My husband took these with my iPhone yesterday. I was in the midst of a heavy work day, unshowered and unkempt. But I came out to take a five minute break in the sun, warming Q up in the hammock after her long session in the pool. Raw and natural, I think these photos are a pure illustration of the word "summer".
Here, she wakes, struggles, and begins to look for a means of escape.
Rising against the spell, against the odds, she finds her center and looks for a way out of the malicious spell.
But once the eyes have been opened, preconceptions dissolved like early morning mist, one begins to see every detail of ones surroundings with fresh eyes.
This school playground has been recently renovated. The equipment is new and modern and expertly-designed. But the paint on the tarmac is decades old, cracked and layered by the Colorado sun. Instead of repaving, the designers have printed over the old layers, creating a wonderful collage.
Words stenciled over the cracking paint give a humorous nod to higher learning, and a freshly-paved centerpiece is engraved with the Shakespeare's famous and much-echoed contemplations on the name of a rose.
Summer art camps have scrawled complimentary words on top of Shakespeare's words in chalk.
Stenciled words hark back to oft-taught theorem, such as this one that, read carefully, honors Pythagoras.
Q making flying leaps over "radio" and "light".
And then, finally settled down for a dinner of pizza, salad and pasta, I noticed this puckish young man at an adjacent table, who shared his much -coveted football with Q for a time while we waited for our second course.
From where I'm sitting, we are outnumbered by toddlers. There's this girl, who spends half the time chewing on my favorite slippers and the other half doing speed laps between the wading pool, the bed (ours!!), and the large holes she's digging in the back yard. A recipe for disaster.
This is Mathilda's hole. Heelers tend to like to sleep in tight holes. She chose hers in the first 24 hours (it was a shoe basket) and hasn't left it since. None of the other three will do - it has to be this one, second from the left, third from the right. This is where you'll find her when I'm working in the studio.
And then there's this joker, our resident serial killer. We should have called her Dexter. Sawyer is now the most mature of the bunch, but she's still crazy. She is a cat after all. And she thinks the dog is hers to toy with when she's not out disposing of bodies in the dark of the night.
As for the Q...no, we did not teach her to wear her hat like this. She just flipped it around after we told her she had to wear it.
Kids these days, with their rock and roll and their hats on backwards. I swear.
And then there's this.
"Nothing, Mrs. Larkin. I was just...adjusting the dog's collar. Yeah."
Corner View: The end of our street
Our street has been very pink this spring. Early rains and less snow made for a spectacular bloom which went on for weeks.
We live very nearly at the north end of our street, which comes to an end half a block from us at a park and a small lake. Head south, and at the end of the street you will once again come to a park and a larger lake.
Whichever way you go on our street, you will come to a park, which makes it a lovely neighborhood to live in.
Q wistfully watching soccer practice. It won't be long, Q. It won't be long.
Every year, there is that one day - the day when it's time to do our annual first run to the garden center and plant our first pots. It's always a sunny, breezy day, the first hot one of the season, and we're always a bit giddy with the brilliance of the new grass and the scent of apple blossoms on the wind.
In this part of Colorado, the local wisdom is that you don't plant until after mother's day, so we plant in pots that can be moved in or out, and only the hardies go in the flower boxes on the front stoop.
The garden center is a place of many wonders, and Q already has her favorite aisles. She likes to carry around watering cans and pretend to water the flowerpots as we go.
I am always attracted by the little creepers that serve as "filler" in the hanging baskets - something about them appeals visually. Carpets of tiny flowers. But last year I tried making a flower basket and was not terribly successful. I really shouldn't stretch myself when it comes to green things...it isn't my talent.
Once our cart is loaded and we've bought all we can justify for the first round of the season...
...we traditionally head home and have a first picnic of the season on the lawn.
Q watered the cat, so daddy watered Q in return. Much hilarity ensued.
The pansies are for the flower boxes. I've seen pansies live through blizzards when we lived up in Vail. I trust them to withstand whatever comes our way.
Rolling in the new grass.
I thought about this post, and about the wildlife I'd have been able to photograph if we were still living in the highcountry. Then I thought about how I had promised not to do another "cat post"...
Then I noticed Q's toy bench, early on a Tuesday morning with the sun pouring in all golden and magical over the sill. And I realized...
I didn't need to look far afield.
Here is Q playing with her little menagerie of animals, which spend most of their time lined up neatly on the windowsill, just under the edge of the shade.
Now and then, they are brought to life by the imagination of a little Q who, on this day, looked particularly ethereal compared to her usual sporty (or unclad) self. In this light, she looks almost like a sprite that might bring these animals to life with a flick of her delicate wrist.
Q took this picture of her menagerie herself, though I had to support the oversized lens with a finger since it's far too top-heavy for little hands.
The latest addition to her collection is a much-beloved Steiff bunny that we found the other day while perusing the wonderful antique shops on lower Broadway. The Swiss lady who owns the store had a wonderful collection of Alpine paraphernalia, including a large selection of hand-carved wooden cows, complete with tiny collars and cowbells. She adored Q, and spoiled her with a plethora of sweet nothings, including chocolate eggs, an antique wardrobe key, and a vintage matchbox car.
