Islands

This week Tadzio and I have had some time off together. While he naps and plays outside pretending to be a monster, I've been reading the Joanne Harris' Coastliners. The imagery of Harris' story sinks into a reader like a day at the beach; one can almost smell the salty air, feel the wind and expect to find grains of sand stuck in their hair after closing the book. I'm fairly certain this book inspired our trip out to one of our own nearby islands this morning. My plan was to go to the island to pick strawberries at a small u-pick farm, and then spend some time exploring the beach and the river. It was hilarious and predictable to watch Tadzio pick strawberries. He ate far more than he picked, and would lose himself in dreamy reverie watching a tractor plow a field in the distance. Nevertheless, we filled our bucket.

Tadzio wanted to gather cut flowers for my birthday, so we stopped and harvested peonies in a second bucket. He operated the garden shears with anxious guidance from me. Here is a photo of our cuttings. Peonies are such glamorous flowers. I couldn't resist taking photos of them along with about thirty photos of my boy filling himself with strawberries under a gray island sky.