#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

Shall I not have intelligence with the earth?
Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself.
- Henry David Thoreau

First Cucumber

Cucumber Blossoms

Hosta

I resorted to wearing a mesh clothes hamper over my head this morning for my walk. I looked like a crazed and incompetent bee keeper, I’m sure. But i did not get bitten. Mostly, I stayed on our property and spent time looking at my plants. The hosta is gorgeously blooming in the shade by the granite steps. Indoors, I had a meeting with a new collaborator, a journal where I will be hosting an open mic, starting in September. Fun to be getting to work with a new collaborator who is becoming a friend and venturing into a new project. The youngest and I planned a swim. I have bought a swim buoy to match hers. First, she stood at the window and shouted in what sounded like a foreign language, “Theindigobuntingisback! “Theindigobuntingisback!” She was wild with enthusiasm. She has been dying to see one–her first sighting, and she’d been very jealous when I told her I saw it a few days ago. She saw the Indigo Bunting at the feeder, and she was made very happy. Then, we swam at my friend’s dock. A good swim, and I love my new swim buoy. The sun flashed into my eyes as I swam. Then, home for work on my new poem. I finished a draft tonight and sent it off for tomorrow. Who knows, I don’t, if it’s anything yet. There are a few less weeds alive in the world tonight. I got to the garden and worked with the mosquitos, weeding, picking squash, cherry tomatoes, staking tomatoes, admiring my heirlooms which are green and lush. But, I also had a mess to clean up. The umbrella left open blew over the glass table and all the glass smashed into crushed ice pieces in the garden. So, it was a messy and challenging job to get the glass chips out of the mulch. And the umbrella sprawled open on the ground, and when I moved it to pick up glass a mother field mouse with two nursing mice (still attached!) ran out and hid in the pumpkins! What a shock! And everyone knows how phobic I am! And, then, one more baby ran out to catch up! Oh, my. Well, I didn’t freak out. She softened my heart. This garden is the place for that. Something in me shifted. I’m even writing the word mouse without freaking out. It’s our garden, not my garden. She belongs in this field where we made the garden. I would much rather meet her in the pumpkin patch than my kitchen.