Packing week

We're packing and packing and packing. But today is sooooo beautiful I am hoping to get some time outside... maybe hanging laundry or cleaning out the chicken coop.

We spent Saturday painting the "peeling paint" areas on the new house because it was far cheaper to just do it rather than escarole 150% of the highest of 3 estimates from other companies. The bank was willing to let Colin do the work as long as we got quotes from other painters. Silly, really. So we just headed out and did it. Colin scraped on Friday, and did the trim in a new coat of white, and we spent all day Saturday doing the rest. It came out really nice, however in places where the paint was really faded, the touched up clapboards are really obvious. So maybe I have my chore for the summer?

It was nice to be there, at the house, seeing where the sun travels across the yard, looking into the gardens, and watching the "neighborhood". It feels a bit like a summer vacation spot; cars with canoes loaded on top drive by and people bike and walk around the area. Little kids call from most of the yards, and people from out of state drive by regularly. The pond is only about a 15 minute walk away, and people seem to frequent it (and the next pond up, a 5 minute drive from our house) for fishing and boating.

Everywhere around us Spring has exploded into full view. Besides the steady stream of weekend out-of-staters, the hills have turned various shades of green and red as the buds begin to burst. The pale green of the birches and willows in most obvious just south of here, in the river valleys, and here the hillsides are covered in the burgundy of the maple buds. Alders are also beginning to put on their spring show, and spring beauties (little white flowers) litter the ground in some little hollows. The sugarbushes are sporting their new coats of wild leeks, while the marshes and stream banks have skunk cabbage and marsh marigold in abundance. Now is the time to eat marsh marigold buds, before they burst with their wild yellow flowers.

Birds all over the place are heading north, and various wildfowl have been on the move for nearly a month. In the last few days, as some rain and heat have turned the fields deep emerald green, woodland and field birds have returned, and here at the house I have been hearing birds like the winter wren exploding into long, varying songs that signal spring... I even heard a white winged sparrow the other day singing the first few notes to Fiddler On the Roof. Gone are the days when all we could hear was ravens and chickadees.

Colin took the kids to look at colors for their rooms, and we hope to go later this week to pick out the final options for everywhere else. We have agreed on a green for the living room, although we are thinking of layering it to get a bit of dappled, mossy green effect. The house seems dark all the time inside, so we are hoping for bright, yellow-based colors to keep things lively.

Aidan has demonstrated his love of kitsch as he describes possibilities for decorating his room. For quite some time he was interested in having it look like the Oval Office. But after our trip to La Musee de la Civilisation in Quebec City, he is now hoping for an Egyptian tomb look. A gold and Sandy colored wash on the walls with Egyptian symbols and statue-like Gods on the walls. We figured we'd let him run with the idea. Sage is still sticking to a pink with green stripe around the room that she saw in a magazine (my own damn fault), and I am still thinking green or yellow for Nadia. Our room is so different from the rest of the house... really looking like an urban loft, that we have decided to keep it that way. We'll leave it white, keep furniture and art to a minimum, and are going to use a deep bluish, large painting in place of a headboard. Should be great.

Well... enough time here in front of this screen (it'll rain tomorrow)... so off I go.