Poem for Tuesday, Kidwell Farm and Mount Vernon

Spring
By Gerard Manley Hopkins

Nothing is so beautiful as spring—
  When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
  Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
  The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
  The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
  A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden.—Have, get, before it cloy,
  Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
  Most, O maid's child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

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Monday was as gorgeous as the rest of the weekend -- high 50s and not a cloud in the sky -- so we went to see baby farm animals after a morning of watching The Queen's Palaces on DVD (Dementordelta's and my choice, though Adam and Paul watched too). We went to Frying Pan Farm Park's Kidwell Farm, which has three litters of piglets that were born in March and six lambs born at the end of the winter, plus a calf, peacocks and other fowl, rabbits, horses, and goats. From there we drove to Mount Vernon, which was packed with spring break visitors. We had lunch in the food court and went to see their Ossabaw Island piglets, a record number of Hog Island lambs, plus all the flowering plants and farm animals in the upper fields -- the mansion line was so long that we didn't even try to visit.

















Delta headed back to Richmond while the rest of us headed home, where younger son went to visit a friend who is currently sleeping over and Paul and I had leftover homemade chili for dinner. We watched the beginning of the NCAA championship, took a break for Smash which had way too little showbiz and way too much Drama, then went back to the game with breaks to see what Jon Stewart was saying about Mitt Romney being everyone's second choice. Congratulations to Kentucky, don't eat any pink slime, and if Tuesday is your primary election day just as it is ours, don't forget to vote!