Heartfelt

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Gerber Daisy Lg

 

“Making the decision to have a child is momentous.  It is to decide forever to have our heart go walking around outside your body.”

Elizabeth Stone

Today is my youngest’s 26th birthday, it is also the week before Mother’s Day.  I’m not one to celebrate mother’s day in an extravagant way.  For me everyday is mother’s day even though my children are well into adulthood.  Of all the things I have done in my life being a mother has been the most important to me.  It defines who I am now.  I just always hope that I have raised kind and compassionate people, both with themselves and others.

Then days come like yesterday when I get to spend an afternoon with my progeny – two that I raised and one I did not and was recently reunited with. It was a quiet time enabling me to reflect on who they’ve become.  A chance to look at them and see my history in their eyes – my mother, my father, my grandparents and marvel at the wonder of it all.  There are so many things they are born with that just need a little nurturing.  The amazing thing is you often don’t see these things until they are adults.

 I wasn’t fully aware how many of our children’s talents are inherited and blossom with a little nurture.  It’s so much like planting a garden.  You put those seeds in the ground knowing what they are and how they will look but you fuss over them and water them and watch over their growth and maturity.  When they mature it is still a marvelous revelation. You think how beautiful even though you knew it all along.

Seeing what they’ve become is only part of it though, there are no words to express the swelling in my soul that encompasses them.  It defies description, yet I know when they have children of their own they will know the feeling.  The idea that your heart is walking outside of your body embodies so many things.  I think I’ll try to remember next time I’m out in the world that every person has a mother who has this same primal desire for her child to feel the sweet kindness of those who come to know them.

Every mom’s heart is out there in the world walking outside her body.

 

 

New View

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130502 Back Forty Pond

 

I took a walk yesterday out through the woodlot.  It’s been dry this spring so I was able to get to it without the use of waders.  This is the second year we haven’t had beavers on the property although their handywork is ever present.  Without them there their ponds get a little smaller, their paths are beginning to grow in.  They had a pretty extensive network that is now being slowly reabsorbed into the earth.

I walked along one of the boundary walls so I could see how extensive this pond was.  I could only see the marsh reeds from the house and once the leaves are on the trees the only notion you have that it’s there are the birds.  Different birds live around these little ponds, that’s why I love having them here.  I had thought I could see a beaver house from the other side of this pond but as I discovered in my little hike there wasn’t one.  This must have just been another one of their engineering projects while they lived in the pond behind Hoover Damn.

The best part about this little hike was the view – I’ve never seen the house from this vantage point.  Timing is everything, once the leaves come out there really won’t be a view of the buildings, at least not this clear a one. So what started out as a walk in the woods on a glorious spring day had the added benefits of a beautiful new photograph, a renewed sense of well being and 2 really muddy dogs.

Retreat

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I’ve been in Rowe for the past few days, needed a retreat of sorts.  The weather is beyond beautiful and there is so much that I wanted to get done.  What I’ve found is that I’ve been most distracted by the quiet – in a good way.  The lack of activity all around you helps to bring you back to yourself, it helps to restore your soul.  Very few cars go by, very few planes fly over, there aren’t any people that I run into that I don’t already know.  My shelves are stocked if I want to make myself something to eat.  There is no schedule. The only thing you really have time to do is think.  It’s as if your entire day is spent in meditation.  It’s a good thing.

Sophie likes to spend her day on the pillows on the sofa.  As you can see she has no trouble relaxing at all.

Dog Heaven

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As I’m sitting at the computer writing this Chester is curled up in his bed beside me.  This is typical for a Monday, we refer to it as the hangover.

Brush was burned this past Saturday with our three dogs and Malcolm all there to make the most of the greening grass and sunshine.  There is nothing they like more than to be in the back forty doing whatever they find to do.  It is always more fun if their people are out their with them. There’s always the chance there will be a game of fetch.

It wasn’t so long ago that none of these dogs got along.  We were always on alert for the next sign of a fight.  The fights were ugly, blood was always drawn, always over a stick or toy.  The blood didn’t necessarily belong to a dog either.  This past weekend was one of those weekends where everyone got along.  There is nothing they love more than being free to go anywhere without a leash. They just ran and ran and ran. They all took a dip in the swamp – Chester more than once.  Malcolm had to have a bath  and the burdock picked out of his fur before he could get into the car to head back to Boston.

