Robin Family

I pruned tomato plants at the farm today. I pruned cucumber plants, too, and harvested bunches of oregano and parsley. I ripped out some mustard greens that had gone to flower. Then I did yoga for 10 minutes with all the farm crew. That's new this year...a mid-morning "stretch break". Painfully awkward. But I did my best to ignore that and pretend that this was totally normal and I could totally do it in my farm gear. Then I weeded. That was a fun farm morning.

After lunch with the kids, Robert really wanted me to hang out with him watching a family of robins that made their home right next to our back patio.

Robert, James, Matthew and I lined up our chairs to watch the birds. The parent birds were watching us, too, super cautious about all the attention their 4 voracious babies were getting. But if we kept our distance and stayed still the parents would come back and feed their babies again and again. Sometimes the parent birds would take a long time to come back. That's when I would get up from my chair and do something else in the yard for a minute. I moved hostas, mostly, in the flower bed just under the birds' nest. The boys would warn me when they saw a parent bird return to our yard with a mouth full of food. Then my shovel and I would move away to the viewing distance. The parent bird would wait until we were settled and still, then swoop in and feed the chicks. The boys LOVED this exchange. Robert got a video. I'll share it with you here, but you don't need to watch it for the birds. I watch it for the off-camera conversation and action. It's so, so, so much my life right now.

When the hosta work was done, the kids still wanted to watch the robins, so I asked Robert for some of his hair. Bunnies had been nibbling on my poppy plants this week and I remembered that human hair could sometimes repel them. He was feeling loved and happy, so he instantly said yes and even said I could take whatever amount I wanted. Huzzah! I brought the clippers outside and had him sit on a stool in the middle of our kiddie pool. I left him an inch on top and a quarter inch on the sides. Then I gave him a popsicle for his charitable contribution. That got James' attention and he sat on the stool immediately after. James requested a mohawk, which turned out pretty nicely since his hair was way, way, way longer than usual. Matthew had a hard time deciding if he would volunteer any hair. He detests haircuts. He weighed the pros and cons, measured the joy of a popsicle against his loathing of the scissors. Many distraught and heart-rending minutes later, I relieved him of the choice and put the haircutting stuff away. Two heads of hair is pretty good. I placed it strategically around my poppies.

Not a bad afternoon, either.