lily week continues

At breakfast, I reported to Ed that I'd snipped off 575 lily heads today. He rightly pointed out that this isn't my "highest ever." Not by a mile. So, are my lilies blooming less? This is a tough question. On the one hand, I add more lilies each year and I have a lot of solid bloomers from last year's added crop. But some of the older plants are not liking all the shade that's creeping up over the flower fields. And they're not liking the drought. Too, there is some leaf damage which I can attribute to grass hoppers. And finally, the front bed is just never going to be as robust as I had hoped. The maple trees have root systems that are too intense, and the road salt, and the shade all conspire to tame and tone down the flowers that I try to grow there.

On the other hand, I am happy with all that does grow everywhere. How could I not be??

Ready for today's dozen?

Starting off with the close-ups...

And the belly of the Big Bed...

And onto the Nymphs and Shepherds...

By the way, have you ever seen a black flower? This comes pretty close...

Speaking of eye-popping color, this group really wakes you up in the morning...

Path to our door...

From the secret path...

Oh, a pause to say hi to the swallows this morning!

Finally, by the parked cars...

Breakfast:

And one more comment about lily growing: a reader sent us an article stating that lilies and kitties are not a good mix. The plants (both true lilies and day lilies) are toxic to these animals (though not to others). But then, so are any number of plants you'll find at the farmette, including tulips and lilies of the valley. So how is it that we have had cats and these flowers sharing space here for all these years? I have to believe that outdoor cats know what to avoid and, too, they have a hardier response to toxins than indoor cats. Still, it is a concern, at least at some theoretical level. But knock on wood, there have been ditch lilies here (also poisonous) and lilies of the valley for as long as I have known Ed and of course we have had scores of cats come through here, give birth here, live in peace here, and so far there haven't been any issues. May it last. I'll say this -- cats are way smarter than chickens. Way smarter.

Toward lunch time, I pick up Snowdrop and bring her to the farmette. She is stunned and wide-eyed at the changes in the flower fields in just one week! 

She spends many happy minutes admiring the colors...

And picking fraises des bois.

Inside, she catches up on new books, including one that I bought because it's by and about a Ukrainian immigrant...

And eventually, after lunch, I take her to her violin lesson. I am told she plays. I have yet to hear this, but, she dutifully trudges to her lessons and claims to like them a lot and so there you have it. 

On the way back, we pass by Bernie's Beach. Oh, does the lake tempt her! The city does have a protective barrier, ostensibly to keep the swimming area bacteria free, but despite the kiddies splashing in the water, I have my doubts. I mean, note the geese and ducks at the edges. Ah well, she wants to wade. I cave, on the condition that we clean up afterwards.

As we drive back to the farmette, I return to chatting with her about her past trip and, too, her forthcoming trip, but she is not in the mood for that. She tells me -- gaga, shhh! I'm looking out at the universe. I glance back in my rearview mirror. She is indeed staring out at the sky. What could she be thinking? Communicating? That one is just for her to know.

Evening. She is back home, with her brothers and parents...

I return to the farmhouse. With a smile. It's true, the Chicago young family is still in the tailspin of virus activity. But they're good. And these guys are good as well.

And so are we.

With love...

picking a July photo

Every year I post one photo from the flower fields on Facebook. I'm not a super dedicated poster on social media, but since I love reading what friends are up to these days, I feel I ought to contribute and since flowers are such a big part of my summer work (and spring work and winter escapism), I pick one photo and send it flying. (It's actually funny how few of my Ocean readers are on Facebook and how few Facebook friends are Ocean readers!)

Knowing that there is to be that one and one only picture to be shared in this way sets the pressure cooker cooking within me! Because the question is -- which one?? Last year I put up a photo of the Big Bed in mid July and then a week later I kicked myself because everything looked so much better then! 

Of course, it's not as if 1. anyone cares, 2. anyone actually looks carefully at the details I find to be so important and finally, most people read their Facebook stuff on their smart phones. Do you know how tiny a flower field picture will be on someone's mini-iPhone?? Minuscule dots rather than lush lilies! 

Still, as in all these things, I fuss about this and worry that it isn't as good as it could be. I'm not a super perfectionist, but I have seeds of that in me: I always think I could do better. 

Since I know I have entered that week of Great Beauty, when the flowers are about as awesome as can be, I set out this morning with my camera and bucket (425 lilies clipped) and I keep an eye out for that best possible image. Should it be one of the ones from today's post? And by the way, there's some pressure, too, to get this done quickly. I have been uneasy about the growing number of grasshoppers in the garden. Small herds aren't too bad, but when the weather turns hot and dry, which of course describes our summer, they multiply and they can decimate a flower field. [Ed suggests we should catch them, sauté them in olive oil with a toss of garlic and eat them. I told him -- give me a jar and I'll catch them. You fry them and most importantly, you eat them.]