A lot was accomplished – we are all feeling it today.  Unfortunately Chester is the only one who gets to sleep it off.

 

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120828 Back Forty Sunset (1)

 

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely, or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God.  Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As long as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be.  And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.

Anne Frank wrote those words when she was 14 years old.  She must have been an old soul, so much wisdom, so young.

It’s been almost two weeks since I’ve been to Rowe.  I need to see the stars and get away from traffic, take a walk in the woods.

The pear tree needs trimming although it’s later to do it than it should be, it still needs to be done.  The raspberries need trimming, the beds need to be semi cleaned out, mulched.  There are brush piles to be burned, wood to be split, gardens to be spruced up.  I need to check into what I have for seed potatoes and get some onion sets.  The Ball jars need to be inventoried.  Just the beginning of the busiest time of the year – now until October.  Always too much to do and just enough.  I love having an outdoor to do list.  There’s always an excuse to be out there.

So even though I will be working I will also be alone with the heavens, nature and God.  I will return to my work week renewed and refreshed.

Counting Seedlings

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130424 Seedlings

 

Our yard has 6 very large maple trees in it, all varieties.  Each spring I do battle with the seedlings that emerge from the ground.  I have a large perennial garden in that yard that is an oasis for these little saplings.  It doesn’t matter how much I rake the seeds out these are always popping up in the spring.  Right now they are the bane of my existence.

I have a bit of an OCD with counting and a few years ago I turned pulling these up into a counting thing.  Every morning when I take the dogs out I go into that garden and pull up no fewer than 25 of theses little trees.  They are only about 4″ tall and are surprisingly difficult to pull out of the ground.  Honestly it’ll probably take a couple of weeks to get them all out of the garden at that rate.  The consequences of not pulling them up now manifest themselves fully by fall when I have to go out with my shears and cut them to the ground because they’ve grown up in the center of my phlox unnoticed.

Counting my way through this garden every morning also gives me the opportunity to visit the plants that are coming up now (and the weeds).  I visit and revisit certain spots to see who made it through the winter or where they’ve moved from last season.  It’s a getting to know you thing every spring.  I guess if it wasn’t for pulling those saplings I could potentially visit an unfamiliar garden come June.

Gas Plant

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Gas Plant

 

When I walked the dogs this morning in Enfield there were so many different birds singing away in our back yard I was amazed.  There were cardinals, robins, nuthatches and even a yellow bellied sapsucker.  I love spring.  I was looking for a photograph of one of my gardens in Enfield and failed to find one but happened upon this photo of my gas plant which is popping out of the ground right now.

I have moved this plant three times despite all of the nay sayers and books saying how difficult they are to transplant.  The first time I acquired it the move was made under the cloak of darkness (well, maybe moonlight).  We lived on a dead end road at the time, there were only three houses on my side of the street – on the other side was an abandoned garden center.  We were friends with the owners niece and I spent many hours photographing my girls in that area.  It was beautiful, just a bit overgrown.  Each spring I would walk down and look at the gas plant as it came up and visit it while it blossomed.  The  Gas Plant’s (Dictamnus albus ‘Purpureus’)  flowers give off a flammable gas, which is the source of its common name. It has a wonderful heavy, sweet fragrance.  I have never tried lighting it on fire.

The owner of the property where the gas plant lived died and his widow sold it to someone that subdivided it into building lots.  They cut down the trees that were hundreds of years old to make way for as many crackerbox ranches that could fit in what little acreage there was.  One night, after the bulldozers were starting to do their work I put my spade in my wheelbarrow and walked down to the bed where that gas plant was living and dug it up.  Mind you this was no small plant, it was work and I really was trying to do this unnoticed.  After struggling to get it into the wheelbarrow I filled in around it with some of the soil that was around the plant, I figured with more soil it might not be too shocked.  I wheeled it back to my yard and the next morning I planted it in a special spot in the garden.

