That's One Big Pea!

Shelling Peas!!!...

20 minutes... All the peas are shelled!

You can only tell so much from pictures
Watch the short clip of 5 pairs of hands shelling...

Baking Day Adventures

This morning Mrs. Bell, AnaLiv and Lydia came to cheer us up! well, I doubt that was their singular objective but we certainly did enjoy their visit! :0) We all donned our aprons, scooped wheat berries, and explored the strange habits of dough together!
During strawberry season I bake angel food cakes for market and, of course, I have LOTS of extra yolks! : ) I thought that only egg whites whipped up 5 times their volume but I guess egg yolks do too!... 1 1/2 cups of egg yolks made ten cups of this ... creamy mixture...

Here's the non-squishable sponge cake!... made with yolks and no whites... :)

The Primroses are in blossom!!!

"Now blooms the lily on the bank,
The primrose down the brae;
The hawthorns budding in the glen
And milk-white is the slae;…"

~Burns

"Long as there’s a sun that sets
Primroses will have their glory
Long as there are violets
They will have a place in story."
~Wordsworth

"All twinkling with the dewdrops sheen
The briar-rose falls in streamer’s green;…"

~Scott

"Ho! The Rose, having curled it’s sweet leaves for the world,
Takes delight in the in the motion it’s petals keep up
As they laugh to the wind, as it laughs from the west!"
~Shakespeare

5:55 am

It's Market Day! A beautiful one too!

Mama slips gingerly down the driveway and onto the dewy road with a load that threatens to topple over at every turn...it never does. It was my turn to stay home that morning. I was not really fully awake, but the morning was calling to me. I can't "get over" this time of day, as you have probably noticed.

There is a hymn that expresses my thoughts often at a moment like this.

Morning has broken, like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the Word

Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from heaven
Like the first dewfall, on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where His feet pass

Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the one light, Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning

God's recreation of the new day

~ Eleanor Farjeon