Living In the Moment

Last Sunday evening, we went to Music on the Lawn at the Ulysses Library. The performers were a jug band called Molly's Boys. They were pretty entertaining. As I was sitting there, I had a feeling come over me. There we were, about seventy people, most of us over fifty, sitting on a lawn studded with clover blossoms, on a warm Sunday afternoon, enjoying music. The sky was full of beautiful cumulus clouds. There was a soft breeze blowing. I looked around me at the faces of the listeners. Most were smiling. Some were bobbing their heads to the music. I was caught up in the moment, a lovely moment in time.

On the library lawn last Sunday.

There is a term for this state of mind. It is a meditative state called mindfulness, paying attention to the present moment without being distracted by the past or the future. I tend to not be fully in the present most of the time. My brain is always pressing memories of the past and anticipations of the future into the present. But sometimes something clicks and I become immersed in the moment, when only the things around at that instant register, and it is magical. It never lasts long. I have too much history sloshing around in my head begging for comparisons and judgements and too many calendrical expectancies of future needs and obligations that intrude. But while the moment lasts, it is lovely.

I spent part of Monday morning shelling peas. This was a good year for peas. Out in the big garden, Kurt planted a hundred foot long row of them and we are still harvesting them. I planted some in my raised bed garden and we got three pickings from them before the heat sent them into decline. I pulled up the vines and picked off the pods and then spent an hour shelling them. It was rather tedious work. I made it more bearable by adding musical accompaniment. I chose music by Aaron Copland – the suites from Billy the Kid, The Red Pony, and Our Town. I love the Americanness of Copland's music. It was perfect for a summer morning shelling peas.

The last of my peas.

When I finished that, I went out to work in the garden. The garlic was ready to harvest, but I had to do some prep work first. I pulled up the weed barrier between the rows as it was causing the soil to stay too wet. Pulling it up would allow the ground to dry out so the garlic would come up easier. As I was finishing that, Kurt came over and said he could finish mowing the orchard. That took us the rest of the afternoon. When he finished with the big mower on the tractor, I tidied up with the mower on the Cub Cadet. The orchard looks good.

The mowed orchard from the southwest corner.

The mowed orchard from the northwest corner.

I sat in the orchard for a while after that, enjoying the tidiness and contemplating on needed changes. Years ago, I used to keep the orchard grass mowed short. Then I read a book on holistic orchard practices that said it was better not to mow it short. So I changed to only mowing twice a year and let the grass grow tall. Monday, sitting there, I realized it was time for a change again. It took Kurt and me three days to mow the orchard and it was hard work. Too hard. I decided I will start mowing the orchard regularly. I won't mow it lawn short, but I won't let it get tall again. It's just too difficult to mow it when it's tall.

Sarah and Tosh came for dinner that evening. Afterward, Tosh gave us a lesson on how to tape and mud drywall, the next step in the ongoing living room project. After they left for home, Stacey, Hannah, and I went out to work in the orchard. We picked up all the fallen apples under the Yellow Transparent tree and put them in buckets to feed to the pigs. Then I raked up a pile of grass and burned it. Next we went out to the big garden and weeded one of the strawberry rows. After that, Hannah and I dug up some new potatoes, the first of the year. Then it was time to quit. We got a lot done. It was a good day.

Burning grass.

Weeding strawberries.

Early Tuesday morning, around 3:00, I woke up because I was cold. The bedroom windows were open, but I was too sleepy to get up and close them. I just pulled the blankets up and went back to sleep. When I got up at my regular 5:30 and checked the thermometer, I was chagrined* to see that it was 36°! There were windows open all over the house and it was 60° indoors. I had to turn on the electric heater in our bedroom. In July?! 

*[I like the word chagrin. It comes from French, where it means "melancholy, anxiety, or vexation." In English it has more the feeling of "distressed." When we lived in Ohio there was a town nearby called Chagrin Falls on the Chagrin River. I always assumed the people who named them were somehow upset by the situation. It turns out it is most likely a corruption of the name of a Frenchman who had a trading post there, Monsieur Seguin.]

After such a cold start, the day slowly warmed, but it never got hot the way July is supposed to be. I waited indoors for the temperature outside to rise above 60° before going out. While I waited, I eased my chagrin with some music. It felt like the perfect morning for Vaughn Williams. I set up a queue of some of my favorites – The Lark Ascending, Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus, and Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, and relaxed into the glory of it. I came to the music of Vaugh Williams a little later in my musical explorations. I was in my early twenties when I had my first encounter, a performance of the Five Variants on KUSC. It was love at first listen and I went on an immediate binge with multiple trips to Tower Record and the acquisition of many recordings. Since then, he has always ranked near the top in my Top Ten Favorite Composers List. There is something in his music that resonates with my soul. 

