Quarantine: Wed. 5/20 (NH)
The expansiveness of NH time is astounding. At home, even during lockdown, our days are just crazy--homeschooling, cleaning, cooking, grocery ordering, all the life stuff that takes up every hour of every day. There's not a spare second to do anything. Yet here in NH, the hours expand. The kids did some schoolwork in the morning, and then the day just eased along. L&G spent three and a half hours in their new hammocks in the woods, reading and playing. I sat in the sun and read a book, Farrah under my chair. The kids spent the next three hours at the pond, catching creatures and then wading into the water. I read some more, in a different spot. (Andrew, unfortunately, had to work today; though he has the rest of the week mostly off.)
For dinner, Andrew grilled sausages, and I chopped them up with some bell peppers, feta, and farfalle. We ate outside and had Oreos and Thin Mints for dessert while the kids played with glowing sticks in the fire pit. They ran back and forth from the woods, finding dried branches from pine trees that they then fed into the fire. We let them stay up past dark to look at the stars, with Andrew finding constellations and star names with an app on his phone.
Then we heard some significant rustling into the woods, from a creature of indeterminate size--it could have been a chipmunk, or it could have been a bear--and hightailed it inside.
It was just a lovely day. Obviously we don't have regular life obligations here, which is why the hours stretch out so luxuriously, but it still feels like a kind of enchantment.
For dinner, Andrew grilled sausages, and I chopped them up with some bell peppers, feta, and farfalle. We ate outside and had Oreos and Thin Mints for dessert while the kids played with glowing sticks in the fire pit. They ran back and forth from the woods, finding dried branches from pine trees that they then fed into the fire. We let them stay up past dark to look at the stars, with Andrew finding constellations and star names with an app on his phone.
Then we heard some significant rustling into the woods, from a creature of indeterminate size--it could have been a chipmunk, or it could have been a bear--and hightailed it inside.
It was just a lovely day. Obviously we don't have regular life obligations here, which is why the hours stretch out so luxuriously, but it still feels like a kind of enchantment.
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