Saturday

We’re at the farm where we’ve just planted four apple trees. (We = Mike and Daisy—though I did offer to water them … before instructing Jesse to.)

Will they someday produce real apples? To eat? Will we learn how to properly prune them and to … do … whatever else one does to ensure healthy apple trees?

I would say “certainly”, only … the discouraging state of my sunflowers (planted in such confidence) has left me wondering about sowing and reaping and just how consistently the two go together.

(Last week. Apple trees being pushed into a van full of children.)

Daisy is now helping Mike start the John Deere. (How and why is she such a useful girl?)

Summer, Mette and Hans are running through the giant sprinkler. (There'd been several distracted "no"s from Mike about turning the sprinkler on again followed by a resigned “whatever". "Did you hear what I just heard, Mette?" I'd said? She'd smiled with delight and ran off towards the pull start on the sprinkler).

And Starling has just wandered past where I sit here under the willow by the barn. She’s wearing one of her older sister’s nightgowns. (It reaches her ankles and isn’t ideal for traipsing about the long grasses and weeds of the farm.) But she smiled sweetly at me and paused long enough to announce, “I’m happy at you.”

I’m not certain if that means she’s happy with something particular about me, directing happiness towards (at) me, or something else altogether, but it’s a pleasant sentiment. And happy is a lovely thing to be.

I know, having thrown myself into a state of decided unhappiness for a good chunk of yesterday and into this morning. Reasons and no reasons. 

Mike, who was in no way to blame, bore with my despairing state and when he managed to pull me from it was met with a tight hug and an, "If you only knew how miserable I am if I ever feel even slightly distanced from you, you would never leave me in that state for even a moment! … Even if it’s my own fault I’m there.”

But what a happy thing it is to be reminded that happiness is still there, even when, for a moment you’d melodramatically decided that all of life was only to be endured.

And now it's time to have my children release the seven frogs they have named and put in a plastic bin with hopes (false) that I would allow them to come home with us. 

And when I return home, I will add a jumble of happy photos to this post.

But first, what is this new hole behind where I sit at the farm? Is it the fox? (He can live. Which is what I always wanted anyway. [A fox! How grand!] I've decided he leaves the chickens alone so long as we lock them up at night, and it was neighbor dogs getting them all along. But the farm marmot [marmots?]? We did let it live when we last caught it--because it was cute. But it's begun eating my pumpkins so ... hard choices will need to be made. [Hopefully without me having anything to do with the business.])

--Home now. Photos below.--

Hans! How could he be so cool? This eight-year-old boy handed me this small drawing today of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia".

The house. And my favorite thing about the house! The window! Thee window. It's in!

My friend Jessica and her daughter Ana came to visit from Las Vegas. We showed them the new house.

Kids bundled up for morning scriptures.

Abe spending the 4th of July weekend visiting Kenya in D.C. (where she's doing a summer internship).

(Her brother's dog liked Abe a great deal apparently.)

Some photos from around the farm.

First time I've seen the house from the alfalfa field out back.

4th of July rainbow. (It was the most perfect weather possible this past 4th.)

And to end, a very few cell phone shots from me, but a good deal of very quality photos from Daisy of our 4th of July weekend.

A friend of Penny's as well as Cousin Tori and her boyfriend joined us for roasting hotdogs and marshmallows.

Reunioning

Summer (the season), as I mentioned in a previous post, has become a bit of a blur. The school year was both one minute and half a century ago and with Girls' Camp, which will spit me out (in who knows what condition) at the end of July, already looming ... I can see a quick slide into Fair Week (which is a thing to be capitalized these days), wedding and ... school again.

I feel to weep that we haven't somehow been lazing about repeatedly at Bear Lake. (Was time slower once?)

But we did get up there once at the start of summer (a lifetime ago? yesterday?), and, luckily, Mike's mom arranged another of her grand family reunions that got us there for another near-week at the end of June.

We've had the Harris reunion every other year since Penny was crawling, and it's so interesting to have experienced it through so many seasons/stages of life. (I must admit that it is quite a bit easier when nobody desperately needs a nap or an early bedtime.)

Here is a tidy little pile of pictures from the event. Some I took. Many I just grabbed from the shared family album. How my kids love several days with cousins and fun!