Life: Idiotropic

Arianna is now officially five. Her birthday was Monday and though we didn't celebrate with anything spectacular, she still had a great day. Her party had been Saturday, but on Sunday evening as I was tucking her into bed, she said, "I'm so happy that it's my birthday tomorrow. All my friends are going to come over for a party and we'll have a big blue cake." Great ambition - two parties. I was sorry to disappoint here, but really... I think one is enough. So we had a fun day at home. Went out to lunch with Kirk in the day and celebrated with cake and ice cream and gifts in the evening. She opened each one with big smiles and "danke." At the end she turned to all of us and said, "Danke, everyone." My social butterfly.

Yesterday we went to a BBQ with some friends. Most of the time was spent at the playground next door where we saw this beautiful broad leafed tree. The leaves were large like that of the magnolia, but not thick and waxy - light green and thin instead. But the flowers - they were so beautiful. The lighting was bad in the evening, so it was hard to get a good photo... but they looked like orchids or irises and there were big clusters of them. Flowers are everywhere here. Bright red poppies are growing wild and appear randomly sprinkled through fields and on the sides of the road. The bright yellow flowers that they make biodiesel from have faded in some fields, but are just reaching their intensity in others, and a large field of purple blooms just began to fade in the field nearby. Wildflowers are everywhere. Queen Anne's Lace grows everywhere too and some of it - or a flower very similar - covers large shrubs as well. And, I need to find out their secret to hydrangea. I've seen several now that are rainbows of pink, purple, and blue - all mixed in the same cluster of blooms. They are very eye-catching.

Living in farm country is nice. There are large enough cities relatively close to us, but the day to day driving is through small villages and fields. The white asparagus grew underground in perfectly spaced raised beds and now those same beds are used for strawberries growing neatly on top. Wheat is all around now - some with very green wheat and another variety laying smooth and flat is turning gold. There are so many different crops. I haven't gotten close enough to some to know yet what they are, but the greens are all different, so it's pretty to drive along and see the different variations of greens and gold alternating into the horizon. And the bunnies like it too. The evening walks give us comic relief watching little groups of bunnies running around in play.