Waiting for swallows

Barn swallows love horse barns. Every place I've kept Sizzle had them around all summer. I love seeing them darting in and out, and watching the baby heads sticking out of nests while I groom my horse. They make a mighty racket when the parents show up with a mouthful of food. The mating pairs arrive from South America about the beginning of April, so I've been looking for them lately. It's a happy day when you see the first one.

They travel so far, and here they're met by barn managers with a full range of emotions-- mostly tolerance but occasionally annoyance. Yes, they make noisy nests and their white droppings can mess up the barn aisles, but it seems like a small price for the pleasure and benefit they bring. After all, barn swallows eat nothing but insects, and help keep the stable flies under control. Which is why they like barns in the first place. Still, I've seen nests knocked down over the years by property owners, even with eggs in them.

I find it amazing that there are people who actually "don't like" birds. But there you have it. So I'm glad I'm at a civilized barn with kind people who would never disturb beautiful, useful birds. It's a true miracle how swallows find their way to a tiny rural oasis in center of a big city.

It's been cold here. Where are they? Late? Lost? Maybe just hanging out in warm Capistrano for a few days before the final push north. I don't blame them.

Nova's first Easter

Grandma put bunny ears on me and took pictures.

Then I found my Easter basket filled with baby things...

and I pulled everything out.

Then it was fun to sit in.

I got a bag of pretty blocks, and my dad played with them.

No candy for me, but I tasted each one.
Hope your Easter was happy as mine.

Happy Easter

Have a beautiful day, dear friends and family.

Old-fashioned Easter

Remember the days when everyone got a new outfit for church on Easter Sunday? Including white gloves and hat for the little girls? I can still feel that elastic thread under my chin! Dave looks cute dressed like Little Lord Fauntleroy.
Here's another old Pennsylvania Easter photo of me and my sister Marji in our new spring frocks. Easter was always a time for family pictures outside.
And forget the dress, for a tomboy best of all was a real live Easter toy to play with at Grandma's farm...

Spring painting

Is there anything harder than picking out colors for wall paint? No wonder folks go with white-- boring but safe. For our old walls, I was looking for something warmer in the gold or yellow range-- but definitely not mustard or lemon. After agonizing over chips for weeks, Tom helped with the final decision in a few minutes, and we came up with a creamy, ivory shade called "popcorn kernel" that has just a touch of gold.
So while we've been having fun with Amanda and Nova, Tom has been hard at work prepping and painting our living and dining room. This is something I've wanted to do for, oh...the past five years? Each spring I'd start nagging again, but the job just seemed to get more overwhelming the longer we put it off. We've slapped on coats of paint in 30+ years, but the upstairs has never really been done right, and it showed. What a difference. And as "popcorn kernel" flows on, I can see just how grimy the beige was looking. It's going to be a beautiful, fresh change for spring.

And having a son-in-law who is a professional painter is a VERY good thing!

April

The first day of April, and a new page turns in the medieval Book of Hours. The bleak winter months have passed, and this manuscript shows a young couple exchanging rings in front of the Chateau de Dourdan. Taurus the bull leads the Zodiac charge, and he's headed off towards May.

Around here, March came in like a lamb and went out like a lion. It's been chilly and rainy in Seattle, and we'll have a wet Easter weekend. April is the month of lilacs, and the tree outside the dining room is showing tight purple clusters. All we need is a few warm days...sometimes I have them on the table for Easter, but probably not this year.

The Waste Land, by T.S. Eliot is considered the greatest modern English poem. It is long, obscure and intellectual, with fast changes of speaker and setting. It is a "hard" poem, but like all great art, there's always something new the next time you read it. It begins with these famous lines:

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.

Here's a link to an amazing annotated version of the entire poem. Wish I would have had this in lit. class:
http://eliotswasteland.tripod.com/