Hi. Remember me?

I know, I know. I never write! It’s just that I’ve been busy — I know, that’s no excuse. We used to be so close! Remember all the good times we used to have, hanging out, talking about cooking and old prints that hung on our dads’ office walls? I know. Those were the days, weren’t they?

I mean, it seems like it was only last September when I threw myself out on the Internet and announced I was A Blogger. Wait. It was last September.

Well, it’s been a busy month or so. I have an excuse. SUMMER has arrived. Things have heated up ’round the old Soileau homestead.

For one thing, vermin have been eating my garden just as fast as I can plant it. I’m feeding several species of darling wild mammals here — mammals who are perfectly capable of supporting themselves, mind you … DO YOU HEAR ME, WILD MAMMALS?

Chipmunks: bah! You are dead to me, you sunflower digging-up little cretins. And bunnies. Bunnies! What could be cuter than bunnies? Well, listen you darling little things, I ain’t having NO MORE OF IT. Quit eating my Dianthus. And stop consuming the sunflower leaves that managed to poke their way skyward, despite the chipmunks. Go be cute elsewhere. There is no feeding trough here. I see plenty of clover out there, ready to become your sustenance. Stop it.

That’s funny. I didn’t know bunnies could chuckle.

And speaking of cute, would you look at this? Trassie is attracting flocks of girls.

Girls are appearing out of the woodwork.

OK, not the woodwork. But definitely from across the greenspace, the lush area behind my house which, I guess, supports an animal population of endless proportions. (Where are the OWLS, I’d like to know? I’m looking for Circle of Life stuff here — and the raptors crap out on me.)

But back to the girls: directly opposite our back yard live The Girlies: Allison, Lauren and Catherine. The first two are 8-year-old twins, the the remainder, a 5-year-old. Trassie likes ’em all. They jump on the trampoline, they eat popcicles. They tramp in and out of the house, gathering up Mario paraphernalia; they fly across the divide to THEIR home, amassing mermaids and stuffed floppy doggies. Piles of socks have appeared on the grass. Sandals and ponytail holders have sprouted on the deck. I’m having flashbacks to Claire’s girliehood.

We’ve also been doing yard work, which involved something I’m calling Prune Surprise.

Tras took the trimmers to the trees along the street which, as trees will do, have been growing and impeding Progress. This Progress is mainly mail delivery. The mailman got tired of fighting the limbs blocking the mailbox and finally one day got medieval on them. I found them twisted and broken — but certainly out of the way of the mailbox. Not wanting to inspire any more violent outbursts on the part of postal personnel, Tras himself went medieval on the very same trees, and ended up with a container full of trimmings. Here, Christopher poses with the container.

But let’s look a little closer.

It appears to have contained something more.

The old Prune Surprise.

Tras asked the rest of us, indivdually, to come outside and take a look at the lawn, and more or less scared the living daylights out of us when the container full of branches began wildly giggling.

If you’ve ever owned and operated a 5-year-old, you know they don’t tire easily. In our case, they don’t appear to tire at all — so the game was just as fresh by the time the last family member was fooled as the first.

So June has arrived and we’re all outside. It’s a light-filled, exciting time – one that leaves precious few moments for the deep introspection and quality philosophizing you’ve come to expect as the hallmark of NouveauSoileau.

Hey! Don’t tell me that’s the bunnies chuckling.