Baled Hay

Up early this morning for a walk before OilMan went to his appointment with the hand doc and my neighbor was coming for a painting session. The farmer across the road has vineyards, orchards and this one field of hay. He's been up at 4am many mornings tending his vines, and yesterday he was up at 4am mowing and baling hay. There's something appealing about a field of hay bales like this, even to a city girl like me.

OilMan came home feeling very chipper because the hand doc said he was doing fine and didn't hurt him (!) and we were feeling chipper because we got to paint the garden from our porch (harder than it looks). Ann was having fun and I was learning things.

Today was the last day of school for Will and Peter. We never see Will since OilMan gave him his car, so he went off with buddies, while Dana and I picked up her friend Kim and their boys and we went off to the Barlow in Sebastopol for some special ice-cream, each serving prepared and frozen over dry ice before our eyes. Quite a show, and very good, but I'm not sure it was any better than ice cream made the conventional way.

Then the real reason for our trip…Jim met us at the ice cream store and took the boys home, while Dana, Kim and I went to the clothing boutique across the way! I discovered it a couple of weeks ago when I went there with OilMan and my brother. Men and boys usually have to be otherwise entertained when we women go to clothing stores. Heaven knows, with a distillery, several wine tasting rooms and a brew pub steps away, there are plenty of diversions for OilMan and Rick,, but OilMan chose to sit glowering on a bench across the street, so I wasn't able to give it my full attention.

Dana was smart enough to have us arrive in separate cars, so that we weren't hampered by men who would rather throw themselves under a bus than enter a clothing store! The owner of the store is a lovely young woman whose mother was helping her out for a couple of hours. I heard the mother say to somebody that her daughter "is so excited--she's wanted to do this since she was a little girl."

I will do my best to keep her in business….