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| From the garden today, basil, a sweet onion, and the season's first zucchini! |
A memorable summer solstice was in the Grand Canyon in 1994. PK was the trip leader for our private group of families. Sixteen people, 18 days. Half of our entourage was age 16 or younger. Our sons Quinn and Chris were 15 and 8, respectively. Quinn and Sarah created a solstice symbol in the sand at our camp, red cliffs soaring overhead. Mark and Susan Goracke attempted to create pizza without crust. Or a working stove. How to top that?
Today topped it. Why?
Because today is now. And now is what we have. And really, today is all that matters.We have wonderful memories, but memories don't sustain. They may even hold us back.
Today is summer solstice 2012. I was ruminating about the Grand Canyon while digging in our garden to water and eradicate weeds. Amidst the tomatoes, at 90 degrees, I laid low, literally, and snipped soil-skimming tomato leaves. If you don't know, tomato leaves on the ground are not good.
Just above, a nest of baby swallows twittered. (Not online, however) A bit higher, adult swallows dive bombed. I was literally on my back a few feet from the nesting box originally created for bluebirds, but which swallows have commandeered. Swallows are fearsome, brave, spirited, and wonderful. I laughed and shouted as they tried to clip me.
This is what you don't expect from gardening, but what you can rejoice in if it happens. Lying helpless on the ground and having birds try to scare you away. Seeing the natural world as if you weren't even there. (Glad it wasn't a cougar or grizzly!)
I didn't have my camera, but will try to capture. Alas, the fledglings will soon leave the nest and the drama will be over. The swallows won't give a damn about me. I probably won't get a photo. But for today I have this memory of tiny birds with giant spirits. And a bit more.
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| A major random volunteer lettuce harvested. |
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| A black beauty zucchini in the making. |
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| Leeks about to bust into flower. |
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| The first sunflower of 2012. |
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| Among the first raspberries. |
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| The end of the major strawberry crop and the start of broccoli. |
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| Thank God for blueberries. It'll be a trick to shield them from devil birds. |
I'm just going to sit and have a quiet little cry for my garden. If I took pictures of it, you would cry, too.
ReplyDeleteI remember watching the parent swallows do an aerial ballet just before they'd push the little ones out of the nest above the porch light at Lonesome End. We would laugh as the babies clutched, sometimes upside down, at anything they could grasp. When I had a restaurant on Orcas Island one crazy summer in 1990, I collapsed in utter exhaustion on the bed in my little suite above the kitchen. The window was open. Two swallows flew into the room, circled three times over the bed and flew right back out again. I'd read Graves and remembered how the Romans would interpret the movements of birds as omens. I remember saying aloud "oh. I guess this venture will not be long-lived." And it wasn't.
thank you for commenting on my posts. i love you and your stories and the way you tell them.
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