Rainy Day Crazies

Rain falls steady. It hits the ground in pools. The water's soothing sound hums a smile across my face. The house is still, accepting it's job as a shelter; and, now with children in beds the only noise is the cadence of pitter pat pitter pat.

This is such a welcome way to end the day. Oh and was it a day!

Early this morning there was time for a quick run and a cup of coffee before my dear friend Reagan and I took off for Sweet Grass Dairy to take a cheese making class. I haven't been in a class that I haven't taught in nearly a decade. We absorbed the world of a small working dairy making their own cheese. We walked through the coolers filled with molding cheese. What beautiful mold! We emptied the renant into a vat of 350 gallons of milk and broke up the curd with our fingers and dumped it into molds to sit for three months. We listened to facts and numbers and we saw a spectacular system at work. Then we returned to our classroom for a wine and cheese tasting. Late in the afternoon, we drove in the rain back through the pines and the spanish moss covered oaks to the house to fall into bed for naptime exhausted and full.

Only momentarily. William is all over the place. He is up and down every stair and talking up a storm. "Ball" mainly, but lots and lots of ball. He climbs up the stairs (fortunately we only have two and three stairs here and there) and sits right at the edge just talking and talking.

After a bit, George, Reagan and crew ran into town for oysters and ran back home to scarf them down (I didn't, can't do it). In a flash, George and Reagan and Amelia ran out in the rain, loaded Mittens into the Subaru and took her to a nearby farm for a little visit with the rams . . . .

I had the boys to myself for just a few and it was lovely. Rock William to sleep, read a story to George Wilder and listen to the rain. . . .