Walking the grandkids to their car yesterday, I pointed out the stick-with-flowers tree and said, “That’s an apple.”

Parker, suddenly thrilled, did a little dance: “I LOVE apples!!!” (I like to think this helped start it all…)

Hugs all around, carseats were buckled, our son started to drive away….

“STOP!”

Daddy stopped.

Parker had almost forgotten! He’d been saving something for us, Grampa, come here!

My husband, knowing they were in a hurry to get to their Great Grandma M’s big dinner, dashed up to see what was going on.

He needed to share: “These are for you and Gramma!”

The phone rang. Then the doorbell did. Surprise!

My daughter-in-law’s mom’s large family was having a reunion this weekend and Great Grandma lives maybe a mile from us. The kids didn’t tell us they were coming because the way things were scheduled they weren’t sure they could get away for a moment. But they couldn’t not come…!

Maddy was entranced by the birds. The doves ambled off to the grass as she approached the window but the finches weren’t leaving that feeder.

Parker found the tennis racquet-shaped bug zapper that was behind the toy basket because, um, we weren’t quite child-proofed just then. No harm.

Hudson showed me how to turn the tractor on so it would make tractor-y noises.

I love this last photo. Baby photo, meet In Real Life little boy. Even if it is his brother.

Thirty-one weeks, thirty-two weeks, hang in there, baby…

She made it to thirty-three weeks. When my nephew’s wife first went into labor the doctors told the parents that every day in utero was a week the baby wouldn’t have to spend in the NICU, so getting that far was a huge blessing.

I packed a not-tiny-enough outfit with an adorable pair of baby socks knitted by my friend Susan into a box last Friday (I wish I’d thought to take a picture of them) and sent it off to my sister-in-law; the new parents were supposed to be moving near her about the time labor had first unexpectedly started and I didn’t want it to get lost between the mailman and the new place.

Their daughter/her granddaughter arrived Tuesday. There is an adorable picture that is not mine to share of her looking up at her mother with wide open, soft eyes. She is a beautiful baby.

Our niece was discharged today with the surprise of a newly-arrived box to open.

The baby is doing very well, all things considered. Breathing on her own. Might be able to eat on her own soon, too.

The handknit socks. That’s what got exclaimed over. Susan had made these beautiful socks for their baby, and on the day they had to go home without her yet it helped.

So I was doing my taxes, so close to that coming relief at being done–when the program choked and crashed the computer and when I rebooted, everything was gone. But I’d…hit…save….!

My macular distortion from a small tear at the back of each eye is such that focusing intensely on tiny objects like a line of numbers on a page makes them squiggly, as if someone had crumpled up a paper and not smoothed it back out yet.

Oh well. I reentered the whole thing (it did go a lot faster the second time) but with Richard home now, backing me up on reading those numbers correctly as I typed. I think this time I did manage to save most of it to the program itself before I hit that same endless spinning “Calculating…” He looked it over and went, Huh.

Tomorrow (she said, trying to tamp down the aggravation) I tackle it again. Fresh eyes.

And then I thought of the day’s news from Brussels and wondered what on earth I had to complain about. One of the Americans who was injured was a Mormon missionary from Utah who could easily be a distant cousin with that name Wells, not that it matters: every good person who aches deeply at such terrible things done to the innocent–we belong to each other from everywhere around the world no matter who we are or where we come from. We want to be the caring arms right there in person reaching out to those who are hurt, to somehow make it better by our sheer presence and will. If only.

Acts of terror only bring that love out into the open. We will always be more powerful.

(Nope, still just white buds on the English Morello but I’ve got more flowers on the Stella cherry for you.)

We were the parents of two children under four years old and a third was on the way come the next spring. We had moved into our first house from a series of furnished apartments over our young marriage–we had basically nothing.

And so one crisp fall Saturday we went off to some place off thataway to buy a can of finish and not one but two cheap plain pine dressers for our little ones, a little do-it-yourself-ing ahead that would make them really ours (and a little more respectable). It took some doing to squeeze them home in our old Toyota wagon behind the two car seats.

Since I was pregnant, Richard took it upon himself to apply a finish to those on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. And I’ll never forget, because the next morning, after a night of being utterly unable to sleep for the severity of a headache–and headaches for me were a rare thing–and when our two little ones were up all night anyway throwing up, and then finally Richard threw up–in the morning, after my collapsing by the side of the bed for the pain but coming to when I hit the floor, unable to stand, Richard was asking into the phone if this could be a reaction to that pungent wood finish wafting up the stairs. It was November. You don’t open the windows in New Hampshire in November.

