Summer, the season I love.

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Summer came home today.  He walked in slowly this year and nearly stole my breath away with his heat.  His shining smile is always following me.  Like before, his coming has made me happy.  Spring has left.  The last of her tears fell yesterday.  Here in the porch garden surrounded by nature, with summer warming my bones I will forget how he left me.  And how I had got cold. 

I dreamt last year that I had followed him.  I had left my bed my home and my yard to walk across the world.  Covered in filthy grime my feet felt worn.  I could barely place one in front of the other my clothes turned to rags on my back.  I had even forgotten why I was walking.  Then I came to a town to that place.  Where I looked up and saw him.  I knew.  Summer was walking past me going the way that I had just come.  The smile on his face mines, only for me.  I awoke tired, sad and lost.  Summer was gone. 

Yesterday I noticed that my friends the sparrows are also back from their winter vacation.  I often wish that I could migrate with them and see what they see.  Bird jealousy is not a pretty thing to admit to.  It is always exciting watching them get ready to leave every year.  Travel to new places is a passion of mine.  For some years now, I have not been able to leave.  I looked at them this morning while I was watering my vegetable garden.  They stood on our side of the street a large group of birds, talking.  About my garden I think.  How nice it looks, about the seeds I planted last week that will never be plants but did make for a nice snack.  They love summer too and have decided to help me in the gardens.  

School is out in celebration of Summer’s return and we have just had our first barbeque dinner in the porch garden.  Chicken, salmon, and hotdogs adorned the grill.  One bee, two flies and my whole family came.  Everyone squeezed in, found a seat and enjoyed each other.  We fed our bodies, while beauty planted fed our souls.  Summer has truly come home to me.  I will make him happy and he will be loath to leave.  I will lose myself in his radiance and he will burn love joy and peace into me.

He will stay with me this time I am sure.

The vegetable garden

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The sun went off to war and won?  Outside the sky looks blue and the sun is shining again.  It has been raining for five days straight.  The sun battled hard yesterday and lost.  At times, the rain is slow and steady.  Then it drizzles and when you think it is over, it pours.  Almost beautiful, how God is babysitting my gardens for me.  My second floor neighbors have bought a new house and will be moving soon.  They have asked, I said yes.  I will take over their outdoor gardens.  The botanical garden is in the far corner of the property.  I will not go to it until after they leave Gloria is sentimental.  Wayne is her opposite.  The takeover of his vegetable patch has been almost immediate.  The vegetable garden is a fenced in area roughly 20ft by 20ft.  He has tilled the soil for me with his machine and I have wasted no time in planting my vegetables and fruit.  I am here at the kitchen window looking out at it again.  With my forehead pressed against this window, I have the power to shoo birds with my mind.  The corn, tomatoes, boxwood basil, marigolds, Garlic, lettuce, zucchini squash, bell peppers and spinach are all still in place.  The outdoor vegetable garden is mine and I am happy with it.

As is usual these days whenever I look out at the vegetable garden my mind runs on earthworms.  They are the bees of the underground, under there working?  The big day came when my seedlings were an inch high.  We started early.  My three four year-old helpers and me went out and into the garden.  I sweated and shaped perfectly straight rows and gutters.  They discovered life.  The earthworm family, Father Mother little son and teen-age daughter.  What a perfect opportunity it was for me to lecture on the nature of farming and the important role of the earthworm.  The panic came shortly after they realized that the worm family was bigger than their families.  That a member of the worm family, although hard at work growing plants from below, could quite literally pop up at any moment.  After that came all the screams and the jumping.  Upstairs, washed up and reassured, we looked out the window and down at our work.  I had sculpted three equally spaced rows and gutters, in which we had planted the corn still sitting in their egg box planters spaced twelve inches apart.  The rest of the plot looked like we had set the hogs out to sun.  Is it any wonder the earthworms came out to play?  What a mess.

Earthworms are big and beautiful, god’s original farmers preparing the soil making it easy for the roots of plants and vegetables.  They should have their own blog.

Changing the sheets or Replacing sweet comfort with careless luxury.

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Spring is here.  Summer is coming and I am glad that winter has left.  It is getting hot and turning green outside.  My big blankets are starting to keep me too warm.  Last night I stripped my bed of the fluffy green winter sheets, the ones that make me feel as if wrapped in a cocoon of sweet comfort.  I dressed my bed for the summer in regular cotton sheets the color of sand with circle patterns big and small.  When I looked down at the bed that I had just made a feeling of gratitude took me to my knees.  Mine are Blissful prayers.  As I lay in bed smiling and thinking about why I was feeling so happy the only thing that came to mind is the change in seasons.

 

Green has not always been my favorite color, so the symptoms of the deficiency surprised me.  In the springtime, I feel a great sense of hope, like an expectant mother.  Every morning I get out of bed, look out of my window, and smile at the subtle changes.  By the time summer arrives, I am fierce and full of energy, like the big strong baobab tree, I find myself gloriously centered.  Than the leaves begin to turn, signaling the end of summer.

Disappointment comes at me in full force, autumn in all her beauty has come.  A compelling urge to dress myself in all these colors consumes me.  I daydream of commissioning a beautiful autumn colored winter coat.  My thoughts and conversations are of the coming season “will we be having a calm or bitter winter this year?”.  In the winter, I experience a sadness that I medicate by doing nice things for myself, like spiking my morning coffee.  The entire season I spend eating homemade cakes and pies.  Thank God for Christmas.  Rugs and throws in every room and cheerful music on the radio.  Winter is spent waiting, waiting for spring to come again, waiting for the green.