Today is a gloriously lazy day. I have barely had to yell at a single soul. Each of my children did their morning chores, though they did get up quite a bit later than morning. Because I was awoke at 3:00 this blessed A.M., I fell asleep when The Baby came to visit this morning. She nursed until I zonked out--zonked means sleep--and I awoke to the ring of the phone. It was my dear artist friend Fred who has been way mobie sick for a while. Respiratory infection. It went through his whole family, except for his wife, he said. Nasty. "Maybe it's Osama," he said. I laughed, but I told him that I have another dear friend, Ralph the dairy farmer, who really believes this. "Well, when everyone's getting something like this, you have to wonder," Fred replied.
About halfway through my conversation, the natives became restless. Monet bounded into my room excitedly announcing that he'd done all of his chores and he wanted to make pancakes. Certainly, I said. I'd like to say it all went well after that, but apparently he decided to try a recipe from the Little House cookbook since we've been listening to On the Banks of Plum Creek. He didn't have whole wheat flour, and he didn't have buttermilk, so he decided he'd just leave them out. Fortunately, his big brother Houdin came to the rescue. Unfortunately, Houdin then felt that he was deserving of the opportunity to griddle a batch of the pancakes in exchange for saving their lives, but Monet very strongly disagreed. The amazing things my kids fight about...
After another lovely conversation with Linda, a new friend of mine, I changed out of my pajamas (at 3:30 in the afternoon--SINFUL!) and drove over to pick up the schoolteacher of the local Amish schoolhouse. She lives near the schoolhouse during the weekdays and I taxi her back home on Friday night. The day was just gorgeous, and as I approached her house, I could see that all of the maples, for as far as I could see, were hosting dangling white buckets. Sugaring time. Driving by, I could see that most of the five-gallon buckets were about a quarter full of clear sap.
"How much sap do you get?" I asked her.
"Between 50 and 150 gallons, depending on the season." That, boiled down, amounts to about 1-4 gallons of syrup and a LOT of hard work.
Once home, I made dinner. Whole wheat spaghetti with Newman's Own sauce and hamburger, whole grain bread, and peas.
When Bo gets home (he's running late tonight), we'll head out to the homeschool group's volleyball night. I hope I can keep my spaghetti down.
It's a good thing there are wunnerful days like this to make up for the ones that really stink.
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