Or, since we had eaten leftovers, the stuffing had been left out too long and too warm Thursday. Food poisoning?

The answer was a complete and total surprise: the doctor asked, Do you have a coal-burning stove?

Yes, and we had used it for the first time the day before.

The second thing he said was, since he had declared us to have carbon monoxide poisoning, Can you drive yourselves to the hospital? (There was no 911 service in that town at that time, just Sister So-and-So from church with her trusty snow-worthy Suburu wagon, ready and willing to transport anyone who needed it as her act of service of the day. I am told there is an actual ambulance now.)

Me, no way, but somehow Richard managed it. When they sampled his blood they came back wide-eyed and asked, How?!

He was taking care of his family. He had to make it. So he did.

We moved a lot of stuff around today to make way for the furniture Michelle needed to temporarily store here and now that’s all done.

There is this one old pine dresser that’s been plastered in little-kid stickers for a very long time, an art project when Mommy wasn’t looking. It hasn’t been in her room in a long time and now there’s no longer space for it anywhere at all.

And I’m torn between, we finally get to get rid of it (but let’s scrub those off first), and, there’s a bit of history to that thing that nobody else could know or would even want to know. My kids lived to stick those stickers on. And that dresser was innocent all along.

Michelle is moving and some of her stuff will have to store here for a little while. Eichler houses do not have attics nor basements. I am taking a break for a moment from getting ready for tomorrow’s input. (Your roommate gave you her piano? Cool!)

The little English Morello tart cherry tree that we planted last year, whose emerging leaves got utterly devoured again and again till I finally went out one night and discovered the pharoah’s plague of Japanese beetles swarming it–that tree. Big rootstock but the top stayed tiny, not much taller than my knees.

So I was just waiting for those bugs to come back. Meantime, the squirrels dug for them, the towhees stood near the tree and jumped backwards again and again, spraying bits of dirt out of the way and pecking at what were surely tasty shiny green/black goodies; me, I shook barbecue-grill ashes along the branches and the bottom of the trunk, figuring that was probably not the same as when I sprinkled it directly on the bugs last year and they all instantly fell off dying as the ash broke their joints. (And fertilized the tree.) But hey. A little preemptive Do Something. We all pitched in.

Tiny pops of green last week, later than the sweet cherry but not to worry–and no sign of damage. Every morning and every night I’ve checked. We’re good.

Yesterday was different, though: suddenly some of those round green buds started to turn white and tomorrow we should actually have flowers. Who knew! I had zero expectations of sour cherries this year–I expected the tree to still be in pure survival mode.

I guess it recovered better than I could see.

And for a total win, the thing is still so tiny that it fits under one of my small birdnetting tents. Easiest critter guard ever.

Drove to Salinas to share a cousin’s big day.

Artichoke fields blurring by, but there’s no mistaking those spiky leaves from the car.

The slough at Moss Landing, with a snowy egret back there.

You know you’re driving through Castroville when the front of the strip mall includes a giant artichoke (which would have been clearer if the driver had just held still, y’know, right there where the highway kind of peters out for awhile there going through town.) If you’ve eaten a ‘choke you’ve tasted a part of their town.

I knit half a cowl on the drive down. I put away the knitting and simply absorbed the landscape as we took the coastal route back up.

You start with one seed sprouting. The new plant sends out runners that create new plants all around it, and new around them, the leaves gradually weaving under and over with more baby plants squeezing into every available space till it’s hard to find where one starts under there to get your fingers under all the leaves of just that one to give it a good hard effective yank. Out.

Invoke your Citizens United metaphor here–or not.

Picturing my grandchildren walking across the sharp-spiked seedheads and crying for pain spurred me to keep going no matter how tired I got: it wasn’t raining, I was only coughing a little bit, don’t stop.

Gasping for breath is not a good sign. I did stop and went inside and put my feet up. I was able to stand it for about five minutes, then I got right back to it–I don’t want poisons, I can’t afford, not in money nor energy, to cover the whole back yard in mulch. Go.

I think I freed us of about fifty pounds’ worth and glancing back at last Tuesday’s post, I’d forgotten I’d gotten nearly this much out that day, too–before I started today you would never have known that. Darn. I did clear out one entire patch. I have to win.

