It has been the best day. It has been a growing day. A soothing day, and I haven't left the property and I've hardly spoken to anyone either, for that matter. Mr. Moon took off in the early afternoon to go attend to a project involving an Airstream Trailer and not that I don't like having him around or anything but if anyone in this world loves a bit of solitude now and then, it's me.
Well, me and that Buddhist nun who went off and meditated in a cave for fourteen years or something but that's a bit extreme.

I read Madame Radish King's posts wherein she talked about making some bread and proofing her yeast and it reminded me that I have been severely neglecting my sourdough starter which is not only a living, breathing thing but was given to me by The Sauce Boss himself, Mr. Bill Wharton, and even though yes, yes, YES goddammit, I said I was going to quit making bread, I just couldn't help myself and I took a bunch of oatmeal and ground it up in the food processor and then I added some hot water to that and some honey and made a sort of slurry out of it and then dumped in some of the stirred-up starter and added flour and mixed all of that and some salt and an egg and olive oil up in a big old bowl with my own hands and then I kneaded it by hand just for the pure pleasure and gave the Kitchen Aid dough hook a day off. It's rising like crazy, nice and lovely, sitting on top of my stove, the second rising in fact, and I think it's going to be good bread with mighty shoulders and a nice crispy crust.

I vinegared the coffee maker and then dumped the vinegar water in the washing machine to clean that out and did a few loads of laundry and washed up the dishes and then I went out to the garden and did a little weeding and planted a nice, long row of cucumbers, four different varieties, along the fence in a place where they'll get some damn light because the earlier cucumbers I planted are shaded by the peas and aren't doing shit. Then I weeded an area right by the front of the garden and planted one and a half packs of zinnia seeds, Giant Mixed Colors, my favorite. I remember distinctly the very first seeds I ever planted as a child and they, too, were zinnia seeds that my grandmother had in a glass, stoppered bottle and why, I do not know. I don't recall her ever growing anything except demented but she was a sweet soul and she told me those seeds were old and probably wouldn't grow and she was right. I remember going out every morning to check them and not a one of them came up but somehow it did not deter or discourage my future gardening attempts. I don't even know why I love to plant things so much. My horrible stepfather, The Asshole, as we call him, loved to garden and actually, he was a planting fool and he could grow anything and you'd think I would refuse to do any activity which he loved but I do believe that the love of growing things is a powerful force in our very DNA and so there you go. Growing shit and keeping chickens. Yep. Right there in the DNA. They'll find the genes for those things eventually, just as they'll find the genes for Patriotism and Religion, and they needn't bother searching my DNA for those because, as I have said a million times, I am lacking them.

I knelt in the dirt to weed and plant and it smelled so good and a couple of times I brushed up against the basil and that's all you have to do to release that good scent. I gave my weed scraps to the goats next door because I feel so sorry for them. They never get anything fresh and green and they run for it in a thundering herd when I dump those weeds over the fence. I was sweated through and dirty as hell by the time I set the sprinklers on the garden and came in and took a shower and then I went around and took a few pictures.

Who doesn't love an oak leaf hydrangea? Yes. I have already posted pictures of these blooms this year but I can't help doing it again. They are just magical to me. Tiny tissue-like flowers on a cone-shaped bloom, white as angel-light, airy as a perfect meringue.

These are the beginning blooms of the lace-cap hydrangea. I think that's what they are. They're going to be pretty, trust me. I hope. They don't really get enough sun (this is a theme in my yard) but they look like they might do something nice this year.

And then this. Oh my god. I feel as if I've just given birth.

Can you see it? Probably not. Here. Let me give you a better view.

The teeny-tiny leafling of the giant begonia that I've had rooting since last November. NOVEMBER, PEOPLE! I've kept the soil moist and watched over those things so tenderly for seven months! And I started the original plant from a few cuttings that a woman I know who works at a nursery gave me some years back so it's not hard to understand why I feel so very maternal about that tiny green leaf. I expect more and if all goes well, I shall gift them to people when they are big enough to leave the nursery pot.  

I am a fool for begonias. Yes. This and the love of wild birds is a definite sign of aging. 

Fuck it. Makes me happy. 

All right. One more picture.

The vegetables are what I picked today. The snow peas are still coming on as is the squash, and the banana peppers are just becoming mature and those cherry tomatoes are our first of the year. 

The eggs are some of what we got today and yesterday. Some. I hadn't had one of the Tiffany blue eggs for quite some time so I was happy to see it. 

And that's what I've done today. Planted and picked and punched and cleaned and weeded and watered and restored my very soul. My husband's on his way home and Prairie Home Companion is on and the bread is just about ready to go into the oven.

Don't tell me I'm not the luckiest woman in the world. Don't even try. Because I know that I am.