Saturday Mornings

One of the best parts about late Friday nights (see my earlier blog post) is that they are generally followed by lazy Saturday mornings. If we get the chance, here's what a lazy Saturday morning (for everyone but the farmers) looks like around this joint.

It starts with breakfast. Quick quiz: can you guess which egg is the local, farm-raised free-ranger? And then the store-bought organic free-rangers?  And then...the regular store-bought egg? Saaaad little store-bought eggs. But this morning, we were equal-opportunity consumers.

 We spend our morning goofing around in our comfies. You can count on sleep-like apparel until at least ten. At least.

Then, someone always asks for a bubble bath. It's usually me, and I also request things like chocolate and coffee, but the kids generally win out. Sigh.

After we get dressed--sometimes back into jammies, I won't lie--we head outside to take in the sunshine. Below is the tree outside our bedroom window. This amazing beauty is so shimmering gold that it has woken us up the past two weeks with its entirely believable imitation of the sun. Tricky tree, I tell ya.

Usually, by ten, the cattle have gone through their paces. They hold to a seriously rigid schedule. At 9:00, they come by the house on their way to the watering tanks. By 10:00, they are heading back out to the main pasture area. However, on this particular Saturday, the cattle picked up on our lazy groove. Not one was doing anything more productive than chewing cud.

 Something that always makes me smile is a dog enjoying the grass and sunshine. They just make it a whole-body experience! Spencer begins by arching to one side, and then the other, grumbling deep in his throat with enjoyment. Then, he usually drags himself, army-crawl style, across the lawn on his tummy, grinning the whole way.

By this point, the kids have usually jumped onto the kid-sized (and kid-speed) four-wheeler. They have it down to an art: Jonathan hops on first, and then Grace. He laces his arms around her stomach, and she checks and tightens them, just to make sure. He leans into her back, and they take off...at about .5 miles per hour. Seriously, they crawl. But they do move, which makes the entire experience thrilling and liberating, and their range on the farm is vast, so they can venture out, even if it takes an hour one way.

Because Saturday mornings are like that. Freeing. Slow. And totally enjoyable.