Is it June?

Why is it that the calendar seems to flip pages so quickly -- one day to the next, one month after another. May -- beautiful and vibrant, warm and wonderful -- packed up and slid away and boom! We're on June now. June 1st. Did you know it's International Children's Day today? Why is it that we haven't adopted this holiday? If you look up Children's Day in the U.S., you get confusion:

In 1995, President Clinton proclaimed National Children's Day as October 8th. He was later followed by President Bush in 2001 who declared the first Sunday in June as National Child's Day. However, National Children's Day is generally celebrated the second Sunday in June or October 8th.

I mean, really? Did you get anything from that at all? Meanwhile, the world celebrates the little ones. Today.

On this June day (so sunny and so perfect), Ed and I are up early, working even before breakfast. The hose does not reach the new orchard where last night I sowed some meadow flowers and so this morning I carried many watering cans over to the seeded land to get them a jump start in what I hope will be a season of growth. Every time I lug water to plants I am reminded of Monet at Giverny. The painter had an enormous garden to maintain and he was not wealthy enough (initially) to employ help, so he made his children do the heavy work of carrying cans of water to his beautiful flowers.

I have often said that the heavy work outside takes place in April and May and that's true, but I am not honest when I say that after that, the perennial garden can take care of itself. Weeds really are a constant head ache. In dry spells, flowers, especially the new ones, need help. I don't fertilize anything, but I do dead-head a lot, all over the farmette flower fields. And I stake fallen spikes. I'd estimate I put in a couple of hours of work each day. Easily.

(the morning garden: tiny flowers)

(morning garden: the big brassy show-offs)

("hey, where do I fit in??" "you're a peony tree! big brassy show off, for sure!")

Breakfast. Finally. On the porch.

And afterwards, I return to the fields. I do some work on the front bed, the one that faces the road. That's a tough one to love: I had approached it with great care (after all, it's the only bed that's viewed by others), but I hadn't bargained with the great maple roots and the road salt. It's probably the most inhospitable soil on the property. Things grow, but selectively and unpredictably.

In the afternoon, I bring Snowdrop here after school. 

And then home. Her home. Their home.

Kids, are you keeping an eye on Sandpiper's head? (They're lost in some video clip they both wanted to see.)

Sandpiper must be picking up the sibling love vibes, because he never bats an eye. Head's up, show continues.

And at the farmette, the flowers bloom and the June sunshine warms each stalk as if we were already in the thick of summer. 

family Monday

I remember last year's Memorial Day. So different from this year! There was a heaviness in the air -- one that would not even begin to lift for such a long time. So many people burdened with sadness and fear, so much anxiety!

Though Ed and I were in a pod with the young family here, we were still trying to figure out what was safe with the younger family in Chicago. I would see them several times during the pandemic, but only through July. Once Primrose returned to school (so that her parents could actually get their work done), we would put off further contact until the vaccinations would come. 

And they came. And thanks to their distribution, we were given this day, this Memorial Day 2021. The kids are still waiting for their shots, so we limit our meeting to the great outdoors, but the weather is splendid for it! And we have so much to celebrate, to be grateful for, to humbly enjoy. A year later, we're here and together. Wow.

And so we have this most beautiful day -- indescribably beautiful! With the arrival of Sandpiper (and there was so much drama for him as well in the early stages of pregnancy!), we really have every reason to exhale now. Together. On this most special day, with each other.

*     *     *

I am up very early. I'm charged with throwing something together for today's brunch at my daughter's deck and I want it to include a rhubarb cake. So I bake.

And feed the animals. Good morning, world!

Here's a little memory from the weekend: a rock painted by my younger daughter (the kids had been marking up rocks, some with greater detail than others). It has a home now here, by the porch...

... that same porch where Ed and I have breakfast today. Still a cool morning, but nothing that would keep us indoors.

And then I am off! One must drive carefully out here in the country: in the evenings you watch for deer. In the morning? A promenade by our local sandhills. And their bird friend.

First on the agenda: to coordinate a meetup between my mom and my younger girl's family. What with my mom's stroke, then the pandemic, it's been well over a year since they've had face to face contact.

I leave them outside and go on to my older girl's home to whip up some pancakes and breakfast meats and lots of fruits. And of course, the rhubarb cake.

Have you ever seen such a small watermelon??

*     *     *

And now comes that long meal, hours of being together with kids coming in and out of our stories, with one food out, another one finished, all the while admiring this newborn boy, while his cousin and siblings cavort around us. Photos of a holiday together. Like yours perhaps? Were you lucky too? Oh, I hope so...

(the meal)

(waiting for that watermelon)

(he likes his pancake with honey)

(treasured aunt and uncle)

(how about this way for a change?)

 

(Snowdrop, are you coming?)

(Sparrows joins...)

(the three go fishing. for rocks.)

(so good to have them all here!)

(meanwhile, Sandpiper rests...)

(deep breath in, exhale...)

(like a boat ride going forward. well, maybe more like a roller coaster!)

*     *     *

And eventually the young family packs into their car to drive back to Chicago and I pack up my pots and utensils and drive back to the farmette all the while thinking how good this day has been and how long it was before we could live lives together again rather than apart and most of all how grateful we are to those who have brought us this moment of peace, of health, of well being.

(at peace)

 

 

 Evening. Time to throw some seeds down.

With love.

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!