Do you feel the world is broken?

We do.

Do you feel the shadows deepen?

(We do)
But do you know that all the dark won't stop the light from getting through?
(We do)
Do you wish that you could see it all made new?
(We do)

Is He Worthy? by AP

Ugh.  "The whole world's at sixes and sevens, and why the house hasn't fallen down about our ears long ago is a miracle to me."  Between the virus and the riots and hearing that a former student ended his life, the world feels very broken.  But He is still Worthy.  All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. 

On to summer...

Littlest Miss think she's big stuff.  And I love her shirt.  :)

They are all on bikes!  So I can walk a little bit faster, which is nice.  And I think Emmy was trying to plant dandelions or something.  :P

We counted 56-ish rings.  It's hard to tell since the trunk isn't circular, but it makes sense if the house was built in 1960, the tree was planted soon after.  

Aw.  So sweet.  She was entertained for quite a while.  

She's gettting more and more brave and tries to climb all kinds of things; she's pretty pleased when she actually gets up on them.  

Grandma gave Emmy a personalized apron for her birthday.  She's a fan.

She's also all about worms.  They spent one afternoon after a rain looking for worm castings to put on the garden.  She knows exactly what they are too.  haha. 

Cadence finally decided to let the older girls teach her how to swing by herself, which I love, since I'm not a huge fan of pushing swings.

I stuck the tomato plants out in the garden even though we hadn't got the fence up yet.  Rabbits don't usually eat my tomato plants and I had not lost a single one in all the years that we've gardened here.  They were growing nicely until I looked out one morning and didn't see them.  At all.  All 5 plants had completely vanished.  Grr.  So we put the fence up and put the girls to work driving stakes...   

And I bought more tomato plants, except this time the stores were all picked over and didn't have the varieties I really wanted.  They were great for a few days, and then they disappeared too!  Then the three pepper plants were chopped off!  (That's 13 total plants if you're counting.) Then I declared war on the evil voles and Bob humored me because he likes tomato sauce, and the peppers are his thing.  At the moment we have 12 snap traps set in and around the garden and around their holes and runways.  They will not prevail.

It's so frustrating... just as rabbit activity starts to slow down, things like vole and chipmunks are more active.  And the squirrels have moved in to get away from the neighbors dogs... I was complaining about all of the animals and Cecily was shocked when I said I wasn't an animal lover.  I'm really not... if it doesn't serve a specific purpose I'm really not interested in them.  haha.  Which basically makes me a terrible person, I know.  This is why we don't have pets inside, and why I wish we could have unleashed pets outside- they would deter all of the vermin. 

Anyway, our current critter count is:
Rabbits- 10
Voles-10 
Hopefully we are making a dent in their populations.  

They were pretty busy one afternoon planting a fairy garden.      

And enjoying a new toddler swing since our baby swing broke and there is only room for 3 swings on our swing set.  She's a big fan.

They are so nosy sometimes and just sit and watch the neighbors... haha.  

Cadence wanted to dress up for church one Sunday morning.  :)  And she wanted to eat lunch in her Easter dress too.  I made her take it off before she went outside to play, though.  

They just keep adding things to the fairy garden.  It is really cute.  

We spent an evening at the farm... it's kind of weird, I almost feel guilty being around people.  Miri enjoyed the jeep I think.

Bubbles!!

Logan loved the bubbles.  

There was no Memorial Day service in town, buuuut, Eureka live streamed a short service from the HS.  So I made them watch it with me.  They were thrilled, or something.  It was not quite the same.

It was finally warm enough for swimming!!  The water was very cold though.    

Just chilling on the front porch.  :) 

Dale and Meg invited our potluck to do a photo scavenger hunt around town and then eat ice cream with them in their driveway.  I always underestimate how long it takes us to get ready, and we're really out of practice with leaving the house, so the fun scavenger hunt was more rushed than I was imagining.  Ha.  My patience was a little thin.  One of the things to take a picture of was a date in the 1800's.  This is one of my favorite gravestones- I was intrigued because he was so young and had no family buried nearby.  Hooray for the internet and findagrave.com- his wife and 1 year old daughter survived him, remarried, and are buried near Champaign.   

The girls were super excited to see and play with the Koch kids again, although Miri is very shy around people now.  I was excited to see their house again- I really like it.  I mean, it has a catslide roof... what's not to love?  :P  

When your Dad's a double-E and your singing electronic toy breaks he can make a valiant effort to fix it.  However, we don't have a soldering iron so it was a lost cause.  I wasn't too sad.    

The first lake day of the year was chilly and windy.  A few brave souls swam, most of us were wearing jackets.  The girls and I just went for a picnic lunch because I had a dentist appointment that they were finally able to reschedule.

It was weird, they checked my temp at the door, made me swish with disinfecting mouth wash, and were all gowned up the whole time.  
The peonies bloomed and we had a whole lot of them in the house.  And the girls were feeling generous a few times and gave bunches to the neighbors.  They are such happy flowers.

They had water balloons out in the pool one afternoon, but our swimming session was cut short because there were a bunch of wasps flying around.  I think we found and destroyed the nest... ugh.  I don't mind bees but wasps scare me. 

My poor girls have the strangest childhood- they spend more time in the cemetery than at park playgrounds.  We visited Beulah's grave one evening and they wanted to bring flowers the next time we went for a walk.  :P   

We got a new rug!  I like it- although it's already so covered in dress-up and toys I can't see much of it.  

Oh Emmy.  She was so torn between playing with Maryellen and going on a bike ride until I reminded her that she has a doll carrier.  

We have the best library! They just started doing curbside pickup AND they have take home crafts!  

Otherwise it's been quiet here.  I really don't mind it and I'm not sure I'm in a hurry for real life to resume.  Hooray for being introverted!  
Blessings.