Rainy

Ways I never thought I'd be spending a weeknight: Washing a rascaly little chicken who got fly paper/tape all tangled up in her feathers.  Washing, oiling, washing, drying, snuggling to warm, blow-drying a chicken. Reading one kids' book for well over an hour because my kids are so enthralled.  Experimenting with veggies to grill at the suggestion of a 5 year old. Obsessively researching  gardening and farming techniques and philosophies and rain barrels. Obsessively contemplating whether or not to send a 5 year old to Kindergarten in the fall. Trying to think of all of the things we can grill now that we got a gas grill and it won't take an hour just to get charcoal going in order to grill anything.  Waiting on the edge of my seat for lilacs to bloom.  Watching my kids get crazy in the rain and mud and not caring at all about the mess.

We got a ton of rain this week that soaked all of the new dirt in our backyard and I'm itching to get planting this weekend.  I promised myself that I'd only get 2 or 3 tomato plants this year (vs. the 14ish the past couple of years) to leave room for flowers. But, when I went to buy the plants yesterday, the varieties were so great and I walked away with 8, which seems like a reasonable compromise, especially since I negotiated with myself that we'll plant one less raised box of other veggies that are plentiful around here and have that energy to spend on the flowers.  Tomato varieties happening this year: Black Sea Man, Amish Paste, Chocolate Cherry, Hillbilly, Speckled Roman, Mint Julep, Bull's Heart and Sunsugar.  How could I resist with names like those??