200602 monday field farm june
june 2
monday morning: took the kids to field. made bed. one thing done. well, two things: the walk counts.
but this bedroom! heaps everywhere! hands up if you have a dresser tray, a bowl? both? when did you last sort it? in the last week? impressive! in the last month, satisfactory. same question the bench/blanket-box at the end of the bed, and its pile of clean laundry, or last week's once-worn wardrobe?
here's a heap of shoes too, where i was looking for a shoe-mate and in exasperation pulled out every shoe to organize the jumbled shelf. (that was thursday.) it's like a snowfall: hats and clothes, books, papers and staplers, earrings and t-shirts on every surface. except the bed, which i cleared of a bone and stuffies (fig's), and stuff tumbled from the blanket-box, so that i could make it. one thing. well, two things. i can count the walk! and the children's breakfast. i can count that, too.
tired. i'd like to rest today. weekends sometimes busier than weekdays! i'm talking myself around to not worrying, just taking some time off. there's tomorrow for almost everything, except loving those around me. that only takes a smile, kindness, and some dishwashing, to keep the day rolling. and, making a sock ponytail for a doll. (tie, make 3 lengthwise cuts, and braid. tie the end.)
 |
| Add caption |
so, i shall do nothing today that can wait until tomorrow! the important things will get done.
saw a hawk at the field. our cooper's hawk? he sat at the top of an electricity pylon while an angry red-winged blackbird yelled at him from the wire. the blackbird dove at him from time to time, but the hawk just sat there. finally he decided to leave and the red-wing and a couple of his friends chased and harassed the bigger bird away from the field. the hawk never seemed bothered, but he probably decided he'd get more hunting done somewhere else.
in the field the blanket of yellow dandelions has turned to fluff and blown away and now the buttercups and goat's beard are bright yellow, tall above the tops of the grasses. there are bushes of wild black raspberries along the fence that are flowering now too. they will be ripe in early july. indre and robin are impatient to see them ready for eating.
i am awed by the miracle of food given freely from the earth: these berries, or apples from an old gone-wild apple tree. my mother was likewise delighted to search out wild food, from mushrooms(which she was good with), to wild asparagus*. at the cottage in the summer, she made wild sour-cherry jam from the tree in the clearing, and we feasted on fish fresh from the bay. it seems so incongruous with our buy and sell economy, and packaged foods. gardeners who toil to grow tomatoes and cucumbers must feel joy to harvest the gifts the summer gives.
rain, my youngest daughter and her mate, tal, live in montreal in the winter and in summer go to tal's family home in the eastern townships, where his father lives year round. it is a largish hobby farm and they grow an abundance of vegetables to preserve and freeze for the winter. rain has become an expert gardener and keeps the vegetable patches and flower beds bursting with colour while tal and his father offer their landscaping and building skills to summer visitors in the countryside.
the farm is on a beautiful, almost sacred, mountainside, facing southeast to the vermont hills. rain and tal drove down to the farm early in may and would normally be in and out from the city, but this year they may have to stay put, as long as covid 19 is making travel unsafe. when they arrived, they isolated themselves from tal's father for two weeks to be sure they hadn't brought the illness with them. for several years k and i have been able to visit for a weekend in august or september, but that seems like a long-ago sort of journey now. last year i went on my own and took the train and rented a car in montreal. a different time-line now. we have jumped the track into a sci-fi novel.
june has come. in march and april we were unable to see what this month might be like: but, as the grinch said "it came, it came just the same." summer beginning, most trees in full leaf, baby rabbits, the deep breath that is summer. it will be a quiet, close-to-home summer this year but such a good opportunity to enjoy its gifts: warm no-coats weather, rain as needed, the local fresh foods, from asparagus and strawberries, through the summer to corn and apples in the fall.
but there is a cloud of unknown, the fear of covid 19. i am afraid of opening [retail and business] doors, yet equally afraid of the economic fallout of the pandemic. we all will suffer hardship as our neighbours and friends, fellow countrymen and women are spending this time out of work. as businesses and livelihoods worldwide are interrupted, the impact will hit everywhere. we are all part of the turning wheel and the breakdown of a part is a breakdown of the whole. how we put it together again, how we reconstruct our lives, must address this, and gather in the wealthy and the poor alike to the new world can be ours for better.
* stalking the wild asparagus, e. gibbons, 1970
saw a hawk at the field. our cooper's hawk? he sat at the top of an electricity pylon while an angry red-winged blackbird yelled at him from the wire. the blackbird dove at him from time to time, but the hawk just sat there. finally he decided to leave and the red-wing and a couple of his friends chased and harassed the bigger bird away from the field. the hawk never seemed bothered, but he probably decided he'd get more hunting done somewhere else.
in the field the blanket of yellow dandelions has turned to fluff and blown away and now the buttercups and goat's beard are bright yellow, tall above the tops of the grasses. there are bushes of wild black raspberries along the fence that are flowering now too. they will be ripe in early july. indre and robin are impatient to see them ready for eating.
i am awed by the miracle of food given freely from the earth: these berries, or apples from an old gone-wild apple tree. my mother was likewise delighted to search out wild food, from mushrooms(which she was good with), to wild asparagus*. at the cottage in the summer, she made wild sour-cherry jam from the tree in the clearing, and we feasted on fish fresh from the bay. it seems so incongruous with our buy and sell economy, and packaged foods. gardeners who toil to grow tomatoes and cucumbers must feel joy to harvest the gifts the summer gives.
rain, my youngest daughter and her mate, tal, live in montreal in the winter and in summer go to tal's family home in the eastern townships, where his father lives year round. it is a largish hobby farm and they grow an abundance of vegetables to preserve and freeze for the winter. rain has become an expert gardener and keeps the vegetable patches and flower beds bursting with colour while tal and his father offer their landscaping and building skills to summer visitors in the countryside.
the farm is on a beautiful, almost sacred, mountainside, facing southeast to the vermont hills. rain and tal drove down to the farm early in may and would normally be in and out from the city, but this year they may have to stay put, as long as covid 19 is making travel unsafe. when they arrived, they isolated themselves from tal's father for two weeks to be sure they hadn't brought the illness with them. for several years k and i have been able to visit for a weekend in august or september, but that seems like a long-ago sort of journey now. last year i went on my own and took the train and rented a car in montreal. a different time-line now. we have jumped the track into a sci-fi novel.
june has come. in march and april we were unable to see what this month might be like: but, as the grinch said "it came, it came just the same." summer beginning, most trees in full leaf, baby rabbits, the deep breath that is summer. it will be a quiet, close-to-home summer this year but such a good opportunity to enjoy its gifts: warm no-coats weather, rain as needed, the local fresh foods, from asparagus and strawberries, through the summer to corn and apples in the fall.
but there is a cloud of unknown, the fear of covid 19. i am afraid of opening [retail and business] doors, yet equally afraid of the economic fallout of the pandemic. we all will suffer hardship as our neighbours and friends, fellow countrymen and women are spending this time out of work. as businesses and livelihoods worldwide are interrupted, the impact will hit everywhere. we are all part of the turning wheel and the breakdown of a part is a breakdown of the whole. how we put it together again, how we reconstruct our lives, must address this, and gather in the wealthy and the poor alike to the new world can be ours for better.
* stalking the wild asparagus, e. gibbons, 1970
Comments
Post a Comment