April begins
April 6, 2013 § Leave a comment
Today was spring for real, the kind of day where you start out in layers and end up in shorts and a t-shirt by afternoon. Mine began with feeding animals and ended with new books from the library, and a cup of hot milk and coffee, and plans to write (well, after this).
Gosh, I love planting flowers! All around the house and yard on this afternoon off. Cosmos and flax and alyssum and forget-me-nots and a few others. Isn’t it nice that seed costs so little yet turns into such a bounteous sort of thing? And I love that the woods are white with spring ephemerals. I think I have followed trails through spring beauty, and/or hepatica, and/or wood anemone. (I will look closer next time.)
And I love that we are putting pollinator-friendly shrubs and perennials in our farm garden and that it will bring lots of life and beauty to that place. Yesterday I got to visit a nursery called The Unique Plant and the inviting, lush landscape and blooming shrubs there nearly had me giddy.
My camera-less-ness is really just sad when there is so much to capture!
Oh, well. For now, here’s a shot from last weekend, when we went to the beach for my sister’s birthday. Sand and sun! And a salty dog.
Joel 2:21-24, 26a
March 15, 2013 § Leave a comment
“Do not fear, O soil; be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things! Do not fear, you animals of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green; the tree bears its fruit, the fig tree and vine give their full yield. O children of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the Lord your God; for he has given the early rain for your vindication, he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the later rain, as before. The threshing floors shall be full of grain, the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. . . . You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied.”
A passage to ponder while on my knees in the dirt on these cool/warm, sunny/rainy, almost-spring days. Can gardening be a part of bringing heaven down to earth? I have to think yes.
And . . . home, again
February 8, 2013 § 1 Comment
I’ve remained on the quiet side the past couple of months, but guess why? Because changes galore have been happening. I like to take a little while to settle in before I start talking about it.
Remember when I went to North Carolina? Well. I’ve come again, with all my belongings and my dog in tow. We mean to stay.
I’ve faced transitions enough times that I feel something of an old pro at them (I no longer let all the uncertainty and newness pile up until I can do little more than burst into tears, for example). One of the best things about putting yourself into precarious and/or unfamiliar situations is that you learn to adapt, reach out, and trust. You fear risk less, because even while it sometimes makes things quite uncomfortable and even unpleasant, on the other side of risk you might find something wonderful. And you trust that the universe (or, for me, God) will catch you. In this overly-independent society you actually learn to accept help and to cultivate gratitude. People like to help people, did you know that?
I’ve been caught again and I have fallen into what seems to be a very good place. I’m so excited to be working in the farm and gardens at a year-round camp in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. Here in Orange County we have many, many small sustainable farms, fantastic food co-ops, winding roads, and horses galore. Two and half hours east, we reach the ocean. Two and half hours west, the mountains. Everyone has been so kind and inviting; southern hospitality is not a myth. Tassie is thrilled to have new friends, and so am I.
We went walking with one of our new friends and her dog the other day, and since I am currently camera-less (two broken ones), here is a first shot of us in North Carolina, courtesy of Leah Maloney:
Pardon the messy hair; some days, like those where the only things on the agenda are a long walk and a lot of reading, it just seems all right to let it stay a bit wild.
So. We are going to become southerners. Hold on tight, y’all. I can’t wait to find the stories that are here.
Among other species
February 1, 2013 § 1 Comment
Here’s a passage I came across in my reading yesterday that made me pause, re-read it, and ponder for a bit:
—-
Thoreau, and his many heirs among contemporary naturalists and radical environmentalists, assume that human culture is the problem, not the solution. So they urge us to shed our anthropocentrism and learn to live among other species as equals. This sounds like a fine, ecological idea, until you realize that the earth would be even worse off if we started behaving any more like animals than we already do. The survival strategy of most species is to extend their dominion as far and as brutally as they can, until they run up against some equally brutal natural limit that checks their progress. Isn’t this exactly what we’ve been doing?
What sets us apart from other species is culture, and what is culture but forbearance? Conscience, ethical choice, memory, discrimination: it is these very human and decidedly unecological faculties that offer the planet its last best hope. It is true that, historically, we’ve concentrated on exercising these faculties in the human rather than the natural estate, but that doesn’t mean that they cannot be exercised there. Indeed, this is the work that now needs to be done: to bring more culture to our conduct in nature, not less.
– Michael Pollan, Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education
—-
(thoughts?)
I Taught Myself to Live Simply
November 30, 2012 § 5 Comments
I taught myself to live simply and wisely,
to look at the sky and pray to God,
and to wander long before evening
to tire my superfluous worries.
When the burdocks rustle in the ravine
and the yellow-red rowanberry cluster droops
I compose happy verses
about life’s decay, decay and beauty.
I come back. The fluffy cat
licks my palm, purrs so sweetly
and the fire flares bright
on the saw-mill turret by the lake.
Only the cry of a stork landing on the roof
occasionally breaks the silence.
If you knock on my door
I may not even hear.
-Anna Akhmatova
Milkweed
October 21, 2012 § 2 Comments
The milkweed pods have opened. The seeds blow into the wind.
Have you ever pulled them out, felt how soft and almost weightless they are in your hands?
Throw them into the air. Watch as they ride and twirl through the sky.
Be glad for prairie. Wildflowers. Nature’s wondrous details.
Buckwheat in Bloom
August 31, 2012 § 4 Comments
I am pleased to have you know that I sowed this buckwheat.
Now it is doing its job: keeping the weeds down and providing nectar for the bees. I plan to sow a wildflower/prairie grass mix into this plot in the fall, to germinate the following spring. The buckwheat helps by suppressing the persistent weed species this year, so that the wildflowers will have a better chance when it becomes their turn (learn more about how this works here).
Isn’t that clever? And isn’t it nice that buckwheat, in addition to being useful, is so pretty?
Happy sights of the day
August 19, 2012 § 2 Comments
1. A birthday cake (flavor-of-the-week) ice cream cone from Leo’s. Two scoops.
2. Yarns, yarns, yarns, and three ladies watching me sort through skeins and books and then inviting me to their Thursday knitting nights. The textures and colors in that little store just ask for you to take the stuff in your hands and make something of it.
3. An old honey tin, the size of a paint can, advertising an apiary from Thorp, Wisconsin – the very town where our family van broke down on this summer’s vacation. (I laughed, and bought it.)
4. A Corgi named Tillie.
5. A man in a striped shirt guiding a young, merry sounding couple in a gondola down the St. Croix River.
6. Two bi-planes gliding low over that same river, nearly skimming the surface before I lost sight of them.
7. A young man with black hair and a camera case, walking in front of me easy as can be, by himself this Sunday evening. When I stopped walking, turned around, and crouched down to peer under the bridge to where the planes had gone, I looked back to see him, 20 yards away, doing the same thing.
8. Twelve flowers in a glass on the kitchen counter. Zinnias and black-eyed Susans leftover from yesterday’s event. Such cheerful faces.
August
August 8, 2012 § 2 Comments
“With the coming of August thunder showers crashed and flashed and poured after sunset or in the depths of night, but most of the days were warm and bright, with daisies and everlasting and yarrow scattered in the open spaces like scraps of lace set out to whiten in the sun.” – Helen Hoover, A Place in the Woods
Kinds of Honey 