Sequestered in Seattle, Day 42

It was a cool and rainy Earth Day in Seattle, so we spent most of the day inside. We had to hide the controllers to enforce waiting until schoolwork was done to play Mario Kart. Eric was participating in his Spanish Zoom lesson this morning, working on an Earth painting to celebrate the day, but he got frustrated and stopped. This afternoon, Lydia and Colin seemed to have fun during their weekly Spanish, though, which is new.

I had another long meeting this afternoon, to discuss with my team the results of our annual workplace survey. It's definitely not ideal to do this remotely, but it would probably be worse to wait.

We got our latest apple delivery today. It was supposed to be one box for eating, and two of "seconds" for making applesauce, but only one of the boxes looked like seconds, and even those are in better condition than I expected, so it seems like a pretty good deal. No movement yet on the saucing, but we'll want to get going on that soon. Nicole had also mentioned making an apple pie today, but I neglected to do that.

Dinner was pasta salad and Brussels sprouts. Afterwards, I felt like going outside, to celebrate Earth Day somehow. I asked Nicole if she wanted to go for a walk, but she wasn't excited about going out in the rain. I did go out, though, and took some photos in the yard.

The first is yerba buena, Clinopodium douglasii (the same as that after which San Francisco was once named), which we found at the natives nursery in February. It's in the mint family and has a lovely fragrance, but is only just now showing signs of new life. The photo shows one new little sprig growing straight up from the ground, which I was excited to see.

The second is our serviceberry, also new this year, leafed out and just getting ready to flower. I noticed how the rain was clinging to the buds.

Here is the redwood sorrel that I transplanted to the shady area among the shrubs in front of the house. It holds the water rather differently.

And last is the fig tree, several years old now, holding on to a drop that seems destined to escape.

As I was finishing up looking at the yard, the children spilled out of the house one by one, chased by Nicole to join me on a walk. She came, too. It was hardly raining at all by then, and we enjoyed it a lot. The children were captivated moving from snails to slugs to worms as we walked along. Colin took over the role of choosing a route, with some nudges from Nicole, and took us around along the south edge of the cemetery, and then down the hill from there. They found a sidewalk with steps molded into it, which they seem to enjoy. At the bottom of that hill, Lydia spotted two rabbits. They called them Easter bunnies, but I said they were Earth Day bunnies, instead, and soon everything was Earth this or Earth that. We also saw a Steller's Jay, closer to home, and I heard, but didn't see, a hummingbird, as I was photographing madroña flowers.

Back at home, we finished the day with some popcorn and more Mario Kart, followed by reading time. Colin and I finished the second Secret Zoo book, and read a little from the third. Other books continued.