tonight my daughter played

The story of where we got this piano happened so fast it hardly seems real. Except for the evidence: the heavy, solid, almost wider than doorways evidence.

Pieman and I have long wanted our kids to take music lessons. The other evening in a brief conversation as we drifted off to sleep, Pieman suggested that we try to track down a piano anyway even if the lessons don't come yet. Sure, I yawned. A few days later I remembered and sent a quick email to a couple of friends mentioning we were looking for a "if you come and get it it's yours" type of deal. Within hours Pieman received a phone call about this piano. The funny part though was that he had not realized that I had sent out the email. He'd been at work, had just walked in the door and answered the phone while I worked on supper. I hear a strange side to the conversation. "Are you asking me or telling me?" (Sounds like a telemarketer and he's got Pieman at a bad moment.) Then a laugh. Then some personal remarks. (Not a telemarketer? Someone he knows. But WHAT are they talking about?) Turns out they've arranged to pick up the piano in two days. Four guys, big heavy piano up a steep flight of stairs, a flurry to return to their homes and eat or release their wives from kid duty to attend their various events (at which I also was in attendance and hurried, burning my tongue on my soup in the process.)

Do I say thank you? or I'm sorry?

Thank you.

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As I work my way downstairs with the vacuum cleaner buzzing in my ears, Pieman flings himself towards the window yelling something about Tundra Swans. He's been outside stacking the never-ending woodpile. We knew that the swans were migrating and were apparently landing by the hundreds on a semi-nearby lake. It seems that they fly over our house to get there and since we have a wetlands area near our home they decided to stop over. We piled into the car and raced over to try to catch a glimpse.

We got some great pictures. We also saw lots of Canada Geese, half a dozen muskrats swmming under and around the still frozen lake and enough birds to make us feel that the wetlands were just alive with Spring! More remarkable to us since we all wished we had thought to grab our gloves and hats to combat the icy winds. Wish I had muskrat fur.

Mild days. Still I cannot work the ground. The garden plot is appearing slowly from underneath its white blanket to reveal sodden, matted vegetation brown and gray after a winter of death. Which makes anything living a surprise. In a corner, just visible, are eight bright green shoots. I've been waiting for these, hoping. This was the first corner of the garden to appear a week or more ago during our first warm spell. I chose this part of the garden to plant some garlic cloves last fall because it was the closest to the house. I don't know what they will do. They are "supposed to" grow in the spring after a winter's work underground. So far, they have grown but here is a surprise for me, although not such a surprise after all. The snow was a blanket; the little sprouts after having been exposed for these days are less bright green, less lively looking. They have not grown at all and appear to have shrunk and dried. I will keep watching them. I expect that they will gather strength when they are ready to and grow up to the sun's warmth.

Do rabbits like garlic scapes? I never did get any peas last year but the rabbit was fat. This year I have a new plan. Fencing. I will have fresh peas.

Speaking of new plans. Our chickens have not laid more than one or two eggs for weeks. After losing one to an accidental strangling and then spending an hour in the muddy bean field being frozen by a chill wind while chasing and herding the blasted 5 remaining escapees, AND discovering now that the problem has not perhaps been a lack of egg laying but a newly acquired taste for raw egg and shell, I made the call. Only I don't know who will butcher only 5 chickens so the "call" was an email to a friend who might know where to find someone locally who will do it. Privately, I hope she will offer. I'd rather not have to drive an hour away to have 5 chickens killed. It's the plucking and innards that are the problem. My boys are eager to try their hand at beheading a chicken.....does that sound awful? I think it's the desire to see them still "alive" without a head. Apparently somewhere once upon a time (read it on the internet!) a chicken "lived" for 18 months without a head.

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What do we do now? is the wail.

I know he is asking which book shall we start now that we have finished reading both The Fellowship of the Ring and Walk In My Woods. But my reply is, "cry?" as I leave the path in the woods that has led me through the life of my Aunt Margaret and her family, which is my family. And on a broader scale, I have seen God at work through generations of people who have loved him, who have been impacted by others who have loved him and who in turn impact others.

I am older now since I read it last. I understand so much more. I hear more in the words on the page; Margaret Epp said more in her sentences than she actually wrote.

I have been deeply moved and thus deepened. So have my children in proportion to their age, just as I was the first time I read Aunt Margaret's story. This is how we learn and grow, in stages, as we are able to absorb and stretch. The prayer is that we never become rigid.

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finally made it to the library

Northrop Frye. An Educated Imagination.

Chapter 1. So far, I'm interested.