Serendipity

I made ratatouille from our CSA vegetables, while the child watched Ratatouille in the other room. It made a perfect side dish to some lamb we found in the freezer, and the next night, the leftovers turned into a great pasta sauce through the addition of fresh mozzarella and basil.

We went joy-riding in the pickup truck and fed carrots to the valley horse.

We picked so many wild blackberries that I had to make a cobbler.

And we found that there were plums on the neglected plum tree, so I made blackberry-plum jam.

The child, erratic at best in the foods she eats, ate about a pint of the seedy astringent wild blackberries, her happy face streaked with berry juice.

She threw rocks in the stream, and made dams, fell down and got up again wet.

I made a peach-apple pie with CSA fruit, and tossed in a handful of blueberries from the bush outside the kitchen door.

And because none of us had to be anywhere on Monday, we stayed an extra night.

A serendipitous mini-vacation, all because the cable guy didn't show up when he was supposed to.