Every Gain Divine

This weekend has been all about testing (Finn takes a standardized test every year), gardening, sewing, and food. 

Today I spent six hours in one of our flower beds.  The mulching goes quickly, but the pulling up wire grass and clover goes a lot slower. (Clover! Bane of my existence!) I'm also transplanting a zillion muscari and that takes forever: tiny bulbs deep down in the dirt.......

I just hope I can walk tomorrow. 

Today also involved proctoring Finn's standardized test and a smidgen of sewing, but the best part of the day was at the end: after homemade ice cream on the porch, we visited the chickens, watered the flowers, listened to my cousin's crackling bonfire in the upper field, and watched the sky turn flaming pink over my grandparents' house.  Annie spun around and around in her pink dress, and I can't tell you how beautiful it all was, and how grateful I am for it.

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And, in closing, it's a day to remember to whom my freedom is due: our fallen soldiers.  

O beautiful for heroes proved

in liberating strife,

Who more than self their country loved,

And mercy more than life!

America, America!

May God thy gold refine,

Till all success be nobleness,

And every gain divine. 

When we sang this yesterday in church, I had tears in my eyes....never fails.