If Sundays have a certain repetitive pattern to them, this one broke away a little and ran on its own steam.
It was a sunny morning, but I wasn't brave enough to take breakfast to the porch. The sun room is a grand alternative!
We work outside then, but there is less of a rush and more attention to detail. I have, right now, seven very large flower fields to work with (I began calling them fields when I realized that they have little similarity to a perennial border), and one massive one to add where the brambles have been dug out. All this would be a burden to most, but to me, these fields are my tender babes. I know the soil well. I know the irksome parts, the difficulties, the weeds that threaten -- which ones and from which side. I know what I have to do to make the flowers thrive and I set to it in much the same way I would set to anything looking to me for care and nourishment. It is deeply satisfying work: I'm at the level of the soil in spring and early summer and spraying water on warm summer evenings. At the end of the season, I put my feet up and think -- I've done okay by you!
(the girls, happily trampling over the new field being readied for flowers)
(the bed along the gravel driveway is, right now, displaying crocuses)
(sometimes, when I open the front door, I am greeted by ... Butter.)
And so today, I continue to use pitchfork after pitchfork of chips and I dig out what doesn't belong and I am utterly happy to see the progress my babes are making.
And still, at times, I have to pause. Life is more than the farmette -- I tell myself, as I throw down the shovel, the clippers, the pitchfork.
I lure Ed out on a bigger hike -- one along the Ice Age Trail. We've done every segment within hundreds of miles of here, but this one is especially pretty and not too far. It starts next to a goat/diary farm and makes its way up one hill and down the next so that in just a couple of hours you can get quite a workout.
It's a delicious time to be out in the forest!
(there's just a little bit of green at the edges...)
(midpoint selfie)
In the evening, Snowdrop and her mom are to come for dinner, but since the meal preparation isn't complicated (pan fried trout with a wine and caper sauce and buttered snap peas), I offer to help my daughter with her own yard work just before.
She and Snowdrop want to assist, but glancing at the littlest girl, I see that she is unlikely to be of much help yet...
...so I send them off on a walk while I tend to the weeds. Working in someone's garden is like cooking in someone's kitchen -- you don't know where to begin and you haven't a clue as to the final vision. And where we have layers of lovable wood chips at the farmette (they let go of weeds with greater ease, even in clay-ish soil), this yard has pebbles and rocks, which create a new challenge.
Finally, I am home and cooking dinner and Ed and mom and babe are here and it is a very Sunday-ish moment indeed -- with time to sit back and take in the beauty of a very bright evening.
Perhaps it's wrong then to say this Sunday hadn't a predictable pattern. It had the warm April air. Outdoor work. A stellar hike. And a meal together. And a moment to soothe Snowdrop. Yes, a Sunday as it should be. As I would want it to be.
It was a sunny morning, but I wasn't brave enough to take breakfast to the porch. The sun room is a grand alternative!
We work outside then, but there is less of a rush and more attention to detail. I have, right now, seven very large flower fields to work with (I began calling them fields when I realized that they have little similarity to a perennial border), and one massive one to add where the brambles have been dug out. All this would be a burden to most, but to me, these fields are my tender babes. I know the soil well. I know the irksome parts, the difficulties, the weeds that threaten -- which ones and from which side. I know what I have to do to make the flowers thrive and I set to it in much the same way I would set to anything looking to me for care and nourishment. It is deeply satisfying work: I'm at the level of the soil in spring and early summer and spraying water on warm summer evenings. At the end of the season, I put my feet up and think -- I've done okay by you!
(the girls, happily trampling over the new field being readied for flowers)
(the bed along the gravel driveway is, right now, displaying crocuses)
(sometimes, when I open the front door, I am greeted by ... Butter.)
And so today, I continue to use pitchfork after pitchfork of chips and I dig out what doesn't belong and I am utterly happy to see the progress my babes are making.
And still, at times, I have to pause. Life is more than the farmette -- I tell myself, as I throw down the shovel, the clippers, the pitchfork.
I lure Ed out on a bigger hike -- one along the Ice Age Trail. We've done every segment within hundreds of miles of here, but this one is especially pretty and not too far. It starts next to a goat/diary farm and makes its way up one hill and down the next so that in just a couple of hours you can get quite a workout.
It's a delicious time to be out in the forest!
(there's just a little bit of green at the edges...)
(midpoint selfie)
In the evening, Snowdrop and her mom are to come for dinner, but since the meal preparation isn't complicated (pan fried trout with a wine and caper sauce and buttered snap peas), I offer to help my daughter with her own yard work just before.
She and Snowdrop want to assist, but glancing at the littlest girl, I see that she is unlikely to be of much help yet...
...so I send them off on a walk while I tend to the weeds. Working in someone's garden is like cooking in someone's kitchen -- you don't know where to begin and you haven't a clue as to the final vision. And where we have layers of lovable wood chips at the farmette (they let go of weeds with greater ease, even in clay-ish soil), this yard has pebbles and rocks, which create a new challenge.
Finally, I am home and cooking dinner and Ed and mom and babe are here and it is a very Sunday-ish moment indeed -- with time to sit back and take in the beauty of a very bright evening.
Perhaps it's wrong then to say this Sunday hadn't a predictable pattern. It had the warm April air. Outdoor work. A stellar hike. And a meal together. And a moment to soothe Snowdrop. Yes, a Sunday as it should be. As I would want it to be.
