bring me a hill soft with trees

oh man, work was hard today. i had no energy and even less patience and teaching seven intermediate string lessons just wasn't how i wanted to be spending my day. i fear i projected my sleepiness and general grouchiness over not being in vermont anymore onto my students, though they took it like champs, played through everything i asked of them and hey, we even managed to have some fun in the process!

kristina (the female half of my pair of landlords) came over tonight (and by "came over", i mean "walked across our shared driveway") to visit and see how my trip was. we talked about farms and gardens and music lessons for their older son and decided that come spring, we're going to pick out some land on the property to turn into a couple of shared raised beds to grow ourselves some veggies and herbs and anything else that sounds/looks good. just the thought alone has my insides all aflutter and i definitely have to give a good, loud shout out to jenna and sara for the inspiration.

i bought organic milk instead of regular at the store tonight. i've been buying cage-free, organic eggs for a good long while now, but hadn't made the switch with the milk yet because i was a little put off by the extra money. i don't go through eggs nearly as fast, so the price increase wasn't as obvious to my wallet. but really, what's a couple bucks if it means drinking GOOD TASTING, soundly produced milk? i mean, it's the least i can do. now i just need to look into where the meat i'm buying and cooking is coming from and finding more local and humane places to buy from instead.

being up on the farm in vermont and reading jenna's book has me realizing more than ever that there are so many small things i can do that when added all up together, make a pretty big and awesome difference to my immediate surroundings and my overall health (and peace of mind). it's all pretty exciting, let me tell you.

ps. all pictures from the big weekend up in vermont are now uploaded here.