Yes, I'd love to be in the Utica Days Parade, Thank You

I feel like a kid who's looking forward to all sorts of great things.

But before I tell you about these things, real quick I just wanted to say I found a new mulberry tree in the middle of my "dump pile" at the edge of the orchard, and it was full of dark purple berries that tasted perfect after working past suppertime on an ailing rose bush whose beauty had fallen prey to the most dastardly of weeds--bind weed.  I don't mind most weeds.  I'm annoyed by them.  Bind weed is another story.  It chokes everything it wraps itself around.  See, I don't mind a little pushing and shoving for space, a little argument over who gets the first glass of water, but when you start strangling the life out of each other, well, I'm not cool with that.  

Anyway, I am excited about:

1.  My ukulele ladies, sitting outside under a shady tree, a table in the grass, blue printed table cloth, tang for the kids, and harmonies stacked 3 stories high.  And I am flying so high listening to the three of us as we work through the songs shared, passed around, ringing clear through the neighborhood of Utica.

2.  Gillian Welch's new album.  Eleven years since the last one came out.  Oh, and how this one sounds like something I could live with for a long, long time.

3.  The possibility that my farmgirls and I will be part of the Utica days parade.  Oh, yes.  Count me in.

4.  Nora's sense of humor.  She just gets funnier by the day.  I was working in the kitchen and turned around to find this:

Nora was crouching in the corner with her hands over her mouth suppressing a smile, "I played a joke on you!  Did you think it was funny?"

4.  COUSINS!  SISTERS!  Bring out the sprinkler, sleeping bags, lightening bug catchers, yarn for crocheting through our inability to sit still long enough to catch our breath, fireworks, Julie's humor.

I am blowing kisses all around this joint.