May 6th
Wake to the two younglings sandwiching me on both sides for morning chats as Patience explains how there's a “knife” hidden in the FedEx logo and Yali beginnings blowing “raspberries” into my arm to the tune of the 20th Century Fox movie intro...
From there things start cookin'... Oxbear is already gone to coffee with G.L...
Leave the kids home with Puck while I throw in another ninety minutes at the old school with more hot glue... C.P. turns to me at one point and says... “Why can't Patience just be here and work with me every day? She doesn't have to do school right?” she laughs...
Meanwhile Yali and Patience are busy studying butterflies and poetry all day with friends in North County...
Back home deliberate for about an hour over the phone with the tax guy and Oxbear... about ready to drop an ACME anvil on ole “Uncle Sam”...
Puck takes a practice ASVAB test at the dinner table to see where he lands... that'll do that'll do...
Starts chopping wood out back while I collect residual firewood until it's time to grab the kids...
They exit with thoughtful custom poetry from one of their teachers and button art for Mama – love kid art – as they beg cold drinks on the ride back...
Return to the yard joined shortly later by Sally direct from work and barefoot and Linnea-Irish up from Jefferson County... Puck chops some more wood and we clean most of the “flotsam and jetsam” from the yard...
Puck then sends himself out to St. Charles County to work on the old Jag... Francis is also there working on his tractor and provides mechanical advice and assistance...
Oxbear picks up a Costco taco tray... we eat dinner in a circle in the shade as sun dips to the other side of the house now... discuss things like milk cows and sewing lessons and unprofessional methods of communication in the workforce etc. etc...
Oxbear brings out the chainsaw to keep breaking down the old beast – which Sally suggests is a “locust” – and there are discussions of all the possibilities that exist with the felled tree... both girls leave with several large chainsawed slices for potential cheeseboard crafting... or “party favors” as Irish describes them...
Meanwhile I'm gone bussing Patience back down the line to the studio for the evening... realize my face has been sun-burned from the wood-hauling...