Ralph Vaughn Williams

By the time I'd made it through my queue, it was time to go out. I took a quick walk around the property, devising my list of things to do that day. First, I had an errand to run, a trip to the Amish feed store and the bulk food store. That didn't take long. Then I got to work. Top of my list was to mow in the orchard, tidying up some tufts of tall grass that had escaped the initial mowing. Next, I sprayed for Japanese beetles. Then I watered. We needed rain and there wasn't any coming soon. Then I spent time weeding, pinching tomatoes, weeding, deadheading flowers, and weeding. After Hannah got home from work, we dug up the garlic. Last of all, I sat in the garden after dinner and just sat, basking in the late afternoon sunshine, a nice way to finish the day.

Harvested garlic.

Relaxing at the end of the day. The view from my bench in the vegetable garden.

On Wednesday, the morning was taken up with errands – a trash run, a trip to Wellsville, a haircut. That took up the entire morning. It was a beautiful morning and I hated to waste it on errands, but it couldn't be helped. The drive to and from was pretty. I took some consolation in that at least. When I got home, I went straight to work in the yard. These summer days are precious to me. As I was walking back from the barn after unloading feed, I had a flashback to a time not so long ago when I was trudging across that same path through a foot of snow. It sent a shudder through my soul. I'm increasingly less enamored with winter as I get older, not that I ever was much to begin with.

As I worked through the afternoon, I reveled in the beauty of the day – the warm sunshine, the flowers, and the smell of summer. After getting off to a rocky start with late frosts to contend with, my lilies were beautiful this year. They are almost done now, but there are still a few in bloom. One of them is a white lily with just a single flower that is so fragrant, I can smell it all the way across the yard. The other powerfully fragrant flower right now is the yellow azalea blooming in the woodland garden. On a warm day like that, the breeze carried its scent across the yard. There were other wonderful summer smells, the bready smell of the cut grass drying in the orchard, the clover blooming in the lawn, and the bouquet of sweet peas and pinks that I brought in that filled the house with their perfume.

The fragrant lily.

Sweet peas and pinks.

Wednesday afternoon, Hannah, Stacey, and I worked on the garlic. We tied them into bundles and hung them in the pavilion to cure for a week or two. Once they have dried out, we will peel, mince, and freeze dry them.

Hanging garlic.

As if to apologize for the chill earlier in the week, Thursday was hot. We hit 93° at noon, and that's how July should be. If January and February are going to give us -20°, then July and August had better give us some 90° weather. It only seems fair. I had a doctor's appointment that day, so I spent most of my time in the car. As soon as I got home, I went straight to the garden to enjoy the heat.

Rachel and her children arrived on Thursday afternoon. Rachel and Hazel left again on Saturday, but the rest of the children stayed. Rachel and Hazel have Girls Camp this week. When camp is over, they will be coming back up here to spend two more weeks with us. With June, Mabel, Florence, and Russell here, things are always hopping. Because they will be here for almost three weeks, Grumpy Grandpa has given them chores to do – setting and clearing the table for meals, helping feed the chickens and collect eggs, weeding, and general tidying. They are good workers – most of the time.

Thursday was Pioneer Day, the day we celebrate the arrival of the first company of pioneers in the valley of the Great Salt Lake on July 24, 1847. We had a great celebration here on the Compound. Some of us dressed in pioneer costumes. There was lots of great food – fried chicken, grilled bread, baked beans, cheesy garlic grits, new potatoes, and for dessert, strawberry peach pie and homemade vanilla ice cream. After dinner we had a lesson on our pioneer ancestry, followed by fireworks.

Stamp commemorating the centennial of the arrival of the pioneers.

Pioneer Day fireworks.

Friday was a beautiful day, not too hot, mostly sunny, briefly rainy, perfect. We had things going on all day, lots of playing, and some work too. I gave the children a task, picking up fallen apples, and Miriam supervised the work. I pulled up all the green onions and Sarah sliced them and put them in the freeze dryer. Down in the barn, I let the guinea keets out of their small cage into the larger pen. I sat and watched them for a while. They behave differently than chickens. I hope I can raise them successfully. They are interesting birds.

Picking up apples.

The guinea keets.

Russell's birthday was on Thursday, but we didn't want to conflate it with Pioneer Day, so we celebrated on Friday. He is now three years old. He wanted a banana birthday and that's what he got. We gathered on the Shillig's back porch for our traditional Friday pizza made by Hannah and a crew of grandchildren. The porch was decorated with bananas. Russell wore his banana shirt. His birthday cake was a banana cake decorated with bananas. He was so excited by it all. He's a cute boy.

The banana birthday boy.

Saturday was busy with people going in all directions. Hannah went with a friend to spend the day. Stacey went out on errands. The younger children spent the morning on the front porch playing with all of Russell's new toys. Later they were over at Shillig's house riding bikes and gators. 

