Sam has a certain smile that really sings.

He’s such a deep thinker that we don’t get to see this smile very much. Like the smile-for-the-camera smile most of us have, his face looks posed in photographs, only more so. But when a happy moment comes — like that moment when sunlight makes it through the clouds and trees all the way down to the ground to light a patch of wildflowers — Sam’s smile just sparkles.

He lit up that way yesterday when I showed him the rain barrel I brought home from a workshop. “We’re bringing the farm,” he said.

Well, almost. This is the barrel.

This was the farm’s.

We are growing vegetables in beds on the other side of the fence. That 50-gallon barrel should go a long way toward keeping things watered.

I’ll be writing about the rainwater catchment class and the barrel for Monday’s paper.

We have settled into the new place here in town pretty well. We enjoy the many and varied offerings that come with city life. We’ve all got bicycles and ride them around town more and more. But it’s not the same as life on the farm.

We made a very intentional choice to look around at what was missing and bring it in. The rain barrels, and living life closer to the rhythm of the seasons is part of that.

When you see blue-eyed grass covering our front lawn in the spring, you’ll know we finally got it as close as we could.