Muddy water morning
June 28, 2015 § Leave a comment
Summer is so much intensity. Heat, people, pouring sunshine, gardens demanding water and weeding, animals thirsty and shade-seeking.
There is great fun in summer – brightness, discovery, and a raucous kind of play, play, play outside! But it also comes with a push that, for some of us, needs to be ducked away from now and again.
Sunday mornings become the place to find cool and quiet.
This one was a slow walk in tall boots, a slight breeze, moss and muddy water at the lake’s edge.
Sometimes you have to look for what you need, to remember your right to it, to find the space and the time somewhere in the week for a place beautiful and damp and cool and still.
Having a jar of coffee in hand doesn’t hurt. A companion happy to splash in the water doesn’t, either.
This Sunday prayer seems to be hanging in the air around me. A Creator’s creation offering what I need: trees bending in the breeze, scattered sun over the water, and the soaking-wet, frolicking gladness of a good dog.
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
Summer Sun
July 24, 2012 § 2 Comments
Great is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven with repose;
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain he showers his rays.
Though closer still the blinds we pull
To keep the shady parlour cool,
Yet he will find a chink or two
To slip his golden fingers through.
The dusty attic spider-clad
He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;
And through the broken edge of tiles
Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.
Meantime his golden face around
He bares to all the garden ground,
And sheds a warm and glittering look
Among the ivy’s inmost nook.
Above the hills, along the blue,
Round the bright air with footing true,
To please the child, to paint the rose,
The gardener of the World, he goes.
-Robert Louis Stevenson, A Child’s Garden of Verses
Summer Evening
July 3, 2012 § Leave a comment
The sandy cat by the Farmer’s chair
Mews at his knee for dainty fare;
Old Rover in his moss-greened house
Mumbles a bone, and barks at a mouse.
In the dewy fields the cattle lie
Chewing the cud ‘neath a fading sky;
Dobbin at manger pulls his hay:
Gone is another summer’s day.
– Walter de la Mare
Heat, water, and work
July 2, 2012 § Leave a comment
My goodness gracious, it is hot.
The dog and I have been in the river twice today, once with iced coffee in hand. Otherwise I sit in here and sweat, and she sits in here and pants so heavily I can hardly think. Just now we are still damp and sprawled about the office/living room avoiding awareness of the air’s heat.
This week has been a doozy!
We began with a day and half ecology inservice at my job, where we spent time learning the native plants and birds of this region. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Afterward, I remembered to renew my Audubon Society membership.
Today while sitting in the cool, shallow flow of the river I listened for birds. It is like getting to know one’s neighbors. Learning their names brings you into relationship with place. I smile to walk past common milkweed, daisy fleabane, and orange hawkweed and to know their color, the shape of their leaves, the creatures that like them and the purposes they might serve. I am tickled pink to recognize the “fire-fire, where-where, here-here” of the indigo bunting, the “chhrrrrrrrr” of the clay-colored sparrow, and the “chip-chip-chip-chip-chip” of the chimney swifts darting above my roof.
Halfway through the week we brought in an expert to teach us how to build a ferrocement tank.
This involves pouring a cement pad, building up the structure with rebar, mesh, and EML in the shape of a short silo, and mixing sand, portland, water, and glue to sling mud onto the structure. The purpose of the ferrocement tank is to catch rainwater from the roof of the polebarn and redirect that water as needed for agricultural use.
Guess who helped a bunch? Or rather, supervised with affectionate brown eyes and a good deal of panting?
The work was fascinating and sometimes tedious, and by the third day with the heat of the sun beating down, our relief upon nearly finishing was significant! We ended the workday by unloading hay into the barn, eating a fine late lunch, and heading to the river for a swim followed by a nap. Keith (our instructor) gave us a brief information session on how to finish putting a roof on the structure, and then we went merrily on our way to an early bedtime. Though I made brownies and ate ice cream first.
And now, thank heaven, it is Monday. I am doing small work tasks like marketing workshops, updating facebook, and switching water lines as needed. But otherwise, this is a rest day to make up for the week’s hard work and large amounts of people time (I am one of those sorts who need a balance of people time and by-herself time). It is a satisfying kind of day, one where you feel you’ve earned your rest, and are excited for what’s coming next.
Life is good. Even in summer’s heat.
Summer solstice
June 20, 2012 § 1 Comment
It’s the longest day of the year! (That explains why this morning seemed to drag itself out . . . )
All ordinary, routine, and/or work-related things aside: what will you do with your many hours of light today?
We have overcast skies and storms, storms, storms in the forecast. So Tassie and I got outside while we could, just a short mid-day break down by the riverbank.
There are some arching trees out there that create space to invite you. I like the sorts of doorways, trees, gates, and pathways that seem to beckon.
A snapshot from our solstice. Tonight may be one for candles and books.
Strawberry plants
May 15, 2012 § 1 Comment
Strawberry season doesn’t begin in Wisconsin until about mid-June; this photo with already-formed berries is from plants that have been forced in greenhouses at the Minnesota Food Association. As a reward for volunteering there two weekends ago (or a matter of being in the right place at the right time), I got to eat a ripe one. Yes. I did.
Our own plants out in the front of the house have their first white blossoms on them. I like walking out to see them, the petals all cheerful and promising fruit. Strawberry plants are just cute. They can’t help it. They mean high spring and summer’s beginning.
Kinds of Honey 