So, let's walk and snip together, pausing occasionally by those blooms that make my heart flutter!

(Secret path leading to the back door...)

(The lily field by the porch: nymphs and shepherds are blooming! -- that's a reference to past years of such blooms and the pastoral song it calls forth in my head. Tall, orange and ruby, to the right.)

(More of nymphs and shepherds, this time photographed in the bright afternoon light...)

(Looking now toward the Big Bed, with a cat. Which one? Friendly One or Friendly Two...)

(Bold Beatrice venturing through the Big Bed...)

(The Big Bed...)

(From another angle...)

(And another...)

(I should not have favorites... And yet...  The way that one color blends into the next here is just exquisite!) )

(And another...)

(No, annuals, I am not forgetting you. Yes, you carry the color for us through spring, summer and fall.)

So -- which photo do you think I should have picked to give the best single image of the farmette flower fields?

Okay, yes, there is July life outside flower gazing. There's breakfast, for example. With sweet peas from the garden.

And in the afternoon, I make use of Aggie's blueberries (she is an asparagus and blueberry farmer -- a super combination, don't you think?) and bake our favorite these days -- a blueberry and thyme loaf.

And then Ed and I head out to our small local market. It's a Thursday affair and Ed always goes and I hardly ever go because on most Thursdays, Snowdrop is with me. But she is not here today and so I keep the big guy company. As usual, he does his egg-cheese exchange as Farmer John's daughter looks on with that typical young adolescent skepticism...)

... and his black walnut bread purchase and, too, I convince him that we really really could use a bouquet of local flowers.

None of this is excessive even though we did come by motorbike. I can fill a sack and swing it at the side as we ride. However, I still need to pick up our CSA veggies for the week. Is it going to be one of those rides, where flowers are held protectively with a stiffened arm, and blueberries are kept on the lap precariously, and the veggies are somehow fit snuggly in the rear basket along with the cheese and breads?

It is.

As we ride back home on this very warm and beautiful summer afternoon, I let myself drift back to our various market encounters -- with Farmer John, with farmer Aggie, with farmer Natalie. And the black walnut guy and the flower woman whom I'd never met before. These encounters with familiar people and with new people -- these are, for the most part, still missing in our post-Covid world. We see friends, we see family, but we dont have many casual encounters with others these days. Weird how you can be hungry for that form of human contact. 

The refrigerator is full. The flowers are blooming outside, and inside too. How good is that!

With love...

 

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...

nothing but flowers

I wake up, step out and think -- who needs words when you have flowers. Who needs breakfast when you have flowers. Who needs pickle ball when you have flowers. You get the point: growing flowers serves many purposes and doing so can feed your soul and calm your raging bull and also, at the end of the day, fill the pages of a blogpost.

It's fair that this should be the content now. My days aren't merely filled with flower care, but much of what is good in them resides in the flower fields. 

[Other stuff? I have been tracking various people's Covid infections -- how delightful, right? And I have been ruminating about how difficult it is to be a funny person when you aren't genetically predisposed to be a funny person. A humorous gene, you'll tell me, does not exist. The talent to entice laughter is shaped socially. Go ahead and debate that if you wish, all I know is that there are some people -- admittedly not very many -- who can knock your socks off with their clever twist of a story that leads you to chortle right out loud and I am not one of them. But I can, on this July day, get you to smile! Not with words, but photos. Of flowers. Here we go!]

(By our back door, which, for us, is the only door...)

 

(From there, I take the secret path...)

(Along that path: an unusual lily, with two varieties joined as one...)

(And now for the lily field in front of the porch... Remember: each lily lasts only one day...)

(There are tiers of flowers: the lilies are at the top)

(Viewed from the side...)

(Okay, now let's follow the path toward the barn... hey, Uni, are you cleaning Happy's feather's? You are! You don't have to do this you know! In the background: a corner of the Big Bed)

(Wait, let's backtrack a little and show at least a tiny edge of the bed I hardly ever photograph: the one facing the road. This bit is all yellow and white...)

(And how about the field to the west of the porch? It's very shady these days and yet the monardas and lilies and cone flowers persevere...)

(Okay, back to the Big Bed...)

(This is where I put in the holly hock... waiting for it to blossom upwards... )

(A digression from a distant bed: out of the many experimental seeds I put in, there was this bean that grew to be taller than the branches of the crab apple...)

(Turn around and look across the Big Bed to the farmhouse...)

(Just one beautiful clump, out of many...)

(Finally, breakfast. Alone: Ed is out of town. A rare thing indeed.)

(If ever I'm going to butcher these hens, Bold Beatrice will be the first to go. She follows me everywhere if I stray toward the barn, the tomato field, the lavender patch. I trip over her all the time. She wants corn. Pesky and bold! But with a sweet side... Sigh...)

(One last one: the meadow in the new orchard. wild and beautiful...)

And there you have it! A day of nothing but flowers.

And love...