is this the day?

When is the peak, the high tide, the day that marks the very best moment of my flower fields? It's a tough call, because no two years are alike and I can't tell for sure where this is all heading. We could still be climbing or we could have hit the tippy top. Then, too, if a strong rain hits us, we could have chaos in the fields. Still, judging by the look of things, by the weather report, and by my spent lily pickings (415 this morning), I'm guessing that it is somewhere between now and the end of next week.

The best of the best, finest, the most colorful. Impressionistic, passionate, sublime. 

It's not that the past months weren't beautiful or that the next ones wont bring something special to the farmette, it's just that when I plant stuff, indeed when I purchase baby flowers, I imagine them as they will appear this week, when most (though by no mean all ) lilies are in bloom.

So it is no surprise that today, I focus on the fields all morning long. Not only do I snip and tidy, I also water much of what's there. (It has been a terribly dry season.) In all -- it's a four hour effort to get most of the fields to their best possible presentation. 

I have photos of course, but I'm keeping it tame for now. You have to show restraint or else it just becomes one undifferentiated mass of color. Nothing wrong with that, but if you want to really take in the small beautiful details, you cant blind yourself or the Ocean reader with excessive photos every single day of the  high season.

Okay, here's what I especially loved from today:

(Is there a better set of hues for a flower?)

(The oldest and densest lily bed is really filling up...)

(How about these incredible blossoms? Stunning!)

(From the porch, looking out...)

(From one corner of the Big Bed)

(From another corner of the Big Bed)

(Blushing beauties, all in one bunch...)

Breakfast, well after the noon hour.

Toward evening I head up to my daughter's home. The two older kids are away still, but Sandpiper is around. While my girl and I visit, he entertains us with his grins and games.

(At the water table)

(Playing ball: at age one, I'd say he's pretty good at it!)

My daughter was telling me about a new habit she has: along with a few friends, she records the sweetest moments of the day -- ones where you really pause and take note of something particularly beautiful. A moment when you savor something exquisite. What an incredibly clever idea! She read me some that have been recorded and I have to say, I was mesmerized by them! It's as if I was there, seeing that child's gesture in a raspberry patch, feeling the utter perfection of a passing breeze. Maybe there was a scent of honeysuckle, or merely of dry grass. Or maybe it was inside the house, when a piece of music caused you to do a small dance or transported you to another time and place that you'd not thought about for a long time. Precious fragments of a day! They tend to slip by often unnoticed. Unless you make a point of noticing them.

With love...