of cereal!

'Course, Dave and I have to join in... only I snitch chocolate and roasted pecans!

This last crazy picture is of Lettice and Lovage.   Yes, that's me in the wig and beard, which totally spoils one of the surprises of the play, but it also makes me laugh.  You know how pre-show production photos go: wrong costume, cut the wig, etc.  That makes me laugh, because I'm usually wearing my big black cloak (backwards) and my executioner's mask over all this, and Marie doesn't even wear this costume.

I should note that Morris took this picture, and Steve Waldschmidt designed the costumes and set.

Still, it's a funny show and my beard has never looked so good!

It plays until May 16 in Rosebud, Alberta in case anyone can come out our way.

We're here.  We're surviving.  And we're enjoying the spring, which has finally sprung a leak just in time for Easter.