A Perfect Night, Just About

Friends have been helping me clean up and rearrange the acres a bit, taking down some trees, clearing brush, tilling garden and flower space - and making excellent fires almost every night.

The boys and I spent one of these nights last week out back - I played in the violets with the cats first, then we had a fire (marshmallows included) and just enjoyed smelling things growing, after 7 months of frozen air. The boys and Silverstein spent some time 30 feet or so up the biggest, oldest sugar maple.

It was so almost perfect that we did it again last night, but invited those hard-working friends over. We shared most of the last 8 marshmallows in the bag and sat around the fire entertaining each other.

It's a good season.