This morning I had coffee and four slices of toast for breakfast.

The coffee ran all over the counter because I put too much water into the machine and the thermos part overflowed. I had butter and organic raspberry honey on the toast, only it was not officially certified organic, because that involves expensive paperwork in the EU now, the farmer’s wife told me, but she assured me that it was, really, organic. You may think it’s funny that we have a farmer’s wife in our kitchen at breakfast, but that’s how we live here in Austria.

The honey didn’t taste of raspberries, either, and Alpha and I got into a discussion of just how raspberry it really was. It tasted like regular honey. I suppose the beehives were next to a raspberry field or something, but hard to limit the bees to the raspberries and keep them from flying over to the woods next door or the apple orchard.

My uncle the Peasant used to live in a house in Washington State that had a beehive in the walls. As a child I used to put my ear to the wall and listen to them humming in there. Outside, you could stand and watch them fly into their hole in the siding behind a large, generations-old kerria japonica bush.

The things you do when you don’t have television.

We have a big kerria japonica in our back yard now, to remind me of home.

I inspired a tart.

It’s a good feeling.

It was a good weekend for gardening, except for the snow and frost. Our apple tree is getting ready to blossom – it will be the first time, and it is nearly 10 years old, so we’re praying the frost doesn’t fuck up the blossoms. Also decided, late in the afternoon on Sunday, to transplant two box trees and three blueberry bushes (everything was much smaller when we planted our garden and is now starting to get crowded), as well as trim some stuff. So I ended up having to hurry to get everything done by dinner. We’ll see if the plants survive.

All children who read Feral Living are hereby reminded that Easter was one week ago, and chocolate Easter bunny season opens today. This means that while you sleep, fathers around the world are going to be getting into your stashes of Easter chocolate, which they have found by now, no matter how well-hidden. Say goodbye to your bunnies and chickies and eggs.

I mentioned to a friend recently how odd it sometimes is to me, an American living in Europe, to hear references to American cultural phenomena that have arisen since I left the country more than 20 years ago, and of which I have no knowledge at all or only slight familiarity, such as a lot of TV shows, or making the “loser” sign on one’s forehead. Although much American pop culture is exported throughout the world and eventually makes it to Austria, the loser sign simply does not exist here. She suggested I teach such things to my daughters and start trends. Beta has, in fact, made Halloween parties fashionable in her circle of friends. But teach my children to make the loser sign? I could never do that.

Were you an exceptional child, but you were sent to a normal school with everyone else and eventually learned to hide your exceptional side and act normal and came to regret it as an adult, or at least wonder whether things would’ve turned out differently if you’d gone to a school for exceptional children, or at least been in some program?

Or were you fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to have actually attended some special school? Was it a good idea?

Alpha and I have been thinking about this lately. We were both smart kids, etc etc. And now the question has come up whether we would be doing Beta a favor by sending her to a special school for exceptional children. We will have to look at the school, and Beta will have to agree, but we are both sort of leaning towards sending her. What do you think?

Gamma was selling me a book at bedtime. “It’s my turn to pick out the book,” she said. She selected one of her favorites, Bible stories for children. “How about this one? You like fairy tales,” she explained to me. “This is God fairy tales.”

In bed, she thumbed through the book, viewing the illustrations, looking for the story she wanted to read. “Let’s see. Flood. Rainbow. Bad guys. More bad guys…”

“What about this one?” I asked.

“No, that’s King Herod, he wants to kill all the babies. Very bad guy. They had to keep moving around to different countries.” We were looking for a happy story, I guess.

“Where’s the one where they throw him down the well?” she finally asked. So we found the story of Joseph being sold into Egyptian slavery and read that. What impressed me was that she seemed to have memorized the entire Bible, especially the Old Testament, which is admittedly big on action and drama. So this sheds new light on our problems teaching her the days of the week. Because she is obviously a sharp kid. Just now, writing that previous sentence, I remember my cousin’s son, who has Down’s Syndrome, and has all the Disney characters memorized, including their stories.

Learning. I have no idea how it works. Do any of you homeschool your kids? How do you manage that? I don’t think I could ever do that.