Love the One You're With

If you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with. Do do do do do . . .

Makielski's. All you A2 people know what I'm talkin' about. Makielski's is a verdant and lush orchard filled with every species of blackberries and raspberries and gooseberries and pumpkins here on God's green earth. We go there every year, sort of. Kind of. Now we go their in our hearts. Because Makielski's is in Ann Arbor, one of the top 3-cities of the world. Annnnnd, if you recall, we don't live their anymore. We gave up Camelot for burnt toast with a side of ocean. Not bad, mind you, but we still have our I'd Rather Be in Ann Arbor bumper stickers.

Ok, so whaddya do when your stuck living over in Burnt Toast? Well, you do what you always did and go pickin.

Tovey got confused and nabbed an alarmingly large gem from her nose. That's not what we had in mind.

Unlike Makielski's, with 7-fields encompassing hundreds of acres, the place we went to up in the mountains was 3-1/2 rows that were 20-feet long. That's it. Just one kinda berry. There were plenty of bees, which was a relief. Not so much of a relief were the snakes curled up under the tender, wet leaves. But we managed. And I was teary, homesick, but determined that my puddin-babies are gonna grow up right -- with raspberry thorns stuck in their finger tips and snake wrapped around their ankles.

That's Baby #3 there. She was a good picker until the snake incident, then she mostly snake hunted.


Baby #4 likes bees and snakes. She's a lot like Nutmeg, troubles with leaving all the little creatures be. Plus, I don't even know how she got a hold of that shi-shi in her mouth.

I take it seriously. The kids had the buckets so I had to use my skirt, probably just like Laura Ingalls Wilder. I wonder how Laura handled snakes? I run and scream and have to cardiovert myself. My heart is still flip-floppy.

When people ask me how old the twins are, I don't correct them, and then I tell them that Jack and Annike are 6-years old. It's all true. They are 6-six old. And, they're strikingly similar. Jack Henry Viking was our boy for the day. On Friday, Soren was one of theirs. Even Steven.
(Oh, I was still holding raspberries in my skirt.) (I wasn't trying to be sassy.)

All my Viking children. Soren is too cool for smiles. He also doesn't have teeth anymore.

Pa and Ma Viking and the minis and the corn and the field and the mountains and the most fabulous smell in the air. It's breathtaking in ways Back Home isn't, and I get an extra child or two out of the deal sometimes, and so I'm trying to make Burnt Toast the way we are. It's not so bad, spread it with something sweet and it feels just about right.