Lizzy returned from her trip to the west where she climbed

red rocks

and cold rocks,

tall rocks

and rocks in the hot sun.

And as is every mother’s hope, she returned in one piece

with some WONDERFUL new

Desert Wildflower Essences from the Mojave Desert,

Death Valley

and the Sierra Nevada near Bishop, CA.

Lizzy and I have identified all but three of these dozen Desert beauties. Once I have a moment to sit with these Flowers and hear what they have to say for themselves, I will post their pictures and what we have learned about them.

In the meantime, Spring begins to shine its sweet Flowered face here at the farm as well.

Snowdrops!

As I walked the house appraiser around our house for the seventeenth time in about as many years, it was hard to not to notice something.

Our constant refinancing keeps a lot of people in business. It says something when you and the house appraiser know the names of each other’s children and golden retrievers. We need to hide all seed and plant catalogs from me, separate Jim from his tool belt and never mention the word college to Will. The descriptive title of each room in this house is irrelevant to the function the room performs.

Let’s follow the appraiser and me on our appointed rounds. We began with the upstairs and the “bedrooms.” The appraiser knew his way. He had a better map of our home than I do, but politeness dictated that I show him each “bedroom”.

“This is a bedroom.” I noted as I sailed him into a chamber so full of yarn that sheep all over the planet consider the space a repository of some of their finest work.

We pushed onward to another “bedroom” filled with heaping piles of outdoor gear.

I noted yet again, “This is a bedroom.”

As I pushed aside stray hiking boots, I wondered to myself, “Would these Everests of camping gear disguise the fact that we had not finished the baseboard trim since the appraiser’s last visit, technically leaving this an unfinished “bedroom” after twenty years of habitation? And was the owner of this gear, somewhere on a rock face in Joshua Tree National Park, missing that set of chipped blue enamelware on her bed?”

Moving down the hall, we entered another “bedroom” filled with more clothes than an Abercrombie and Fitch.

I hesitated, “This is another bedroom.”

There was many indications that “showroom” was a better word for the space than “bedroom”. Why, only the night before, a friend of Emily’s had stopped by to shop in Emily’s closet for a spring break trip. I called Emily to check out if this was okay with Emily. Not only was this fine with Emily, she actually had things selected for her friend and set aside on certain hangers.

At last we hit a “bedroom” where we could see a bed. Yet a niggling question still came to mind, “How did Will or anyone else could GET to the bed through the collection of sports equipment on the floor?”

I kept to the topic at hand and noted, “This IS a bedroom.”

One last turn and we were in Ben’s childhood “bedroom” now a boutique winery. The yeasty smell of two vats of wine filled our nostrils. I noted a large sign from Ben, written on his way out the door to his spring break golf junket to Alabama, “THIS WINE NEEDS DECANTING NO LATER THAN MARCH 10th.”

Alas, that day had come and gone. Would he note a difference in the bouquet if his wine lackeys Jim and I didn’t get to the decanting until the weekend?

Downstairs the story was eerily similar to upstairs.

The “kitchen table”, it looked like this.

The kitchen counters, they looked like this.

And the living room, it looked like this.

I didn’t have to look far to figure out how the children got the idea to expand the functions of their bedrooms in unusual directions. Those apples didn’t fall far from the tree.

Today. I will start seed flats of broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, onions, leeks, artichokes, peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, basil, parsley and of course FLOWERS!

I disagree with T S Eliot. April is not the cruelest month.

At least in April you believe in spring, even if you know it will be cruel. In March, you believe only in March.

So, when the March weather turned predictably ugly again, we did what everyone in public education in America does. We spent the weekend fund raising.

Yesterday, it was a big fund raising dinner and auction for William’s seventh grade. They are trying to raise enough money to take a field trip to Montreal. This has involved selling wrapping paper, popcorn, and magazines door to door, selling soup and sandwiches at town meetings, selling candy at basketball games as well as selling babysitting services at any event where there are children in need of entertainment.

Frankly, William’s seventh grade class has more business experience than I had by the time I was twenty thirty, forty, fifty.

Will, Jim, and I were on macaroni and cheese duty for yesterday’s dinner. Along with some thirteen year old business moguls, we made four cheese Macaroni and Cheese for the 270 people who attended the dinner.

Here the moguls prepared to grate the cheddar. Getting a chance to wield a big knife in the kitchen is very motivating.

A victory celebration was held as the last of the 15 pounds of cheddar was grated.

10 pounds crumbled gorgonzola, 10 pounds grated parmesan, and fifteen pounds grated mozzarella at the ready.

With six gallons of milk we made a lot of cream sauce.

Then added the gorgonzola.

Then the cheddar and mozzarella.

We added three enormous trays of 30 pounds of cooked rigatoni.

Will did the final mixing before its was put in pans, topped with the parmesan and popped in the ovens.

Many hands made light work.

So some of the crew moved on to the ham part of the dinner preparation. Liz Taylor, who worked here at the farm for many years, now owns her family’s smokehouse. They provided the five hams for last night’s dinner. Liz had the kids pour maple syrup on the hams, also provided by Liz’s family who has a sugarhouse as well.

A nod to the vegetable kingdom was made with the salads.

With the macaroni and cheese in the oven and only a few needed for the hams and salads, the remainder of the crew was conscripted to cut brownies into 270 equal size pieces. Jim does the math to figure out how.

In the whirlwind that followed as we served the meal, my picture taking fell to the wayside, but I did get one photo of one happy customer, Will’s cousin Caroline.

Eighty gallons of sap, a good boil in the pans, plenty of firewood, sunshine, blankets, a good book, and

my mates. Does it get any better than this?