To work the farmette lands -- just the two of us, no help coming in from anyone -- to plant, cultivate, maintain fertile growing spaces, to create flower fields -- all this requires enormous amounts of patience. You can mind the destructive force of a late frost or a storm or a dry spell, you can groan when you spot powdery mildew on phlox, or tiny red bugs covering your heliopsis stems, but you cannot despair. In growing things, you meet the challenge, adjust your strategy, and continue.
This is what I told myself when I went out to survey the fields looking for a place for the additional lavender that arrived last week (as an "oops, we're sorry" gift from the nursery for sending us a bunch of dried up and mostly dead lavender back in April). I checked on the lilies that I planted yesterday. Hey wait, where are they? Oh! Some animal dug each one, carried it off, dumped it on the driveway, and went on to do the same for the remaining two. What nerve!
But, you cannot despair. You take out the shovel and replant the lilies and think of ways to protect them from the devilish pranks of whatever nocturnal beast came this way by the light of the moon.
It is a gorgeous if cool day! Good morning, world!
Good morning, Happy!
Good morning, Dance!
Ed and I both have a list of projects to attend to outside and we get to them right away. After a quick breakfast.
Just saying the names of what I have to put into the ground makes me smile: lilies, strawberries, lavender. Lots and lots of lavender (this batch looking somewhat better than the last, but still, it's not 100% strong and healthy. We'll see what comes of it).
We work hard, all day long.
In the evening, the young family is here for dinner.
(Girl in tree? How could that be!)
(boy with his favorite d'Affinois cheese)
Mom, dad, Snowdrop, Sparrow, and Sandpiper. It's a challenge to pay attention to all. There are Sunday dinners where I hardly say a word to one, because number two and number three are chatting away to me in the kitchen, or I want to exchange a few sentences with my daughter. Today, Snowdrop and Sparrow go off to play and Sandpiper shows off his recent accomplishment: confident walking. Not just a step or two, but a real saunter that makes your pulse quicken as you try to keep him within a safe space.
(And finally -- dinner.)
And the world outside is beautiful and inside -- pretty special too.
