Sunny days

It is finally warming up a bit -- supposed to be in the mid 90s the rest of the week, and you know that means 100 is around the corner. And then I'll start complaining about that. But right now it's really pleasant. Warm enough in the mornings for two naked boys to frolic in and around their water table. I can't post pics of this -- they're all too graphic. Here's a pic from a few weeks ago -- with clothes on.

It gives the general idea.

We have a nice morning schedule. Every weekday after breakfast I get them out of their pajamas and into their nakedness. Then I start a load of laundry -- yes, laundry every day -- and also start watering a tree. When we moved into this house, more than 2 years ago, the backyard was full of fruit trees. I think there were at least a dozen, maybe as many as 15.

Now there are 8, and of those, two are kind of questionable -- they died and came back as shoots off the dead trunk. With our luck, we'll kill a few more this year.

But we're trying NOT to kill any more, and the key to our plan to not kill more trees is to water them! Brilliant, right? So every morning I turn the hose on, very very low, not much more than a drip, put it next to a fruit tree, and set the timer for 20 minutes. When the timer goes off, I move it to another tree. I water three trees a day (a dying rosebush gets to be the 3rd tree on one day, for a total of 9 things watered every 3 days). Then I start over (I water on one weekend day and take the other off). That way I know which trees get watered each day. If it's Monday or Thursday it's the apricot, fig, and rosebush. Etc.

The strategy already seems to be paying off. None of the trees look stressed, and the apricot tree has not dropped all its green apricots, as it did last year.

Once the laundry and watering is underway, the twins and I feed the tortoise a dish of grape leaves and hollyhock leaves. After it finishes eating, I take it out of its pen and let it forage. There isn't much to forage for these days, but it walks diligently around the entire yard, looking.

The twins spend much of the morning playing with their water table, which they seem to find endlessly entertaining. An alternate pastime is riding their trikes.

Around 10, we have snack -- a muffin, a scone, maybe some fish crackers or grapes. We eat it on the patio, and sometimes it ends up in the water table. Later in the afternoon, I see little birds pecking up all the crumbs.

When I'm not working on one of my tasks, I sit down in a patio chair and watch the babies play. Our yard is full of birds these days -- mostly mourning doves and house sparrows, but also mockingbirds, great-tailed grackles, and hummingbirds. The grape vine has tiny grapes on it, the pomegranate bush has at least 15 fruits growing. The fruit trees aren't dead.

This evening we took a walk after dinner and Sesame Street. Baby B rode in the stroller, but Baby A insisted on riding his tricycle. We thus made very slow progress, and Rocket Boy got irritated -- he was hoping for some exercise. I was remembering how easy it was to take them for an evening walk when they were infants. We could be out at 8, 9, 10 o'clock at night. It didn't matter. They slept in their carseats in the stroller.

Of course they also got up at 3 am, screaming to be fed. Every age seems to have its pluses and minuses.

I'm trying to enjoy what we have now.