So comes another month. A new calendar page! Sure, there are July leftovers everywhere -- leftover worries, leftover Covid issues, leftover this, leftover that, but still, we're in the thick of a glorious summer! How fantastic!
But with the coming of August, I am done with counting lilies. I still snip -- there's lots to clean up out there -- but I also look down and start working on clearing the ground around the flower base. That's a neglected chore that I put off once the flowers bloom because, well, there's only so much I can do in a day.
But on this August first, I get back to growling at all the weeds that manage to insert themselves everywhere when my back was turned. Still, the weather is grand, even though there is a light cloud cover, so I don't know that my sour cherry sun drying project is getting much of good run right now. To my friend who lived in Denmark -- how did you manage to get those cherries dry in a country that rarely has several sunny days in a row??
Let's focus on the flowers:
I have other thoughts running through my head as I work my way through the flower fields, many of them related to daughters and specifically to the one who is celebrating her birthday today. As it happens, her family is a bit dispersed so that the celebratory plan is quite unusual: after time with friends on the Union Terrace, she'll come here with Snowdrop for a farmhouse cake and sleepover. All this mean that I should be baking a cake right now. Nothing complicated -- just the Maida Heatter FBI cake. I've been baking it for some forty years and it never fails to make people happy.
It's what you want for your kids, no? To be happy. To teach them how to find contentment, how to feel gratitude, how to seek the benefit of a forest walk or an evening exhale. How to do productive work, how to help others when you can and sometimes even if you dont especially want to. How to listen, how to calm the inner turmoil.
I thought about the hike Ed I took in Blue Mounds State Park this weekend. It was Saturday and there weren't many others on the trails, but we did pass some small groups. One spoke a language I could not place, and another was a two person team. I'll guess that it was a father and daughter. She was close to my age, he was maybe in his mid eighties, maybe older. He walked with a cane and I thought he looked a little wobbly. It's a bumpy trail, with roots, rocks and many ascents and descents. Both Ed and I felt such admiration for him and we wanted to ask about his age, about his reason for being here that afternoon, but we were shy and thought perhaps we might insult him by appearing to question his ability to navigate the trails. Still, I doubt I'll ever forget him: his age did not stand in the way of that forest walk and I'm sure that the forest incorporated all its magic to help him move through in peace.
Breakfast.
And the chocolate cake, baked.
Now I have to pick up Snowdrop at Theater Camp. A new one! But not the last of the new ones!
At the farmette, she's in her tree again...
But we can't be idle today! I have another cake to bake -- a breakfast loaf with sour cherries. You know, I have all these sour cherries... Snowdrop, how about a fun book to read?
... while I bake my second cake.
And now we head for the Union Terrace. If you've been to Madison, chances are you've been to the Terrace. Technically, it's for those who work or study at the university, or, like me, are lifetime Union members, but anyone can get a day pass and in truth, most people aren't asked to show their cards. The iconic chairs spill out from the terrace onto the lake and it is one beautiful place to hang out with friends, especially on a summer eve. How many chairs? About two thousand! Here's one glance at a piece of it tonight:
Some of my daughter's friends brought their kids and one thing that's pretty cool about the place is that by the time kids are school-aged, you can trust them to have the run of the place, so that they go off and do their thing, while you visit with your friends.
(Sandpiper is too young to take advantage of such freedom!)
There is also an ice cream stand, selling our delicious University Babcock ice cream. Wisconsin is the dairy state. You know that, right?
(Sunset hugs...)
And now we are all back at the farmette. Snowdrop goes off to help Ed put away the chickens and feed the cats.
It's very, very late by the time we have the birthday cake...
Happy Birthday, sweet and precious child of mine! From all of us, to you.
With so much love...
