It was a half-day, so the girls came home early, bearing end-of-year report cards and huge grins. After lunch, we walked to a copse of cottonwood trees and picked all the cotton our four bags could hold.

Our gleanings will be the raw materials for making paper later on (this week, or later on this summer, who knows–it doesn’t really matter! I’m giddy and high on sympathetic freedom ).

It’s nearing the end of cottonwood season (allergies, I will not miss you) so I was relieved to find these pods still draped over some of the further bushes.

This was S’s best find.

Tea-time today was a picnic of sorts at Battle Point Park. We went to the grocery store beforehand, and I told the kids they could each choose whatever they wanted. After nixing a whole sheetcake and an entire apple pie, I okayed this stuff:

Guess which treat is mine!