Wow, it's been a long time since Ed and I went overseas together. It's easy to mark the date of our last trip: a year before Snowdrop was born. So eight years ago. I should put a marker on the Ocean sidebar. A commemorative plaque: travels with Ed, 2005 - 2014. But here's what's really funny or awful, depending how easily irritated you tend to get by such stuff: I asked him today -- do you remember going to Morocco? I raised this because a friend is planning a trip to Morocco and I got awfully jealous, or at least nostalgic for that place, for any place that is culturally half a planet away from how I live.
Ed responded -- yeah, I was there briefly. In just one corner of the country. I looked up from my wistful look at Ocean pictures of our trip there together (in fact, I'd been to Morocco once with my daughter and then, a few years later, briefly with him).
I ask now -- how did you get there?
He answers -- oh, I took a ferry.
I stare at him. Intensely. He is a little ruffled by that. What?
We went there together you know.
The fact is, he had forgotten. What stuck was a solo trip he took long long ago. What did not stick was the trip there with me.
In the end, since he hates living under the umbrella of forgetfulness, he looked to Ocean to joggle his memory and stuff came flooding back in great detail. But the point is -- successful trips, ones without great incident, do fade. You remember the ones where the plane was diverted, the weather was awful, the hotel had bedbugs and you got sick from food poisoning. Don't you think that's a mean trick that nature plays on us? Vivid if negative, faded if sublime.
It's at times like this that I think -- thank god for Ocean! I have proof, Ed! We were in Tanger together!
In other news -- I clipped 570 lily heads today. That's big drop from yesterday and I expect that this trend will continue. The peak, as measured by the quantity of blooms, was thus the day before yesterday. Another sidebar notation needed: farmette lily blooming peak, 2022: July 24th. (Last year I see that it was on July 19, leading to a next day cut of 655. This year I knocked off 725, so -- more. See how memories can be deceptive! I was sure last year had had a larger peak total! But Ocean never lies.)
My garden walk today:
Our breakfast:
Somewhere in the middle of the day we discuss once again what we might do with the acre of land to the north of the barn. Yes, we have a veggie patch there. And now a lavender patch. And some five dozen newly planted trees. But in between, there is a field of weeds. For many reasons, Ed has resisted establishing a prairie there (chief among them -- you'd have to poison the weeds first and that would poison our newly planted trees too). And though he is tempting me with the idea of expanding the lavender field, I do not see myself putting in the effort needed to transform weedy clay soil into an organically robust, weed-free lavender patch. Way too much work. So what else is possible? The discussion continues.
And speaking of discussions, these guys were having a full throttle conversation in the prairie field to the east of us. Perhaps they were weighing on on what constitutes good agricultural use of fallow land.
All these July flowers! So where again are the young ones? Why not romping through the flower fields or farmette meadows? Well, it's complicated! Some are in Michigan. Some are going through umpteen stages of Covid transmission and thus isolation. I watch from a distance. Of the nine kids and grandkids, only two have not yet ever tested for Covid. Which is not to say they are protected going forward. I think back to the guy on one of my last flights who had shouted to the rest of the cabin -- Covid is a thing of the past already! People, we're done with it! Really? Tell that to the families isolating for weeks on end (consecutive positive results do that to households). Tell that to the grandparents who miss long planned vacations with grandkids because of Covid.
Still, everyone is vaccinated and therefore, no surprise -- everyone is feeling okay. We are grateful.
With so much love...
