Well Spring has really sprung here, yesterday was a heat record of 87 degrees, today it is 80 degrees which may set another record high temperature.

We are traveling south to see friends and family this weekend so I will be in the city of Pittsburh Pennsylvania this Easter.

We will dye eggs, make chocolate candy and fix up baskets for the little ones, we always have fun doing this. We will eat, and drink around the dining room table, tell stories and commiserate with one another about the things that have troubled us. We will join in and watch the kids play in the yard with all the dogs that show up with the guests.

We dyed Easter eggs on Wednesday with friends in town.Three of us have master of fine arts degrees and we had a great time coloring eggs with two young boys aged 15 and 14. They were not going to do it at first ( they said it was babyish) but they saw how we were having fun and joined right in. We also helped my wife set up an April fools joke for one of her co-workers. We drew 50 different lady bug drawings with pen, pencil and markers so my wife could scatter them around her office before she got in April first.

Last week this co-worker had a a bug in her office and it landed on her chest, she swatted it and killed it before she saw what it was. After awhile she noticed a smell coming from below her nose, it was the guts of the smashed beetle giving off an unpleasant aroma. So we decided to give her a big bug surprise on April first.

These little things, dying eggs, creating a joke for another person and sharing time with friends are the great things in life, remembering small things that fill your mind with smiles and love for other people is a lesson I have learned here on the farm. Days and days are filled with work, problems to solve and worries to overcome. So these little things fill us up with hope and friendship and love of life on the farm.

We will enjoy our time away but we will be most happy when we pull into the driveway and watch all the ducks and chickens come running when they see our car.

Happy Easter to everyone here on the vine, hope your days can be filled with little things that make you smile.

See you next week, Vald, AKA John.