Enchanted Garden

T and I planned a summer adventure to visit the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park on the eastern shore of Maryland (more on that next week).  On the way south, we stopped at the Winterthur Estate in Delaware.  There, we took time to enjoy the lovely perennial garden that covers sixty acres of the 1,000 acre estate.  Winterthur was once the estate of the du Pont family and you can rest assured that they were never short of cash.  The estate has the house and a collection of the American furniture and textiles that Mr. du Pont enjoyed collecting.  They are housed in his 175-room, nine story mansion.  

Such opulence on our way to see the world to which Harriet Tubman was born seemed a little silly, so T and I opted to mostly enjoy the acres and acres of splendid and lovely gardens.

There is a fairy garden added to the estate to appeal to children and, I suppose, children at heart.  It was a quiet destination for our Saturday morning, made more lovely by the few children who were there, laughing and enjoying the fairy paths.

Lovingly designed for children with rich imaginations, the garden path meanders from a small gate to bridges, windows in which to peak, a mini circle of rocks, a thatched cottage, a place for a fairy tea party, and small tables and benches tucked into the shaded glens.

We had a pretty good time ourselves.

I am reminded how much I like visiting gardens, something I plan to make more time for in the coming years.  

That’s happy!

Zoo Crew

My friend M is a fellow gardener who enjoys all the things she can grow in her backyard.  She doesn’t enjoy the wildlife in our corner of New Jersey and has been known to be surprised by bobcats, groundhogs, squirrels, and bunnies.  M neither enjoys nor welcomes these creatures and at one point this spring announced that she intended to build an electric fence around her garden, one that she would power with a car battery.  This announcement made me nervous both because I wasn’t sure she knew her way around electricity and because I am the person who most often runs her to the emergency room when the need arises.

One thing is clear: M doesn’t want animals in her yard.  So when she texted me on a Thursday night to ask if T was at my house and then explained she’d found some creatures in her backyard, I expected that there was trouble on the horizon.  Her text read, “I was watering my planters and two or more small animals came up from the dirt.  I guess they were living there.  I am guessing a person with a pet squirrel (T has a sugar glider) is not afraid to remove them not only from the planter….from the country if possible.”

I sought more details about the wildlife and she informed me that they were, “scary and disturbing and have legs.”

Well okay.  

T and I promised to come around the next morning.  When I texted M that we were on our way she promptly wrote back, “Bring a 45,” so I knew this was going to be one hell of an adventure.  On the way down the street to her house, a ground hog crossed our path.  I feared it was an omen, and not a good one.

M met us at the gate in garden boots with a shovel.  She gave us the shovel and directed us to a galvanized bin that was a bit overgrown.  She assured us that the electricity was off and then she retreated to her house.   We entered the ring.

T began a careful look at the bin in question and inside she found a nest of baby bunnies.

They were neither scary nor disturbing, but they were little.  Mama bunny was nowhere to be found and the notion of moving these bunnies from the yard felt like a death sentence for them.  We persuaded M that they could be safely removed to a corner of her yard.  T and I carried the heavy bin to the location in the back and we hope that their Mama finds them.  They are buried in the grass of the galvanized bin back by the telephone pole and with luck will stay safe.  

M is no longer afraid of the scary creatures she thought she’d discovered.  T and I haven’t destroyed our karma by killing innocent wildlife and we’ve promised to check in next week to ensure that the bunnies are okay.  Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail have a few more days to grow up and get out to see the world.   I’d advise they find another lady’s backyard.

Fleeting Boyhood

For years, JT played in this backyard.  There was no season exempt from his stomping about and the result was a patch of the backyard where grass wouldn’t grow.  Sometimes that patch annoyed me and then I realized that when the grass grew back it would be because the little boy who played in the yard was grown up.  This summer, the patch has filled and the lawn looks quite lovely.

But it must be confessed that I sometimes miss the dusty patch and the sweaty little boy who played out here for hours on end.  Time is that way, I guess, and one lovely thing must make way for another. I am learning my way around this transition, sometimes hesitant and sometimes excited, but always with a full heart.