Rain rain rain rain rain, much of it in fierce sideways gusts, 1.3″ of it today, wonderful wonderful (cold dark go get a warmer sweater) rain.

My English Morello tart cherry early this morning, responding to all the lovely water and with no sign of Japanese beetle damage whatsoever. We are winning that battle (link to how) this year. And that was the last time I dared take an exposed iPhone outside.

The dishwasher that was backed up last night that I hoped I’d gotten going didn’t stay going. But the sink is just fine…! Crud.

That thing at the back of the fridge?

See, after twenty-six years of lupus and Crohn’s, when I have a good day after a string of bad, when there’s a task or even a fun thing pulling at me I do it while I can, even when I know I’m overdoing. “Today I can do this” is my stock inner phrase and these had to be done. Go.

I cleaned the fridge. The dishes (well, most of the dishes. I can only stand in place so long but I got two good tries out of it.) The laundry, because they were predicting falling trees and power outages with our wind advisory and flash flood warnings–and sheets and fevers and yeah. Meantime, Richard braved it out there, his oversized umbrella flipping inside out several times in the short steps from car to doors as he hunter-gathered into the wilds.

And I made good headway on my new project. I mean, isn’t it, like, a rule that you have to knit and watch the rain?

Coopernicus showed up on the telephone wires, feathers being blown backwards from time to time, rousing and shaking off the deluge. He people watched back for a bit. I could see his beak open as he commented an aside to the unseen.

We’re good for a few days now. My stars, (glancing up), it’s 11:08. G’night.

More energy, less fever. Yay! Missing a mini-family reunion, not so yay, but sometimes you just don’t get to do what you wish you could do. Those flying home to Texas and Hawaii can wave hi from afar with me.

Well maybe at least I could snap a nice picture, and so I went outside when the sky took a break. Love love love how this one came out. And while I was snapping away I glanced up into the gray sky, anticipating more rain warning me to bug out of there, to see instead two hawks air-dancing above and I stopped and I watched them court till they were out of sight and away.

Coopernicus and his mate, no doubt, and their appearance broke through my own little cloud as I wished them a successful season rearing a new family.

The anticipated, delayed rain had finally begun today after a drought-dry February.

Rather than a thousand petals all over the ground, Adele’s peach simply bloomed all the more.

Rain is coming, nine days of it, after a mostly-dry February. Hallelujah.

Which also means that since I was feeling a lot better and the time was very short, I spent about two hours yesterday yanking out hundreds of weeds by the roots before that water lets them re-anchor. Before, the plants weren’t big enough to reliably pull clear to the taproot, the leaves would just tear off. I’d tried.

Okay, the answer to that is to use a trowel but that’s harder on my knitting hands.

I got the huge yard-trimmings bin half full and snapped this photo before calling it a night. I’d made decent progress, at least.

And then I spent today feverish and achy and mostly asleep and I just barely managed to get fluids down–the Crohn’s wanted in on the fun. Speaking of which, if the MAP vaccine currently in trial succeeds I am going to be first in line the first day and it would be SO cool to have a cure!

Anyway, re the germ relapse, I totally earned it but I’m still glad I got those weeds out. Some had already started to grow their stabby Hades heels.

This was the very nearly bare branch at the back in yesterday’s picture–we’re up to six baby figs tonight with the tree sprouting everywhere now.

Meantime.

We were in the longest and I mean longest line at Trader Joe’s. Ten minutes it didn’t move, and the others weren’t much better.

I gave a dad with an antsy little girl a finger puppet–and only afterwards realized she had a hospital bracelet on her wrist. She needed it all the more, then.

I had time to exclaim to the woman standing next to me over her purse, which was clearly hand knit and hand felted with inner and outer pockets (that takes skill in the felting process), a flap, a full lining sewn in, she showed me–just a beautiful piece of handiwork. Had she made it?

Oh she wished! But she did knit; her friend had made this.

Did you go to Stitches last weekend? I asked her, sure of my answer–I mean, this local, how could she not have, right? Where we were standing was less than ten miles from the venue.

The look on her face! Like she was almost afraid to ask what she’d missed out on but oh goodness she HAD to know! A hesitant, No… What’s that?

About a hundred fifty to two hundred vendors and ten thousand knitters at the Santa Clara Convention Center. People fly in from all over for it.

