Some piccies from my garden today...
Busy washing day! Boil washed my un-paper towels, then hot washed towels, hand washed 3 things and ordinary washed the rest - 3 linen lines worth. I love to see washing blowing in the wind. It connects me with all the women all over the world, all through the past, who have cared for their families by washing their clothes.
I have two water butts but they have yet to be connected to the drain pipes. Still, I leave the lids off to collect what they can and......
.... I leave all this out to collect more rain then pour them into the water butts. This has really transformed my attitude to rainy days from gloom to excitement. I love harvesting the rain God sends!
The St. John's Wort is living up to its name by blooming in time for St. John's day. (June 24th) Picture is slightly blurry, sorry.
Mint grows wherever the lawnmower can't reach.
The potatoes are flourishing - looking forward to the first dig!
By contrast the beans are really struggling. This is the second sowing, 24 bean seeds each time, and only 3 have made it.
The strawberries are beginning to ripen, a few at a time; not enough for a bowlful yet.
Apples are swelling on my new Jonagold tree.
The onions are coming along nicely - apart from the one I accidentally chopped with the hoe. Oops!
The courgettes have survived the slug attack....
..... but this is the only one of 3 pumpkin plants to survive the chomping molluscs.
The gooseberries are almost ready to pick!
And finally, two nosey pets who just had to come and have a look....
Luna, our little girl cat....
...and Flopsy, peeking coyly over his shoulder.
Hope you've had a good day too! x x
Just a quick reminder that I have a second blog, Patchwork Musings, where you can see this piccy of my beautiful girly when she was a babby.....
Note the TWO spoons. She used to be so eager to taste the delicious food that she insisted on having a spoon in each hand! She didn't yet have the co-ordination to actually get the food from the bowl to her mouth, as you can see. Meanwhile we would be attempting to avoid the waving hands to feed her. Bless her heart!
Do you know that feeling when there's something inside you, a lump of emotion, that needs to come out but you don't know how? With me, fleeing to Nature is the way to deal with it. My family know me well and don't even bat an eyelid when I tell them I've been sitting under a rhododendron bush in the woods!
Anyway, I went for a drive this evening, filled with this urge to get out and deal with all the feelings churning inside. I didn't know exactly where I was heading. The beach maybe? The woods? Luckily I live near to both habitats. I just drove and followed my instincts.
As I drove slowly down a country lane I saw a hare peeking at me from behind a hedge - a hare! The Lady's creature! So I knew that was where I was meant to go. I parked on a little track between two fields, rolled down my window and watched through my binoculars, listening to a cascade of bird song. Having brought with me my notebook and pen, another way to get those unnamed feelings out into the air, I wrote the following:
A chilly but sunny June evening.
Two hares lope across the bare earth.
A cock pheasant pops his head up
out of the long grass.
All around the songs of birds:
Blackbird, Chaffinch, Pheasant, Wood Pigeon
and many more that I can't identify.
A hen pheasant disguises herself
as a clod of earth.
Two little birds fly over - Linnets perhaps?
If only I'd brought my bird book!
I came out with aches in my heart,
grief,
the need to weep,
the need to do something,
to get out,
to go somewhere.
And I followed my heart's leading -
and a big hint from a hare -
to this beautiful place.
A Goldfinch sips from a puddle just ahead.
Further off comes the crack
of a gun - hunting pheasants no doubt.
But, ah, they do not know
the bliss of this little haven.
And no-one to share with,
no-one to remember this with,
no-one to take out this photograph
from our memory
and say "Do you remember
that beautiful June evening..."
My Friend is gone.
He went a long time ago;
long, long before his body went
my Friend left me -
ran off with his Mistress*
who killed him.
Slowly.
A Yellowhammer
has a splashy bath in the puddle.
A little moth
comes out to play.
And the world turns on and on.
Someone dies,
someone is born;
someone weeps,
another laughs.....
A BARN OWL!
A BARN OWL!!!
Gliding silently by,
its supper gripped in its claws.
And another hare passes
so close I could almost touch it!
And these are my Father's gifts,
my Mother's comforts,
to kiss me
and help me through.
Amen.
Amen.
*alcohol, not a woman