Homemade

For the last few weekends, I’ve been seized by the desire to make homemade biscuits for our morning breakfast.  Making biscuits is always pleasing, one of those kitchen rituals that always makes me feel like a grown up, but in a good way, like I am part of something bigger than myself.  Stirring together biscuits feels like a timeless kind of cooking.  I cut the shortening in just as countless cooks have always done for many years before me.  Then I mix the dough together with a few firm stirs of the spatula against a bowl that has made my family hundreds of biscuits over the years.   I pat out the round of dough and make swift cuts with my biscuit cutter, patting out the dough until there are no more biscuits to be cut.

The biscuits are set to bake nestled against one another.

Twelve minutes later there is a platter of hot homemade biscuits to serve alongside jam preserved the summer before.

That’s happy! 

Garden Report, Week Six: Monday, July 10

I pledged to make pictures of the garden every week this summer.  And then I got the floors re-finished and lost track of time.  The good news is that I never lost track of the garden and this past weekend, I finally finished laying the mulch that helps me to keep the garden well nourished all summer long.  

In the process, I counted more than a dozen tomatoes set on and getting ready to provide us with fresh produce in a few short weeks.

Many of the zinnia seeds I first planted were eaten by birds and so this past weekend, I put some more seeds down.  We’ll see how that goes; I am still hopeful I will have home grown bouquets later this summer.

This year’s garden is a bit smaller than usual, a concession to the demands of my May and June.  But there is thyme, basil, oregano, rosemary, and plenty of tomatoes.  With any luck, they’ll be joined by some zinnias.  

July is always a glorious month for gardening and this year is no exception.  That’s happy!

Time

Each morning, I sit on the porch with my book and my coffee and I look out at a familiar landscape.  On the one hand, the usual plants and flowers feel familiar.  On the other hand, the plants and flowers are growing and changing in the sunny, warm, long days so that each morning affords a slightly new view.

Summertime hours themselves pass both slowly and quickly.  Slowly, because there is time to relax, read an extra chapter of my book, and drink some more coffee before I head to work.  But time passes quickly in other ways, especially when I look at my son and reflect at how fast the years have flown by.  In just a few months he will start his Senior year, his final year at a school that has nourished his mind and heart for 15 years.  I started teaching at our school as the mother of a 2 year old.  Now I live with a 17 year old, a man-child who is both familiar and new.

His summer is filled with running mile after mile in preparation for a fall cross country season that he has been anticipating since the final day of last year’s season.  It will be a school year filled with college applications and plans for his future.  He knows that things are changing but he’s a kid and so change is his constant.  I see a future of even greater changes to come; he simply sees an exciting future.  Both are true, of course, and I embrace all of it, excited for what comes next.

Declaring Ourselves

 Last week, Donald Trump took to Twitter to offer another erratic rant, this time directed toward Mika Brzezinski, the co-host of MSNBC’s morning show.  The tweets were the combination of casual mysogyny and incoherent insult that we’ve come to expect from this president.  Condemnation from all quarters swiftly followed.

The next day, we all went about our business as usual.  Some of us, those who were never fans of Trump, thought some more about what he said and what it means to have a national leader who is sexist, venal, and self-absorbed.  We thought about the message this rhetoric sends to our young women and girls.  We were reminded yet again that gender inequality remains the order of the day and that’s just fine with the man who is “our” president.  

The GOP, those who endure Trump because he will sign their preferred legislation into law, offered their usual lip service condemnation of the president’s words.  It’s toothless and cheap; they have absolutely no intention of demanding his resignation or insisting that we’ve had enough and that this must stop.  They have their eye on the prize of Republican policy victory and are willing for women to endure persistent humiliation if that is what it takes.  

Of course, it’s not just women who pay the price of this presidency.  It’s children in need of nourishment and opportunity; it’s people of color who protest on-going racism and ignorance; it’s people who need quality healthcare; it’s would-be immigrants in search of liberty and opportunity; it’s the environment; it’s free speech and a free press; it’s a world which once welcomed and respected U.S. leadership but now doubts us.  The list could go on and go.  We are all of us degraded by the Trump presidency.

