“Teach the children. We don’t matter so much, but the children do. Show
them daisies and the pale hepatica. Teach them the taste of sassafras
and wintergreen. The lives of the blue sailors, mallow, sunbursts, the
moccasin flowers. And the frisky ones–inkberry, lamb’s quarters,
blueberries. And the aromatic ones–rosemary, oregano. Give them
peppermint to put in their pockets as they go to school. Give them the
fields and the woods and the possibility of the world salvaged from the
lords of profit. Stand them in the stream, head them upstream, rejoice
as they learn to love this green space they live in, its sticks and
leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms. Attention is the
beginning of devotion.”
―
Mary Oliver,
Upstream: Selected Essays
The pollinator garden that we
started when we moved here is a kingdom of swoon. The hummingbirds join
me as I sip my morning latte. The Cerulean Warbler is the star singer
in the morning amongst a chorus of Chickadee, Bluebirds, Crow,
Goldfinch, Robin and Cardinal. Sometimes the damselflies visit, and
that is always enchanting.
In the forest beside the lake, the
Wood Thrush is my muse, while the hawk cries overhead and somewhere a
Red Bellied Woodpecker. It's best in the early evening when the frogs
sing along too.
Something or other attacked my peas, and I don't
think they will make it. The rest of the garden, however, is hardy as
hell. I see what I can do differently and better, and made notes for
next year.
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| Somewhere in there is Anise Hyssop, Mountain Mint and more... |
Labels: corners of our home: Shenandoah Valley
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