Sacramento? she asked. (As in, far enough away she didn’t have to regret missing it?)

Santa Clara. At the Convention Center.

There was both profound regret and a deep excitement in her voice now. She hadn’t seen any advertisements. I wondered in return if you had to know by word of mouth, more or less? Next year, she said. She was going! Next year!

There is no question in my mind she went straight home and looked it up now that she knew to. And I hope her friend who does such beautiful work goes, too.

I came away really glad Richard and I had both felt too tired to tackle Costco so we’d just gone to the much smaller grocery with the short lines. Which thankfully weren’t.

The Woolbuddy booth had a towering felted-wool T-Rex dwarfing its creator. One of my friends put a photo of it on Facebook last night with a caption that made me laugh and Richard leaned over to see what was so funny.

I explained that they sold kits to make small needle-felted animals but of course I hadn’t bought one. (Like I need another fiber hobby? Besides, I gave most of my feltable, non-superwash-treated wool away a few years ago to the woman who made my felted falcon.)

To my surprise, his reaction was, But what about the grandchildren? As in, how could you not make them…!

Ask and they shall–hopefully–receive? My first will probably look nothing like those by someone who’s made a lot of these, but we’ll see. And I don’t know yet how holding a needle with that tight a grip for long periods will work out, but it does look like it’s going to be great fun making these. The Woolbuddy artist certainly puts a lot of delight into the concept.

“I don’t have anything to write about.”

He considered that a moment, and then his face quite brightened at the morning’s memory: “You could write about the chocolate!”

Alright, then, and this was his Happy Valentine’s Day from me: Potomac Chocolate of Woodbridge, VA has only gotten better as its owner has gotten more experience–and that’s saying something. He’s added truffles to his cacao-and-sugar-only bars and they are the best I have ever tasted.

The best thing my sweetie got me was that he tested my two-year-old scooter batteries yesterday, found them dead dead dead beyond redemption (I didn’t use them for Stitches last year–I had the flu), made the trek to San Jose with me to the batteries place and got me set up with a new pair. The salesman laughed when I said what I really needed to do was ask the neighborhood kids to joyride the thing once a week or so to keep them rechargeable, since it’s the letting them just sit there that wears them down. But when I really need the scooter I really need the scooter.

Go Speed Racer–Stitches West here we come!

(Edited Monday to add a link to those chocolates. The truffles seem to be sold out–gee, can’t imagine why.)

It was almost time to go pick up Richard when I felt like walking around the yard while there was still some light out, just to enjoy.

Our lemon tree is having the biggest and juiciest crop it’s had in years (thank you, rain!) and I found myself reaching in past a few thorns for a larger, deeper-colored one. The bit of tangerine in the tree’s parentage deepens the flavor the longer they ripen.

Coming back inside, I meant to put it down in the kitchen but somehow I walked on past and it stayed in my hand.

I was almost to the door. I stopped a moment, looked at the thing, and wondered if today somehow I was supposed to gift someone with, of all things, a lemon. A fresh-picked lemon, but still, it wasn’t much, it certainly wasn’t a hand knit, but hey, they’re fun and they smell wonderful and so out the door we go, sure, I’m curious to see if anything comes of this, but whatever.

I tucked it in a cupholder next to the driver’s side.

Richard didn’t get my text that I’d arrived and so I ended up waiting ten minutes before finally calling and going, yo….

And during that time one of his co-workers on his way to his car walked past where I’d parked and waved hi.

I turned the car back on a moment so I could roll the window down and asked how his day had gone.

Oh! He threw up his hands and laughed with a wince. Busy! SO busy! But he looked like he really didn’t want to be asked any questions about details, so okay, and I found myself reaching for that silly lemon. I described having just picked it and on a whim having brought it with me; would he like it?

That was the–comic relief isn’t the word–the break from it all, something so unexpected, and he said, “Sure!” in delight. He turned it over in his hands a moment, taking it in, and asked, “A Meyer?”

“A Meyer lemon, yes.”

He told me they’d had a tree, but, in embarrassment, “I killed it.” I told him that in that big week-long freeze we had about 15 years ago we thought ours was gone, too, but it had slowly come back and now it’s fine.

I don’t know what he’ll do with just one lemon, but I saw what that one homegrown lemon in that moment could do for him. It was just the thing.