Planting seeds and Sunday brunch

Do kids take after their parents? One young woman told me recently that she loves to do crafts probably because her mom was such a crafts person. A real pro at this stuff. So do kids pick up passions and inclinations from their moms or dads? Looking at my family you'd say -- oh definitely! After all, two daughters chose careers in the social sciences. Indeed, they both went to law school, just like you!

But it wasn't "just like me." If I had any influence on their choices it was subtle and marginal. Everyone around our dinner table knew that I came to law in a circuitous way and in the struggle to balance career with raising young kids, I skewed toward kids, feeling (rightly or wrongly) that I could not meet the demands of both with equal forcefulness. Only when the kids were grown did I fully plunge into my work. By that time I doubt that they were paying attention.

But I wasn't thinking of careers as I stared at the meadow of grasses and wildflowers that I had seeded a couple of years back and that Ed and I were expanding today in the late afternoon. I was thinking about growing plants and loving gardens. I was thinking how I hadn't passed on either love to either child. You could argue -- oh, this kind of stuff sometimes skips generations. After all, neither of my parents cared for gardening or gardens, while my grandfather surely did. Perhaps he planted that seed in me? But the fact is, although Snowdrop shows some love of picking out the scents and colors of flowers, I can't yet say that she or any of my now four grandkids appear to be drawn to nature and gardens in the way that I was when I was younger (and older). 

 

 

As for my daughters? Forget it. I'm not sure they even notice what grows here when they pass through the farmette lands on occasion. I would travel far to visit a thoughtful garden (and I have traveled far for this). I'm fairly sure that I'm the only one in my family that would do that. 

Of course, a garden is just one world out of the many that we take on in our lives. You could say that both daughters are great cooks because they've watched me struggle with complicated recipes in the kitchen all their lives. So it's not as if they staged a mini rebellion against all maternal hobbies. Still, as I keep on working on the farmette flower fields, I do so with the realization that they truly are just for me, because honestly, aside from vaguely liking the entirety of the farmette, no one else cares about what grows here. (Ed cares, but he would be equally content if I skipped the flower project and just concentrated on growing, say, trees. Ed really likes trees.)

Sunday. We've made it through the last of the cold nights for the season. Ed once again had draped blankets over the tomatoes, supporting the heavy old covers with overturned buckets. But that's it: we're done with worrying about the cold. The forecast tells us that a warm up, as in a summer-type warm up is on the way.

(Morning walk)

(Breakfast -- warm enough for the porch!)

Much of the day is spent on a family brunch out on the deck of my daughter's house. I mentioned yesterday that various family members drove up from Chicago to see the now five day old Sandpiper. You know, this little guy:

 

Today's plan is to share the midday meal (and the hours after) together. Of course you're going to see photos of this. Well, mostly of the kids. They are the energy behind any gathering right now! Let's see, how about a favorite twenty? Is that too many? Okay, how about a dozen? We agree on just a dozen? Good!

(Kids are drawn to the golden cherries. I don't know why. Perhaps because they are always a surprise...)

(Dancing: Primrose goes at it alone, but not for long!)

(watching...)

(walk to park)

(the work of being a parent...)

(the joys of being a parent)

Much later, Ed and I do get back to work: we're changing the mowed paths somewhat to connect them to the new forest. In doing this, we also create a wider strip of meadowland in the new orchard. Here's where wildflowers really are coming back each year. Small bursts of delicate blooms that sway with the grasses that grow between plum, cherry, apple and pear trees. 

Tomorrow, on the last day of May, I'll sow bunches of flower seeds on this new strip of prepared land. And with that, after two months of some pretty intense outdoor work, our planting for the year will be done!