My brand of patriotism has never been without self-reflection.  I know that the United States has moved in fits and starts to the equality and liberty we claimed for ourselves in 1776.  I know the promise remains unfulfilled.  This day, the day we celebrate the American Declaration of Independence, seems like a timely opportunity to renew my pledge to insist that my nation be a true city on a hill.

The shortcomings of our current president are dangerous to our liberal democracy.  The long train of Trump abuses has reached the limits of our national patience.  Republicans who bemoan the president’s virulent rhetoric while continuing to ally with him should be seen as cowards.  The men who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the promise of ideas bigger then their self-interest.  In that risk came their greatness.  On that path lies our way forward.

Patriotic Porch for July

With July 4 on the horizon, I made plans for a new display for this month’s porch.  To be sure, the current political climate has me reluctant to express patriotism (more on that tomorrow).  There is a lot about my nation that I love; at our best, Americans can do some very good things. We are not at our best right now, but I haven’t given up hope.  This is as much my nation as it anyone else’s and I have no intention of giving up the battle on behalf of our better angels.   So I will celebrate our Declaration of Independence with some red, white, and blue and the enduring hope that we can do better.  

My front door wreath is a gift from my crafty friend daytime T.

The table has a red and white tablecloth and plenty of summer greenery and blooms to go with my charming white birdhouse.

The rocker is doing double duty as a place to relax and to dry out JT’s washed running gear.  Those double begonias are quite literally over the top..

The popsicle flag cheers my days and reminds me that simple pleasures make summer lovely.

This summer's flower baskets make me smile every day.  

That's happy!

Floored, Part 2

We couldn’t stay in the house while the floors were being sanded, stained, and re-finished with polyurethane, a 7-day process.  At the start of the week, JT and I hit the road to visit some colleges (more on that later).  We returned to floors in the process of being re-finished.  

  

To finish our week away, JT headed out to wrestling camp at a local university.  I stayed with T.  That was last Thursday and from that day on, I stalked my house every day, checking out the progress on the floors as the stain and polyurethane were applied.  The floors are a similar color to before, a slightly more golden brown with a semi-gloss finish.  I like the shine and think it coordinates nicely with the 1930s chestnut woodwork that trims the first floor of the house.

A week after our departure, on Monday, June 26, we picked up the cats and came home to our newly refinished floors.  The shiny downstairs floors had a hollow echo in the half-empty house, and this freaked out the cats.  Tiger and Lucy spent the next 48 hours meowing their displeasure at the indignities they endured.  

JT and I lured a friend into helping us unload the Pod storage bin.   Once our things were back inside, I began to unpack and generally return our house to it’s homey status.

There was chaos, of course.  The antique farm table in our dining room had to be put back together, a task left to the organized and capable T.  She also got the TV back in business and had already left me in good shape to resume internet connectivity  I took on the rest of the house and piece by piece, things came back together.  The living room and book corner were first, because these books are my happy place.

The dining room and china cabinet came next.  My collection of antique dishes was unwrapped and stored away.  Craft projects and pictures were stored back into my corner cabinet and the dining room is now tidy and organized (well, except for JT’s pile of messy shoes…..some things are eternal, I guess).

The pictures and knock knacks that make our house a home are back in place and the study is unpacked. 

There is nothing like being away from home to remind you how lovely and nice the comforts of home make life.  I love my house and home, no matter it’s disarray.  But the charms of the newly renovated floors in my tidied and organized home are even better.  That’s happy!

Old Man Tree: July 1

The first of July has arrived swathed in the heat and humidity.  The shade of Old Man Tree is especially welcoming at this point in the summer.  When there is a breeze to be found, this back deck is the place to find it.  

We’ve had plenty of rain and the garden is growing apace.  Old Man Tree is the center of all the things that live and grow in this backyard.  Each morning that I wake up to see this tree feels like a blessing.  That’s happy!