Sometimes the slow, quiet pace that one expects from living in the country gets lost in the hurry of daily life. During the school year, there are so many things to hurry to and from, that my morning and evening walk through my gardens and the view from my windows, might be the only thing "country" about my day. For now, the kids are not in school nor any extra-cirricular activities and, finally, yesterday was a day with nothing on the calendar.
Initially, I thought the day would hold only housework and homework (for the two summer courses that start this week) but late in the morning my twelve blueberry bushes arrived by U.S. Mail. I diligently finished the chapter I was reading in my Critical Thinking text, and then I headed outdoors to plant. The sky was clear, the air hot, whatever the calendar says, summer has definitely arrived.
After planting the blueberries and watering them well, I decided that the weather was too gorgeous to spend the day indoors. The little guys joined me outside, supposedly helping me water, although it looked as if they were making mud rivers in the new garden plot. I dug out an entire bed near the playhouse which had become a tangle of weeds and old-fashioned garden flowers. When I had pulled all the weeds and grasses and turned the soil over a few times, I replanted the hollyhocks, tall geranium, flax, poppies and a few wild asters. It was a hot day for transplanting, but this bed is on the shady side of the playhouse and I watered generously when the planting was done.
I ended up spending most of the day outside tending to various gardening tasks. Late in the evening, our neighbor headed down the steep hill that seperates his home from ours on his old red tractor. He mowed the wedge of field that is adjacent to our property, removing the "scrub trees" that have grown there in the years since the farm's last dairy cattle were sold. We miss the cows grazing in the field, but we are looking forward to the sunflowers which are soon to take their place! Sunflowers are grown in profusion in this region. There is something so beautiful about an entire field of one flowering crop (think of fields of lavender growing in France) and large plots of sunflowers are one of my favorite things to see. Amazingly, I will soon see that charming sight from my own window!
photos by Aisling, 1) the Sunflower Lady who grew in my garden in 2005 2) a sunflower in Haiku's cutting garden in 2006