Happy Birthday, Bug!

The bug turned one year old on Wednesday. Here she is on her birthday, helping me sand down some old chairs:

The next day we spent a lot of time outside digging trenches for the fifty asparagus crowns I ordered in a moment of optimism and high energy. Two twenty-five-foot-long, twelve-inch-deep trenches down, one to go. The bug enjoyed crawling around in the Georgia clay. When we took a break and retired to the quilt I'd set out on the ground for lounging, she took her first steps, two or three at a time! I was so excited I took her inside to try it on a more solid, level surface, and she would walk up to six steps at a time before diving into my lap. So she's walking, in spurts. March 22. I'm a little bit sad about it.

This was taken about fifteen minutes before her first steps.

That evening we had cake, a dense, rich carrot cake, with—in a nod to the bug's Florida beginnings—orange juice and zest in the cake and cream cheese frosting. For the cake I used this recipe. I made up the frosting as I went along; it was a bit soft, but nice and tangy with the orange and sour cream and just a little butter and powdered sugar.

We let her have at it, and she just went to town. She looked like she could not believe her good fortune. Cake!

We tried to put party hats on the dogs, but they were having none of it.