~We had a visitor this morning, the neighborhood cat that Galen has christened ‘Ginger Cat’. Ginger Cat let Galen pet her for the first time ever, and quite a bit more. They played and snuggled together outside for nearly half an hour. They are very good friends now. Not even Rosebud running out and squealing with wild excitement disturbed them. After kitty had left, Màiri Rose decided that she should be called ‘Baby Cat’ instead and a heated argument ensued.
~More cooking for the boys this morning. This time the herbed almond bread that they make so often. Màiri Rose, who was feeling fussy at the time, decided that she only wanted certain herbs in hers and not others, so they made her her own little loaf. She is so clearly their little darling.
~Over breakfast Elijah was talking about how he’d hit a baseball through a window a couple of months back. He concluded the story with, “and we never played in that spot again….except that we did.” Then he told the story of Iain and him inadvertently hitting a ball into a bush which, unbeknownst to them, contained a hornets nest, with painful results. And that story concluded with, “and we never played in that spot again……………………..except that we did.”
~I took a hot, hot lavender bath trying to ward off an impending migraine.
~The fixing of remote control cars was on the agenda today.
~I’ve been messing with all kinds of crazy braids and things, now that my hair is getting long again. Today was a dutch-lace, half-crown braid, heavily rumpled by laying down to read to little ones at nap time.
~Màiri Rose got a piece of a cornstarch packing peanut stuck up her nose. I had to bride her with a frozen strawberry so that she would let me extract it with fine tip tweezers.
~Galen took it upon himself to harvest a big bunch of violet greens to have with dinner.
~More thunderstorms late in the afternoon. Steve is convinced that God doesn’t want him to cut the lawn.
~We opened the next to the last jar of green tomato chutney from last summer to have with our chicken, green and yellow beans and violet greens at dinner.
~Màiri only changed her clothes four times today. I think that may be a record.
~Galen insisted on wearing long sleeves and pants, all in black (well, some navy blue, but it’s best not to mention it), so that he could be a gorilla.
The darling stitch holders above are a gift from a 
There was (thankfully) very little snow (
by Arther Ransome for the 11 year old. We read
during an extended illness over the winter and it was a huge hit with the older set. I thought they would enjoy seeing the story continue.
by Sydney Taylor and Helen John for the nearly 9 year old (!! more on that soon, I am sure!). When I saw 
by Reg Down for the 5 year old, because anything by Reg Down is, by default, an instant classic in this house. This one is about a springtime adventure. Perfect.
by Sibylle Von Olfers for the Wee Girl (age 2). I actually wasn’t overly thrilled with this one. I don’t know, but there is something about a book for young children where there is a scene in which a father nearly shoots his own babies, that I find off putting. P.S. Mom is at home knitting while her children are lost in the woods. And yet, I don’t think little people really see it in the same way we grown ups do. I didn’t pre-read this as I normally do. In fact, I didn’t pre-read any of this year’s books, which is very odd. And when I sat and read this one for the first time, aloud to the children, they loved the simple story and pictures and have been requesting it regularly ever since.
A winter salad of kale, rad cabbage, fennel, parsley, apples, dried apricots and vinaigrette that served as lunch earlier this week. So, so good. I’m all about winter salads right now. So as not to appear too virtuous, I should probably mention that I followed this meal up, about a half hour later, with a big spoonful of leftover chocolate icing. But the two kind of cancel each other out, yes?