Ahhh...summer

These photos are a couple weeks old...need to take new ones! Things have grown at least 2 feet since then! Above is one of the raised beds with peppers, wax beans, basil , potatoes and carrots.

The chicken tractor before the chickens moved in. Again...need to update photos!

To the right are tomatoes and potatoes, to the left are tomatilloes, patty pan squash, pole beans and sweet potatoes.

The 4th of July is this weekend and we are soaking up every moment of this beautiful summer. I love how the lazy days unfold around here for the kids and I. On these quiet, peaceful days I so, so appreciate that we are crafting a life centered around our home and garden and the sacrifices that we make in order to have that life seem worth so worth it.

In the mornings we roll out of bed whenever our bodies tell us it's time. No schedule orders us to move out at a specific time. But when we do get up we are eager to begin the day. Birch runs outside as soon as he wakes up to feed and water the chickens, and Veda usually accompanies him. I fix a breakfast of fresh eggs and whatever else we have on hand. Then we usually all end up down in the garden to give it some love...squashing the squash bugs (sorry, squash bugs...not much love for you!), pulling weeds and harvesting whatever is ripe.

Sometimes we have errands to run or bread to bake or other busy things to do. But some days we go to a park or the library or just hang out being lazy, taking walks or playing until Veda's naptime rolls around after lunch.

I'll never forget all our summers. Even before I met Scott, even before I had Veda and moved to Asheville, once I went freelance and gave up the Rat Race, Birch and I have had these lazy, gorgeous garden and porch summers that seem to amble on on like a good slow song.

I am grateful to Scott for supporting this aspect of our lives...for getting up in the dark and going to a job he doesn't like every single day so Veda can spend her afternoons running naked in the backyard and playing with butterflies. So I can spend summer days canning salsa from our tomatoes and making pickles from our cucumbers. And I'm grateful that he is willing to never have any money and live so close to the bone so life can be so rich for us in other ways.

We are fortunate indeed.

river day

Sunshine baby

Throwing stones into the river on our hike on the Warren Wilson River Trail.

Some of my nettle harvest drying in the kitchen.

Veda has been crazy about rivers lately, so this morning we took a trip out to the trail that runs along the Swannanoa River on the campus of Warren Wilson College. We hiked out for 15 or 20 minutes then settled down on a little bank that was covered with sweet, blue butterflies. Veda immediately wanted to get in the water, so it was off with the clothes and she went straight in. Such a good time...we need to do a "river day" at least once a week. :-)



I went by myself yesterday to the bank of the French Broad River, but with more of a purpose than just fun in the sun. I had heard that I could find stinging nettle there...and, yes, there were FIELDS of it! Not something you'd want to encounter by accident, I guess, but for me it was a bonanza. I harvested a huge shopping bag full of beautiful, vibrant green nettle to dry for my daily tea.

Inspiration

Mother's Day at Craggy Gardens.

Inspiration...it's everywhere. Too bad there is never enough time in the day to take advantage of it all! Case in point: I had to admit a sort of defeat with my Poem a Day for a Month project.

NOTE TO SELF: Never vow to create a poem a day for a month during a month when you have a child on spring break and two different sets of relatives visiting.


At any rate, I will eventually write enough "make-up poems" to finish out the month...but it will take time, of course. I do believe, however, that ultimately the project was a success because the first couple of weeks where I actually did write a poem a day were phenomenal. I mean, I had seriously forgotten that I was capable of creative writing...of taking the plain old, nothing special moments of everyday life and assigning to them words that evoke images and feelings. Of course, I didn't always do that (which is obvious if you've read the poems! ha!) but there were moments...there were sparks.


This morning, I was talking to my amazing friend Virginia while our insane toddlers hurled themselves with abandon around the slides and swing sets at Oakley Park, and through the child-watching frenzy (only the parent of a toddler can relate to this) we were able to chat a little about being a mom and the creative process.


Virginia does a fascinating radio program and blog (check her out at http://www.systemiceffect.org/) that takes an enormous amount of time and energy, and she does it while also being a very devoted and conscious single mama. I bemoaned my inability to paint or write or sew or do ANYTHING not directly related to homemaking and childcare for more than a few paltry minutes snatched here and there from sleep time or family time. She agreed, and said that she finds herself to actually be most content when she is devoting herself entirely to being a mom and keeping a clean, orderly household. But, she is driven to create. She is driven to put her voice out there in the universe. And so she goes without sleep...or makes herself a little bit crazier by struggling constantly to carve out time for her work.


