Snowfall and Sunburn

Angel and I just got back from a summer walk.
Sampson has been showing his age a bit more lately.
He rested in the shade.
I'm in a sweat and slightly sunburned.

A pine tree has fallen across our lane.
Earlier this week, it was laden down with heavy snow and the wind finished it off. The needles are still green from the stubborn life that flows from faithful branches unwilling to die. The perky pine cones are reluctant to leave the only home they've ever known.
Evergreens long to be ever green.

We walked back to our house another way, coming
by the swamp in the lower fields.
The spring peepers broke the sound barrier and I wished I was wearing my ear plugs. They should really be called "Spring Screechers."

I wonder what they look like.*
I wonder how many there are.

Earlier today, Phil saw four sandhill cranes lounging in the swamp, snacking on the peeping delicacies. The cranes spent the winter in South Carolina or Georgia and are on their way to their summer home in the Dakatos or Canada.

As I walked through the fields, I tried to evade the natural fertilizer, plopped there, I thought, by errant cows. I wondered when they had gotten out. Finally, I realized that it was Phil who had gotten out-with the manure spreader.

Phil and Susan have been building blue bird houses and put up sixteen all over the place. Susan's bare legs and feet are scratched up from the briers over at O'Brien's. Freeman's been doing some landscaping with hollowed out tree trunks and is finishing up the roof for the firewood. He's also building Susan her birthday gift; a treasure box, complete with hidden compartment, hinges and clasps. It's a work of art. He's wearing overalls and no shirt and I can see he's going to need some aloe tonight. Michael is helping the Loys today. They are pruning their vineyard. I hope his straw hat keeps his face from burning and that his long hair protects his neck. Philip is working with Durell on a job somewhere. I am sure his shirt is nowhere to be found. There will be some showing off and comparing of tans tonight.

It's hard to believe that less than a week ago we were having a snowstorm. Our electricity was out from sometime Sunday night until Wednesday noon. The generator was running full tilt to keep us in business as almost usual. I cooked as little as possible and we ate things we had on hand. Today, I cooked enough healthy food to keep us well-fed until Tuesday. I made peanut butter date balls, moroccan couscous, meatless meatloaf, roasted potatoes and broccoli, whole wheat and vegetable lasagne, some kind of wonderful oriental green beans, and baked eggplant slices that were really good when they were hot and crispy.
Now, if it starts to snow tomorrow while we are naively sitting in church, asking God to open the windows of heaven, and He does, we'll have lots of food to eat.
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*Phil since told me that peepers are little frogs about the size of my thumb nail.