May is moving so quickly – too quickly. When we reach this point in the year it seems like time speeds up just when I wish it would slow down. Winter crawls by and seems endless, but spring and summer seem to fly by.
We had some spectacular sunrises last week. If I time things right, I’m usually headed down to the barn at sunrise and I try to remember to take my camera. These spring mornings are so beautiful. I love the cool, dewy freshness and the singing of the birds. I try to take time every morning to take a walk around the yard to enjoy the beauty of the earth on these too fleeting spring mornings. I follow the same route most mornings. I start at the barn after the morning chores and follow the path through the little meadow, then on through the woodland garden (where the lily-of-valley are blooming now), then through the orchard, and down between the flower garden and the vegetable garden, then back to the house. It’s a wonderful way to start the day.
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| The meadow. |
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| The magnolia at the edge of the woodland garden. |
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| Lily-of-the-valley in the woodland garden. |
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| Paths through the orchard. |
The weather stayed cool all week, but I managed to get things done in spite of the chill. I mowed lawns. I did some weeding. I spent an afternoon preparing the part of the garden where the squash, pumpkins, and cucumbers will grow this summer. I will start their seeds indoors this week and hope the weather is warm enough to plant them out in the first week of June. They are a tricky crop to grow here because they do not like the cold. It looks like it will warm up this week – at last. The forecast says we’ll be in the 80's by midweek. That will be nice. I hope it stays that way until October.
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| The squash and cucumber garden. |
My orchard is in bloom now. I was worried that the several frosts we had recently had killed off the pear blossoms, but it looks like most of them survived. Now the apples and crab apples are blooming. I think there is nothing quite as beautiful as fruit trees in bloom. It isn’t just that the flowers are beautiful, it’s the promise of fruit that makes it thrilling.
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| Pear blossoms. |
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| Crab apple blossoms. |
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| Apple blossoms. |
Down at the barn things are progressing. I moved the new chicks out of their big cardboard box. They are now loose in the chick pen – the middle section of the main coop that is sequestered from the rest of the flock. They will live there until they are almost full grown. I still have the heat lamp on in a corner of the pen. The nights are cool and they aren’t fully fledged yet. The rest of the flock is fat and happy. Their yard has dried out enough now that they have excavated new dust pits and they spend the day taking luxurious dust baths.
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| The chicks in their pen. |
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| Dust baths. |
Today is Mother’s Day, one of those “holidays” that might have started out with noble intentions, but, sadly, has been increasingly contaminated by commercialism like so many other holidays. Don’t get me wrong, I think mothers are great. Where would we be without them? And I have been blessed to have a particularly wonderful mother. And my wife is a wonderful mother. But we were at the Home Depot yesterday where I witnessed the frenzy of people purchasing Mother’s Day gifts. And for weeks now we’ve been bombarded by ads on the radio telling us what we should do (buy) for Mother’s Day. It seems the big idea is to show your mother how much you love her by showering her with sale priced items. Cards, candy, flowers, patio furniture, a hot tub, a new car – all the businesses try their best to equate love for our mothers with a cash or credit card transaction. I have eternal honor, respect, and love for my mother. She has blessed every minute of my life. Her influence has made me who I am, at least the good parts of me. I’ve always tried to live my life in a way that would make her happy. In times past I’ve given her gifts. One year when I was very young, I painted a rock with shoe polish and gave it to her. She kept it for years. I’ve sung songs of love to her. I’ve picked bouquets of flowers for her. I’ve written poems and letters in tribute to her. And I still don’t know how to express the depth of my love for her. This is another of my feeble attempts and it is utterly inadequate.
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| My mother with me on my blessing day. |
Today at church we had a nice service honoring mothers. The mothers were all sent home with potted flowers to plant outdoors, which was very nice. This afternoon through the blessing of technology, I will talk with my mother via Skype. I expect that during the day all my children will Skype with their mother – even Josiah (he can call or Skype with us at Christmas and Mother’s Day). We’re looking forward to that.
Happy Mother’s Day!
