Honey bees, flowers, trees, gentle rain and home again.

The nucs are on order and the hives are painted, a bright and cherry blue that reminds me of Cookie Monster, fuzzy and covered in crumbs. The cold has broken but there is still a week until Spring and I won't set to seed before I am sure we are clear of a frost threat. My first flowers have bloomed, strange deep purple blossoms with bright yellow-orange pollen. The snow has melted and it its wake, days in the 60s and rain every day. Lovely, gentle sweet rain that makes dark auburn mud and puts smiles on the faces of everyone with a green thumb. The trees are starting to look alive again, budding blood red berries and leaving the pavement looking as if it has been showered in tiny rubies. Another long week of house cleaning is under my belt and now the weekend is mine. Well, maybe it is more honest to say I belong to the weekend. With the Clansmen gone for the weekend, I step firmly into my role as matron, taking charge of the guardianship, protection, law and entertainment of the Clan. What this means is tomorrow I get to get them all in the car, drive to the Y for our exercise hour and then take them all out of pizza to celebrate Pi Day. Would that all people had a Clan, so that they could treat them in turn. Tonight I pass out a cider ration for everyone but the smallest girl child, two at the tender age of two is snug in her bed by 8:30pm with her stuffed shark and a quilt shaped like a giant teddy bear, made by her Grandmother. I sip my Smith & Forge and listen to the gentle rain, let the cider tickle down my throat as if down my weary bones, soothing them.

Home. This is where I want to be. I never say "One day when I don't have to work anymore, I'll stay at home." Mostly because there will never be one day, for the rest of my life, where work will not be an important and needful responsibility of mine. It will also be a circumstance of pure joy, for one day I will work upon the homestead and the only home I will clean is my own. I will milk goats, tend hives, weed gardens and when the pyment is done, drink and dance naked under the moon.

Were you paying attention? *chuckles*

For now, my fine fellows, I tuck into a bed for a little well deserved sleep. Good night and may your Friday 13th be a safe and cautious one.