They’re usually just awful, Mondays, though I have a theory that Tuesday is in fact the worst day of the week. Yet sometimes, Mondays are not all that bad at all.

But getting to that moment was a long story, beginning with a morning of work: I spent the morning in the raised beds; L spent the morning cleaning her room, with K and E supervising and occasionally helping (and likely, knowing E, occasionally setting L back a few minutes or more).

The morning drifted into afternoon. L brought out more and more stuff — literally, there is no better word sometimes — to toss in the garbage while I spread cardboard over the open areas of our covered beds and covered all that with leaves (a highly effective way, we’ve discovered, to keep down weeds and retain moisture), and soon it was time to get the grill going, for what is Memorial Day without meat cooked on an open flame. And while you’re at it, go ahead and throw the corn on the grill. And for good measure, the potatoes.

Once the dishes were in the sink and the kids were left munching on their leftovers and newly delivered watermelon, the real photographic fun began.

We passed around the little camera — such a perfect camera for black and white shots — and once L got hold of it, I rushed in for the Beast Camera, tempted to raid our collection of antique and semi-antique cameras as props.

But who needs props when you’ve got kids?