Weekend activities...

My sweet husband would be perfectly happy living in a condominium with few maintenance issues. But he knows that I love living right here in this old farmhouse surrounded by meadow, and he humors me. This past weekend I had a long list of springtime chores and he gamely joined in. He wasn't overly enthusiastic at first.

We:
Hauled branches from the recently pruned fruit trees
Dismantled a tumble down firewood pile, re-stacked the good wood and hauled the bad
Put the screen door up
Cleaned the chicken coop
Gave an out-of-control flower bed a major overhaul
Ran a few errands (including buying seed potatoes for the vegetable garden)
Raked some of the yard
And... (drum roll, please)
burned an enormous brush pile!

In our area burn permits are not issued until dusk, so we dined outside while we watched a years worth of branches, scrap wood, our Christmas tree and other miscellaneous junk go up in smoke. Where a messy pile once stood there is now a flat, charred area that will soon be covered in new, green growth. And this was a chore that a guy could warm up to, (pun intended.) It involved tools, cold beer and leaping flames. He was a happy guy!

I can hardly wait to see what fun chores I dream up for the coming weekend...stay tuned!

Crayola crayon color-burnt orange...

When my husband brought home a huge load of free pine for our wood stove, he dumped it on the side lawn. It didn't look very nice. I stacked a lot of it, but I am not very good at stacking and some of the pieces were odd sized, and got left lying about and a lot of bark fell off in piles. Discouraged by the amount of work involved, I began to ignore the mess. The grass could not be properly mown due to the scattered bits and pieces, and the entire area was a weedy eye sore. Yesterday, on the hottest day of our summer yet, I vowed to clean the space up. While Chris mowed the rest of the yard, I picked up log pieces and buckets of bark. It wasn't the most fun I've ever had... bending, lifting, dealing with slugs and spiders and biting flies.

I thought about something I got in my email that morning from artist SARK (http://www.planetsark.com/) She said that if you put your hands out and ask for a miracle, one will happen. So I did, feeling rather greedy since I had so recently had the hummingbird miracle (see previous blog post.) Just then I saw a flash of Crayola crayon burnt-orange amid the bark I was scooping. Upon investigation I found this newt... soft and speckled and unexpected. A dash of delight in the midst of the mundane.

It was a red eft Eastern newt, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_newt You might want to read about them, besides being a rather shocking color, they are also fascinating little critters. They start out life in the water, with gills to breathe with. As young adults they shed those gills, then live on land a few years, then return to water where they change color for the remainder of their life.

I took it inside and had it pose for photos, then released it in the herb garden. I like to think of it there, adding color to the rosemary, tarragon and sage.

Have you asked for a miracle today? If not, why not? It may be some wonderful Crayola color to brighten your day.