A Poem for Midsummer

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
—Mary Oliver

Storms

These 4:30 am wakeups are getting old! For some reason we are catching a line of early morning storms lately, and once up, I’m up. There’s a little stress involved, since ED has sheep, cows and horses out on mountainside pasture, and we’ve heard two reports of people in the county losing sheep to lightening strikes. We graze only at night during the summer—they spend their days ruminating quietly in the barn away from the heat and flies.

So far (knock wood) we haven’t lost a modem this year—we try really hard to make sure it’s unplugged when the storms are close or particularly electrical. We did lose the cordless phone last week, though, which included our answering machine. So if you call, and it just rings and rings—you know why!

Echinacea

We’ve had some serious storms the last couple of days. The garden washed a little, so I spent some time today digging channels—I’d rather not HAVE to do it, but since I do, it’s kind of fun playing engineer.

Sweet Peas

Neither of the girls like gardening, so any time they show the slightest bit of interest in anything plant related, I jump on it with my wholehearted support. This past winter, ED became fascinated with sweet peas in the seed catalogs, so I ordered a few packets and helped her get a bed together on the garden fence. With all her animal chores, I’ve been doing most of the tending, but it’s so worth it—they’re lovely! And ED is pretty pleased, too.

Ducks in the Garden

Yesterday I let the duckies run free in the garden while I worked; it was a pain in the neck, but fun, too. They swirl around the garden like a school of dryland fish.

Carol Deppe likes to sing to her ducks—she actually has the lyrics to her special duck song in her book—but I have found that mine prefer a little Fleetwood Mac.

A Little Early Summer Update

Today I’ll finish planting tomatoes, late as usual. If I had planted them earlier, I would’ve been watering them, but now the rain has returned, and the soil is wonderfully moist. Ah, the ways I justify my slackness! Fortunately, the plants haven’t suffered in their pots—they look gorgeous.

Bernard is out of school for the (7-week-long) summer. She did really well and feels a real sense of accomplishment. Now she’s gone out and gotten herself a summer job, working at a dairy down the road, milking 65 goats and 18 sheep. Kind of ironic, really—part of the reason she decided to go to school was to get the heck off the farm! I guess the dairy pays better than we do!

I sure do enjoy the girls—I feel so lucky to have them here.

Duckies are calling—guess it’s time to get outside!

Duckies

These little guys have been my buddies lately. I carry them back and forth from the garden each day (they spend nights on the front porch). They’re actually really friendly, unlike chicks! They’re so glad to see me in the mornings they crowd the side of the tub they spend the nights in. They’re Holderread Khaki Campbells, except for the three freebies who are a cross between the Khakis and Welsh Harlequins.