We all have plans for the day, a schedule of things to accomplish, people to call, emails to send, calendar items to do. But it’s the unexpected things that make life. This morning there was Lucky, waiting for me to drop something in the compost bin. Dew drops on the peony leaves. The flutter of cherry blossoms in the morning breeze. Stumbling on a queue of hens waiting to use a nest. Looking up at midday and seeing a hint of summer in the sky. Running into Buttercup in the evening as she led her chicks to the chicken yard for the night. And finding an egg with a nipple. Now, that was very unexpected. It’s the unexpected things that make life.

Cooking, grinding coffee, washing dishes, all of these things are better with fresh lilac in the kitchen window. It won’t be long before the fragrance of peonies fills the kitchen too. The peony buds are full and on the verge of bursting open.

Wild cherry trees in bloom comfort my eyes each time I pedal home from an errand. There are wild cherries all through the woods. Somewhere in the mountains is a grove of cherry trees many hundreds of years old. A grove so beautiful when in bloom, that no one who has seen it as ever left the grove. As a result, to this day, no one knows where it is. If you stumble upon it one spring while hiking in the remote Cascades, you will never return either.

A bed chewed and ripped to shreds, that’s what frustration looks like. The culprit isn’t guilty looking BB in the back, it’s calm Echo in the front. We had to keep them in their kennel for some hours while we had company during the evening, and Echo let us know what he felt about not being free. That is just the way he is. If the door is open, he will spend hours sleeping in one of his beds in the kennel. However, if he knows the door is closed, he gets so frustrated he will destroy anything he can sink his teeth into. He should be the state dog of New Hampshire, the “Life Free or Die” state.

It’s the end of the word burning season. This may be the last load of firewood we bring in for this season. The warmth of a wood fire is so comforting, there is always a bit of sadness when the wood burning season comes to a close.

But it’s also the beginning of fresh, garden herbs. Today, the lovage is large enough to pick a stem for supper’s soup. Last year, this lovage plant towered seven feet tall. It’s leaves will flavor many dishes this year. One lovage plant will feed a household through spring and summer.