friday

Good things:

- Today, dozens of adorable elementary students came in to learn about conservation during Earth Week festivities. In our pod, there were erosion displays hosted by a few of my own students--water runoff and wind erosion complete with dirt and grass and trees and leaves, all blowing about in the pod, reconstructed between each migrating group.

- Finding a website where you can search for berry picking farms. In just a month, we'll be able to take advantage of our first CSA (half share) membership. I am thrilled at the idea of eating something crisp and true. Freshness. Ryan just finished In Defense of Food, and last time we went grocery shopping, and he told me about how we ought to shop from the outer rim of the grocery store as everything else as you draw to the center becomes more and more processed. I think we do a fairly good job, though I have the naughty habit of letting some things rot (asparagus, strawberries) before I think to eat them. Bananas are eaten immediately; they are readily available. Blueberries get shuffled to the back. Both are glorious when fresh.

- It is Friday, and I am grateful. The weeks are jumbled lately. Six weeks left to the school year (not that I'm counting), and every day closer to the weekend is a favorite. I look forward to sleeping in a little tomorrow, but not too much: I have plans for that rascally yard of ours.

- Finding Beth on Flickr. She's a friend from high school (of the herd variety I've mentioned before), and is talented on many levels, including artistic; I have a few bits and pieces of hers tucked away, actually. I especially love this photo and this one.

- Other simple beauties found on Flickr:


1. aging, 2. seedlings, 3. 2, 4. wednesday evening, 5. Hayley Three, 6. Knit, 7. sink, 8. new loaf, 9. Untitled, 10. bulbs, 11. day 11 of 17 (catching up), 12. uprooted

- Molly Peacock's Cornucopia. Donald Hall's Without. Cate Marvin's Fragment on the Head of a Queen. Elizabeth Alexander's American Sublime.

- Listening to the sounds of an empty classroom and writing poetry. Actually seeing the end of the grading tunnel. Actually feeling motivated to grade--this, my friends, is a gift. I shunned grading for so long, would do it oh so grudgingly and while I must admit, I am still not enamored of the piles of essays I must plod through, I will say I do so without wanting to gouge my eyeballs out with a plastic spoon. Indeed, this is how much I hated grading last week. And the week before. And the... well, you know.

- The weather. The crashing thunderstorms, the foggy mist. I heard on the radio we might get up to six inches of snow in northern Minnesota. How can that be? Our grass is green here and in the same state, snow is possibly landing on the ground.

- Two camping trips coming up: Afton with my husband in May, and Jay Cooke with our friends Lane and Angie and Chad in June. Possibly July with Emily and her husband Pat? I am thinking I might add something to that life list (so I must hurry to get one off): camping in every state park in Minnesota at least once.

What about you? What are some of the good things surrounding you this wet weekend?