After the morning chores and checking on the guinea keets (they were fine), I spent the morning in the garden. I harvested my peas and green onions, so I had an empty raised bed. I didn't want it to stay empty, but didn't have anything to put in it. I decided to try to grow late broccoli in it. I've tried to grow late vegetables before, but with little success. Our growing season is short here and they never have time to mature. But I had six packets of old broccoli seed of various varieties and an empty bed and thought, "nothing ventured, nothing gained," so I scattered the seed across the bed and worked them in. I'm sure the germination rate will be low because the seed was old, but some are sure to sprout. We'll see if I can get them to maturity. Maybe this time.

I wanted to put the children to work again picking up fallen apples, but they'd gone swimming in town, so I did it myself. There will be apples on the ground from now on as the early apples ripen, and then the midseason apples, and then the late apples. We'll be picking them up every day but Sunday for the rest of the summer and on into the fall (but I don't want to think about the fall). At this point, if they're good, we save them to make into applesauce. If they're not good, they go to the pigs. I also planned to have the children help me harvest shallots, but rain came and put an end to outdoor work. I grew shallots for the first time last year and we really liked them, so this year I planted twice as many, an entire raised bed full. I wasn't sad, we needed the rain. We'll pull them up this week when things dry out again.

We are eating more things from the garden now. The lettuce has gone to seed, but I started some more that should be ready in three or four weeks. We've been eating peas, but they're almost done now. They don't like hot weather. Zucchini season has started. Here on the front end of the season, they are a delight. Later, when we've surfeited on them, not so much. We've started pulling up carrots as needed. The big carrot harvest will happen later in August. We've got chard ready and beets almost ready. There are peppers, but I like them to ripen, so we haven't picked any yet. And there are lots of green tomatoes, none ripe yet. The raspberries are starting to ripen and we can pick them if we can beat the Japanese beetles to them. I love it when we've reached the point where we begin to enjoy the fruits (and vegetables) of our labor.

I had a strange thing happen. I have a pothos plant in the downstairs bathroom. It has grown enormous and vined up one of the walls. It's been there for ten years. On Friday, a cluster of little yellow mushrooms appeared in its pot.  I identified them as Flowerpot Parasol Mushrooms, (Leucocoprinus birnbaumii). By Saturday evening, they had grown into some very pretty yellow mushrooms. They are not harmful to the plant, but are mildly toxic if eaten. Stacey hates mushrooms and I had to state firmly that she had to leave them alone. I find fungus fascinating and plan to watch them go through their life cycle.

Friday and then Saturday.

Sarah came over in the afternoon to show us the things she freeze dried, the green onions, basil, and dill we picked the day before. She stayed and worked on mudding the living room and then got Hannah and Miriam working on it too. The work is progressing bit by bit.

Freeze dried dill, basil, and green onions.

After a busy day and with the world newly washed by rain, the evening was exactly what a Saturday evening should be. After the children were all inside getting ready for bed, the garden was very quiet. I went out and sat on the bench in the vegetable garden to watch the light fade away. Saturday evenings always have a sort of end-of-times feeling for me. At first I was caught up in reviewing the week, all the things I had accomplished. Then I thought about the coming week and all the things waiting to be done. Then I sat there and focused on just what was around me. I could smell the tomato plants in the bed beside me. I could hear a robin singing vespers somewhere out in the orchard. I saw swifts soaring in the darkening sky overhead. I felt the soft air on my skin. I gave my mind up to exist just in that moment and it was peaceful. Then a mosquito decided I'd make a nice dinner. I slapped it dead and the moment was gone. I went into the house to prepare for the Sabbath.

At 3:00 this morning, I was awakened by thunder. It wasn't close. I counted to twelve between the lightning flash and the rumble. It was raining and, with all the windows open, the smell of it filled the house. I love the smell of rain. I only discovered recently that there is a technical name for it, petrichor. I listened to the thunder and rain on the roof as I fell back to sleep.

Today was our Branch Conference. Leaders from the stake came to meet with us. Our stake center is in Jamestown, New York, and some of the stake leaders had to travel a good distance to meet with us. We had an early meeting before our two hour block and a linger longer lunch afterward, so we were in church a long time. Stacey and I spoke in sacrament meeting along with the members of the stake presidency. All the meetings went well. I think everyone enjoyed the food afterward – chicken salad croissants, salads, grapes, and brownies and cookies for dessert. It was all good, but I'm glad it's over. Now I plan to relax for the rest of the day. We were going to go to Music on the Lawn this evening, but they postponed it to tomorrow due to the weather. It's a man playing the bagpipes, and we are looking forward to it. We're gathering at Shillig's at 7:00 for a Sabbath Soiree.

I tried to stop for a second and figure out what's coming up this week, but there are too many variables involved and my brain is telling me it's nap time. I know we're going to the county fair, probably swimming, doing chores and projects, and a doctor's visit. But at this point I'm letting stay an undefined mass of potential energy. And so, to nap. Good Sabbath.