the prospect of a blue day

today was the first morning in seven that the skies took the higher road and greeted us with blue. or, rather, partially blue. there is nothing more insulting than the continuous gray of drizzle when you know She is capable of salutations like this.

this makes me want to shake the covers and sleeping kittens at 5:30 and get in the garden. this makes me want to sprint down to the barn and wake the rest of the troops. this makes me want to run to the top of the sheep pen, arms outstretched, in a frock made from drapes singing like maria. this makes me want to build. makes me want to plant. makes me want to till and dig and run and sweat and swim and grow.

of course, we do live in vermont. and these days aren't to be taken for granted.

my neighbor met me last evening on our front porch, in between downpours, to deliver me a hot bowl of soup**. the heartiness of which i would have previously reserved for marches and aprils but readily accepted this chilly june 5th. i mentioned something unimaginative and catty about the unrelenting grey sky. he retorted as he left that we ought to just be "thankful we have all our limbs and aren't being chased by murderous dictators" which left me guiltily holding a hot bowl of soup and mumbling how thankful we are for our limbs and for having a benevolent presidency.... "but yes" he added over his shoulder "the weather is shit".

so the weather is shit and today it need not be.  we must sieze the partly cloudy partly SUNNY day. everything is to be thrown out doors. the washing to be strung up for drying. the beans to be flung in the garden. the newly hatched baby chicks and their mama to life outside the brooder. the peas trellised and the potatoes hilled.  me and my sweet love to the partially constructed mobile chicken house and then to the pond as it has been too many days since we have swum and bathed.

i hope the sun has come to you all. perhaps he never went away in your parts but by god we are so thankful to see him.

**neighbors in vermont are neighborly. a quality i had thought was reserved for storybooks and vintage cinema.

also i wanted to thank all of you that wrote such kind things to nick regarding little lucky fox. it meant the world to him to read such sweet words and see how much everyone loved getting to know lucky.