Staying Outdoors Longer

We are spending all our time outdoors on every single warm day, soaking up every drop of sunshine, slowly mustering up tans and freckles and ignoring the dirty floors and the poor, sad houseplants.On cold days we feel dejected and don't even look out the windows, we curl up with good books and drink more tea and pretend it isn't spring yet, refusing to go out in the bitter chill and feel cheated when the wind is way colder than it looked and a hoodie isn't warm enough. Its that mid-ground season. Mentally we are living in full on spring but in truth its sometimes bitter and then randomly so warm you break a sweat walking across the yard.

Its whip-lash season. Time to make green juices, roast the last of the big cuts in the freezer, dream up spring soups for the cold days, check your stock of vases and make time for walks every single.darn.day.

I am trying to remind myself to go hard in the garden, pushing myself until my bones ache because I am feverish to stay outside on these sunny days and because I know once the weather really turns and its blazing June I'll feel like nothing but sitting in the shade with a lemonade. Now is the time to lay mulch like a crazy woman, divide plants, sprinkle grass seed, assemble the raised beds, put peas in the ground and dig up the email address of the lady I bought amazing tomato plants from last year. Time to go, go, go outdoors. I'll regret it later if I don't.

The boys and I found a pair of wooly bear caterpillars out in the garden who promptly spun cocoons on the glass sides of the mason jar they call home. They are now incubating on the kitchen window sill, next to a jar with a praying mantis egg case in it that we found two days ago. We are assembling  a small zoo, as we love to do. My next goal is to score some frogs eggs. Dee was asking me hopefully if we might be able to hunt up some turtle nests and raise baby turtles, this morning at breakfast. I explained that turtle eggs are a little more fussy to raise than frog's eggs and that there are laws protecting them but I loved his optimistic, sky's the limit outlook. Shoot for the moon! Raise turtles! Why not?!? Those little bits make me feel like a great mama.

The two blow-out diapers and one peeing all over the car by accident episode that also happened this week, not so much. Real life over here folks, don't get any funny ideas!