May Flowers

May might very well be my favorite time of year in Montana.

And as I especially love holidays, we naturally marked the 5th, on our calendar, as an excuse to get festive…

Cinco de Mayo was never particularly marked during my childhood, likely due to the fact that it’s also my baby brother’s birthday. Born when I was a teen, he turned twenty yesterday. Crazy talk.

Luke was the quietest, fairest, chubbiest, smartest little red haired baby that you ever did meet. He could identify every letter of his foam alphabet set long before he could walk or talk. He’s now a gangly, shaggy-haired, 6 ft 4in college student finding his way in the world.

Several hundred miles from Baby Brother et al, the kids and I marked the day with an uplifting and educational field-trip to a local nursery, followed by a festive fajita dinner at home with The Hubs.

A day filled to the brim with a rainbow of God’s colorful creation seemed a somehow fitting way to honor Mexico’s vibrant culture. We learned that Cinco de Mayo is not actually their Independence day, as is often assumed.

At the nursery, the seemingly endless rows of sticky, muggy, earthy greenhouses smelled exactly like Oregon. Like life.

It made me so nostalgic that I almost purchased a flat of moss.

Back at home, Husband noticed that one of our resident chatty Killdeer [birds] had three tiny bundles scurrying just behind her. We dug out the ol’ telescope (the kids broke the binoculars) to get a closer peek.

Google confirmed they build their nests right on the ground. We also found some YouTube videos of their calls that they eagerly responded to.