She inspired me. So now, I am cutting this short-ish so I can go work on my latest painting. I need it.

Poem for April 27

Big gap here in the poetry...things have been busy, to say the least. So, now I'll be playing catch-up for awhile.

there are poems to write
and images of eggplants
and goddesses that need

translation
into the wet, vibrant
language of paint
and canvas.

there is wool to be felted,
quilts to be sewn, beer
unbrewed, money somewhere
to be made.

but it all must wait
for now,
my hands are full

with my child
in the heart
of childhood.

April 19 and SO FAR BEHIND!!!

I'm not giving up. I'm still going to write a poem for each day of this month. But it is definitely taking some time.

I've realized something important...there is great truth to what Alice Walker said when I saw her speak a few years back in Hickory: Writers need TIME. In order to write, you must have a lot of down time. You must have a lot of alone time. You must have time that to others looks suspiciously like loafing, but which is really the incubator for creativity.

Without time to stroll around your yard talking to trees, time to sit perfectly still and stare aimlessly at the moon, time to lean back against a wall and feel the cool of the earth against your legs...without this, the brain has no time to process images...to do that alchemy that is turning an impression into words.

And sadly folks, this is a thing I do not have right now. My days fly by in a whirlwind of sleepless nights, meal-cooking, laundry-doing, question-answering, tadpole water-changing, boo-boo kissing, kid-ferrying, toddler-cajoling insanity. I careen from one needy person to another administering love and food and occasional reprimands and by the end of each very long day, after all the little monsters are tucked in their beds, I crumple into a shapeless heap on the sofa, barely a single brain cell sputtering.

This, my friends, is the stuff of life and often the stuff of inspiration, but it doesn't allow me to write a poem every single freakin' day for crying out loud! (((sigh)))

Alas, I shall perservere. One day I will actually get to my goal and have a full April of poems here for all to read and enjoy or else grimace at.

So...poem for April 15 is this:

Do you know what this is?
asks my neighbor's daughter
who is three. I look at her
etch-a-sketch with one square
and one rectangle one
inside the other, and I say,
It's a building.

Well, no, she says, of course
not. So, preoccupied
with grownup things, I mumble,
It's a box, because that is what
I see. But her sea-green eyes crackle
with mirth at my stupidity
and she patiently explains,

Noooo,
It is a robot tummy.

And so it is.
She is absolutely right.
And for just one moment
her fairy hands have pulled
me, dark and ponderous,
back into the light
of childhood.

Poem for April 14

Ack! Still a day behind. Story of my life...always playing catch up.

This morning, thanks to a cool story on NPR, I learned that coincidentally April is National Poetry Month! How apropos. Obviously the National Poetry People found out about this blog and decided to make a national observance in its honor. Or not. Funny that I had no idea about that when I came up with the idea to do this (originally considered a "good" idea and now considered a "what the hell was I thinking?" idea).

The NPR story was also interesting because they had some lady from the National Poetry People Thingie read some favorite poems by some amazing poets that I didn't all catch because my toddler was repeatedly telling me "no" about breakfast and my son was complaining about having to do carpool. One thing I did catch was some poems by William Stafford, whom I used to read a million years ago, but have since forgotten about. Ah..the craftsmanship! The skullduggery of his words. Inspiring...and terrifying...to someone who who loves the art but putters pathetically with it.

And so, on with The Show...


There are days -
whole days -
that are a frog in the throat,

a pencil with the eraser
chewed off,
a spoiled pear.

There are days
that are two flat tires
in the rain with no spare,

a pimple on the end
of your nose or a worried
hangnail that won't come off.

I sigh through them,
these stingy days, or yell
and burn the scrambled eggs.

Sometimes I cry
along with the babies when the sun
pulls up stakes for the night.

But it's all good in the end.
The sun comes shuffling
back, rubbing his eyes,

and I remember
that this is just where we are
and this is just what it is
in the here and now.

Poem for April 13

Behind again. Yesterday was insane. And Veda won't sleep...less than normal, even. Which means no free time or down time for mama. (((sigh))) On the bright side, we do have a bunch of new tadpoles in the family now...5 Japanese Firebellies and 1 Leopard frog who was a freebie from the pet store because he hitchhiked in with a school of goldfish.

Being not-quite-two,
the world is a full place
and sunshine endless.