We were renting the house my garden was in at the time.  The loss of the wooded areas that surrounded that house made us look for a house to buy that was in a neighborhood that was old and established.  I never wanted to feel that kind of loss again.  We moved a couple of years later in the spring and I once again dug up my gas plant and put it into the garden where it is now.  It’s been there for 15 years and apparently the haphazardly way I transplanted it the second time didn’t really phase it.

For the past couple of years I’ve thought about transplanting it to Rowe.  I’ve been scouting out spots to put it.  Sheltered but sunny.  I may have finally found the spot for it to go in my newest garden.  The info says it’s slow to establish.  I may divide it and leave half in Enfield and bring the other to Rowe, sort of having a backup plan.  I’d hate to lose it, we’ve been through so much together.

Thrive Where You’re Planted

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During the Blizzard of ’78 my sister was in the hospital for some emergency surgery.  Her later to be mother-in-law sent her a pot of daffodils – there were a dozen in the pot as I recall.  Once they had died back they were planted in a border garden around the patio.  Over the years they have naturalized to the point of hundreds.  They are all over New England at this point.  Everywhere I have had a garden they are now too numerous to count.  They have been given away to friends and family in  MA, VT, NH and CT.  They are now in full bloom in Enfield, around the front of the house, along the driveway, in the perennial garden in the back yard.  They are scattered all down the bank going into the back forty in Rowe.  These amuse me most of all.  For years my mother’s mulch pile was over that bank.  There was a stone wall there many years ago and it was completely grown in with trees.  She would dig up things that she no longer wanted or bulbs were perhaps pulled along with the weeds – over the bank they would all go.

I have planted many plants in a perennial garden only to watch them migrate to where they really want to be.  They will self seed in a sunnier or wetter spot and the original will die back.  It’s no use trying to get them to grow where you want them to, they just grow where they are happy.  That’s how I feel at times about being caught between Enfield and Rowe, suburban and rural, noisy and quiet.  I just want to be where it’s sunny and quiet.  Then I think about those daffodils. They speak volumes about thriving where you are.  It doesn’t mattered the soil type, the sunlight, the moisture – they all seem to like where they are and continue to multiply year after year.  In my head I know that’s how it should be – thrive where you are – but some days (especially sunny spring ones) I just want to be in a quiet spot.  Maybe transplanting daffodils.

Happy Earth Day – go dig in the dirt!

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Earth Day Coming Up

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Earth Day has evolved for me over the years.  I used to spend my time cleaning out my flower beds.  I’ve planted trees, shrubs, and flowers on this day.  This year I seem to be on a mission to augment as much of my food supply as I can with things that I’ve grown.  This Earth Day week will be spent in prep for the vegetable and fruit growing season.  Seeds will be started and although it seems late to some I can’t plant ANYTHING until Memorial Day in Rowe.  There is still snow on the ground and the entire back forty was completely frosted this morning.

I want everyone to know the feeling you have when you eat or serve a meal with food that you have grown.  You know everything about this food.  You may have nurtured it from seeds or have seen it eating grass on a sunny hill.  You have watered and fed and cooed over these plants and animals.  You have planned and brought these home grown ingredients together into something that is fabulously delicious in its own time.

Years ago (really not that many) people ate what was in season.  You didn’t eat tomatoes in January unless they were the “hot house” variety that completely lacked in both taste and nutrition.  Vegetables were not flown in from Argentina or California during the winter. The cycle of meals had everything to do with what was ripe at the time or food that you had put up and was in your cellar or freezer.  Growing up I remember my aunt and cousins staying with us when the garden was really beginning to produce.  For lunch each day there would be sandwiches made with the freshest of tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce.  A platter just laid out with the bounty of summer, a taste that can not be replicated in any way other than to pick the produce, slice it up and eat it within minutes. I understand what it’s like to share the food that I have grown with the people I love.  Hard work goes into it but it’s worth it when you see the look on someones face that is eating a particular plant for the first time or an old familiar one that tastes completely different because it is so fresh.

This year I think everyone should at least put a tomato plant in a pot of soil on their patio or steps or yard.  Throw in a few basil seeds for good measure.  This is sooo inexpensive to do and you will be paid back ten fold in something that you can not buy, the true taste of summer.

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