Sunday Dinner

This is my old "climbing tree." I wasn't much of a tree-climber (just a hair afraid of heights, I guess)... but this one was safe up to the second branches.... Looks pretty high to me today!
Is there anything more enticing than a slow-cooker of farm roast beef, quartered white onions, potatoes, and carrots? I love to get up early early (about four a.m.), peel the vegetables, and put it all in the crock-pot with some salt, pepper, ketchup, a bit of water, and white cranberry juice....I add just a whisper of home-cooking love... Then I admire to slip off to bed again with that comfortable knowledge our dinner is well underway...
Today was such a morning...
Add in corn casserole, broccoli, cheese biscuits,
and a lovely green salad.... and we're all set...
just simple home cooking... this is a meal my sweet dad would have loved (except the broccoli!)....
Earlier I took a huge mug of coffee out the back door and ventured into the back yard. It was a refreshing moment, profound with something I hadn't felt in a while... I have been avoiding the back yard, Daddy's haven... and I hadn't realized how long I'd been absent... It felt like a date with an old beau after a long stint apart. I used to summer in this yard, piling up in the hammock, building a tent, sitting on the yard with my dog, playing in the little smokehouse.. With Mom on a walker and my status as AWOL, the yard is in horrible repair... This will be my third summer here, so it's time I ventured out and reclaimed the territory this spring and summer...
The back tree row is much farther in person... I used the zoom to capture those little evergreens...
Long ago, when I was a little girl, we planted this lilac from a sprout from Gramma's big lilac bush... This one is now as big as hers was then... Heady fragrance...
Winter winds have broken down this redbud and the other trees... But they are still giants of my childhood...
Magic gnomes and fairies delight in little communities around the roots of this old tree... I'm sure I saw a few today peeking out at me and remembering me from long ago. I think it's really lucky that fairies and elves have such great memories... and nobody grows too old or different to be recognized.... I dunno... I'm beginning to wish for a dog again... Quick, somebody remind me how much trouble they are!