It’s the time of year that has me
Dreaming Flowers
Ah, it’s the time of snap dragons, zinnias, coneflowers, black-eyed susans, bee balm and more! Lush mid-summer bouquets of flowers, sweet corn, fresh green beans, cucumbers, fresh herbs, new potatoes—all of these things and more were bountifully heaped at the Farmer’s Market I visited this morning.
I love these beautiful summer days of lush flowers and plentiful garden produce. It reminds me of the fresh delicious eating we had from our garden on the farm when I was a child. Every day we ate freshly picked vegetables. If we wanted sweet corn for a meal, my dad or brothers would go pick it from the garden while my mom was preparing the rest of the meal and heating a big pot of water for cooking the sweet corn. Minutes would pass between the time the corn was picked and husked and when it was carefully placed in the pot of boiling water. And in 10 more minutes the corn would be on our plates.
And the fruit, ah, the fruit. We picked rhubarb, strawberries, black raspberries, cherries, mulberries, currants, plums, and apples, all in their season and feasted on them while they were fresh. What we didn’t eat fresh or in pies, cobblers, and sauces, my mom made into jams, canned, or froze.
Sometimes in my memories I idealize that time. But the plain truth was
It was hard hard work
for my parents and for my brothers and me. My traditional family divided work into “men’s work” and “women’s work” though I always wanted to be out helping my dad if I could. But I was relegated to the house and garden most of the time to help my mom.
When I was old enough to be of help to my mom I felt like some summer days I spent the whole day washing dishes from one cooking or canning task or another. I also peeled, chopped, sliced, and smashed a fair amount of fruits and vegetables.
When the men were working hard in the fields we made 5 meals a day—breakfast at 7 AM, mid-morning coffee and sweets at 10:00 am, dinner at noon (the biggest meal of the day), mid-afternoon lunch at 3:30 or 4:00 pm (sandwiches, cookies, bars, and something cold to drink), and supper at 6:00 pm. Between preparing plenty of sandwiches, cookies, bars, cakes, and pies, having at least 2 vegetables and 1 fruit at both dinner and supper, and canning, freezing, and making jam, our summer kitchen was always busy.
Not just cooking
With all of the hard work and our family of seven (my parents, my four older brothers, and me) my mom did 6-7 washer loads of laundry every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. As soon as I was old enough I was tasked with hanging the wet laundry on the clothes lines, bringing it in when it was dry, and folding lots of it. I hated hanging out sheets to dry—they were so darn unwieldy to handle and to keep from dragging on the ground as I hung them. Saturday was house-cleaning day and I usually cleaned all the bedrooms, bathroom, porch, and stairs while my mom cleaned the kitchen and living room.
Sometimes I rebelled at the daily task of picking up after my brothers and making their beds. But all my rebellion did was get me into trouble with everyone else in the family.
As lover of books, I often tried to make deals with my mom. “If I help you all morning and get all my chores done, can I have the afternoon to myself?” or I would hide behind my bed or the big sofa in the living room reading a book, gauging the tone of my mom’s voice calling me to help and ignoring her until the tone reached a certain level of intensity.
Remembering Helps Me Be Grateful
I look back with wonder and amazement at how hard both of my parents worked physically. It was an every day except Sunday dawn to dusk grind. There were many summer evenings after the supper dishes were washed and dried that my mom would head down to the garden by herself to weed until it was too dark to see. Perhaps it was her way of getting some alone time outside. Or maybe it was simple necessity. I’m not sure. But I know that she was a lover of flowers and nature and that she loved to go fishing. I don’t know how she did it—day in, day out rarely taking a timeout or vacation. But I am so grateful for all that she did and for how she taught me to love flowers and nature.
Though I loved the lovely fresh food that we ate on the farm growing up I wouldn’t want to work as hard as my parents did. I am grateful for the experiences with nature I had growing up there. And I am also grateful that I made other choices for my life and work.
Today I’m truly grateful to the farmers who work so hard to produce the fresh food that I love. I know how much work it is and I send blessings and appreciation with every bite I eat.
Speaking of eating, we have been eating garden lettuce, fresh green beans, cucumbers, sweet corn, new potatoes, and tomatoes. And it is lovely! The tomatoes (big juicy cherry tomatoes) and lettuce are from my container garden. But the rest is from the Farmer’s Market. Thank you farmers!
Learning with my own container garden
I have also been growing a few things in my container garden this year, and trying to grow black raspberries and blueberries in our backyard.
I learned (or re-learned) some things with my container garden and my berry plants this year. Deer like to eat black raspberry bushes, thorns and all. And they absolutely love sugar snap pea plants and green bean plants, especially when they’re up on a table in containers so easy to browse. But they don’t like kale or cucumber plants. The jury is out on tomato plants. Something has been picking and then strewing a few green cherry tomatoes on the ground near my garden. I’m wondering if it is the pesky squirrel that ate my first batch of green bean seeds. I put a piece of mesh over the second bunch of green beans that I planted and the squirrel has left those alone.
But back to dreaming flowers
Have you paid attention when you’re out driving or walking in nature to all of the beautiful flowers that are in bloom? Notice them and pause every so often to appreciate their beauty. Look closely and see all of the insects that are benefiting from the flowers. Watch the butterflies and bees flit and zoom. Sway with the flower stems in the summer breeze. These days are short and fleeting.
It seems that I’m meandering in all different directions in this blog post. I am
- Remembering
- Appreciating
- Giving thanks
- And loving this life just as it is today with all of it’s good and bad
May you walk in beauty.
May you dream of flowers.
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