April 30th

Crumble of thunder in a wet green morning...

While Yali manhandles “Justin the snake” in his tank... quickly scan my daily world news email summary... noting with some admittedly satisfying perspective that the next time my kids damage something inside my house... at least they're not “that one kid who scratched a 57 million dollar painting in a Dutch museum” last week...

While I hot glue more pool noodle rings to Solo cups that morning... observe for the first time Patience leading part of Spanish class with the younglings... “Isn't she fantastic?” C.P. raves... we later leave with two large totes of supplies to continue crafting coral reef pieces over the weekend...

Skip ahead through sunshine and wind and bookwork and deep housework...

...Puck walks out to chat about first steps for Jag repair... discussing supplies for an oil change...

...as Yali and Patience attempt to launch one of Puck's still-sailing Happy Birthday balloons en plein air... but they return several minutes later with Yali's conclusion... “It's too harsh and sad to send it away... Patience, put it in our room to make it comfy...”

It's already four o'clock... back to the studio... as we drive through a quick tapping rain... Patience eats a salami sandwich for early dinner and shares some of the fantastically incorrect information these little girls will discuss with each other on class breaks... packs of little girls are a wholly unique kind of creature altogether...

Storming in the evening again back home... heavy dark west...

For grins : partial Googling record of April...

• When is First Watch?
• Are avocado pits safe for dogs to eat? (ha; no)
• Native tribes of Alaska
• Where is Sheba? (Yemen)
• What year was Pluto discovered?
• When was plastic invented (1907; Belgian man)
• Obsidian in the Ozarks?
• What was the Wallace Pencil Company?
• Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte (first indigenous woman to earn a medical degree)
• Was Black Peter a real pirate?
• What were the Marcomanni?
• Are there wild bears in Ireland?
• What are clove rocks?
• What does Vatican II say about atheism?
• How are in-shell peanuts salted?
• When did the French arrive in Alaska?
• Joan of Arc
• Francis Chan