light

Storms rolled through during the early, early hours of the morning. That's always my least favorite time for storms. There's something about not being able to see the sky that causes a bit of a fright in me. But I've never been one to be particularly fond of storms (unless it's a soothing rain storm with a bit of thunder rumbling.) 

The storms were predicted to be quite severe. So we secured all of our outside plants, flowers, and furniture, and I went to bed not sure of how much sleep I would actually be getting. I awoke at 3:30 a.m. quite amazed that I had slept through the night up until that point. I checked the weather radar on my ipod and realized that the reason I had slept straight through was because we hadn't had any storms yet. In fact, they were just about ready to roll in. So, of course, the lightning and thunder started, the rain poured, and I anticipated the wind to whip and scream. Needless to say, despite the fact that it wasn't a severe storm at all I never did fall back to sleep until 5:15 a.m. and then awoke to my alarm at 5:40 a.m. 

But we woke up to a glorious morning. Sun streaming through the French doors in the back. The sky blue and painted with white wispy clouds. The colors of nature deepened by the rain that had soaked it all during the night. I took these pictures early this morning. Just walked around a bit outside snapping the light, enjoying the chirping birds and the leaves rustling in the breeze. Brad did a bit of work outside before starting his work day. It always feels good to get out early and breath in the early morning air. Especially after a good rain.

While out, I noticed how full of cherries our front cherry tree is. This is the first year that we've gotten a tree-full of cherries. This particular cherry tree has pie cherries, so they're tart and not the greatest to just pick and eat. But they are great for canning or freezing to use in pies or cobblers. We have several sweet cherry trees out in our fruit orchard in the back, but those are only a year old so we haven't had many cherries from it. 

When I see the fruit of our hard work and time, I feel so blessed. It's such a gift to be able to invest in our land, to work the soil that God has blessed us with. It's a pretty awesome feeling to be able to go out into our very own yard and pick our food fresh from the plant, tree, or vine. I realize that the lifestyle we are choosing is not one that everyone would desire to have, but it's most certainly a blessing to our family. 

Today will be a day of packing as we leave tomorrow to take Sergei to catch his train north for the summer. Laundry and packing and, hopefully some weeding and cherry-picking promises to fill the hours of my day today. I'm sure that the hours will fly by too quickly, but I have purposed in my mind to make the most of each moment today. So I suppose that means that I should log off and embrace the day!

Have a blessed one!