In Mr. MacGregor's Garden ;)

Today was a gardening day...true gardening. For the past month or two we have been cultivating little plants from seed to sprout, babying them and coaxing them to grow. I happen to have very little patience for such things. I much prefer the real gardening with hearty plants.
So this afternoon we got out in the garden and pulled weeds amongst the onions and thinned radishes, and then we got the task of planting new peas among the carnage of the few that sprouted after all our rain. Tell me, how do peas wash up two inches through soil that has been packed on top of them?!? Amazing. Truly. Though I do begrudge them their talent.

But this day was the best that dear, capricious March has to offer. Balmy breezes without a hint of cold in them, birdsong, moist earth and green things a'growing in every corner. I found myself singing "Will ye go, lassie, go?" and "Leezie Lindsay" almost without knowing it. For some reason when I'm happiest Scottish songs spring to mind...I must have highland blood in me somewhere! ;)
I am continually blessed that the Lord led us out to the country. The changing of seasons was barely perceptible in the city, but here in the beautiful Virginia countryside everything is beautiful! :)
Down the road Miss Virginia's redbud had burst forth in its full glory surrounded by the ever cheerful forsythia. Here's a picture of redbud for those of you who aren't sure what it is. Once you see the brilliant magenta blossoms you'd never forget it!

The sight so coaxed me towards it that I had the gumption to go pick some at 6:00 after our work was finally done! I recently found out that redbud is edible, and our salad with dinner simply screamed for some blossoms to finish out the teensy radish tops we had thinned! I braved the rough road barefooted (because my feet insist on wearing no shoes!) and went to Miss Virginia's yard, entirely intent upon gathering the blossoms for dinner.
But I was not the only person who wished to have some redbud with their supper. There was a myriad of busy little men in yellow and black striped suits who hummed angrily over my presence and pushed me aside rudely. They were not gentlemanly in the slightest, and simply would not allow me to get within ten feet of their beautiful supper!

So I had to go home without the blossoms. :(

But I didn't mind too terribly, and I picked dozens of Quaker Ladies on the way home to press.

That wasn't such a bad exchange, was it? :) ~Rachel

Autumn and My Gypsy Wind

"Sumer is a'coomin in"....so goes an extremely old song. Think...midievil times. That old. But I've edited the song to fit my present mood. I'll change into a long, swishy, gown, I'll let down my hair, and if I had any inkling how to play some little twangy intrument, I'd stand outside and warble: "SUMER IS A'GOING OUT!" ;) I'm kidding! But I am truly excited about the change of seasons. This summer has fried us. Or steamed us. I can't decide which. Maybe both equally! :P It has been a good summer nevertheless, but give me Autumn any time! :) Daniel agrees. You can't deny that that picture up there thrills you to the very core, and involuntarily turns your mind to apple cider! :) There is just something about the fall that makes me feel alive! I can already see the change out of doors. The light has changed to be more clear and almost liquid. It is fast loosing Summer's heavy golden look. The landscape across the field is beginning to show just the faintest hints of it's Autumn garb. The breezes are cooler, and more playful. The other day I actually saw a brilliant patch of goldenrod! Any day now I am expecting to feel my Gypsy Wind! Yes, I have named a particular wind. Don't laugh at me! :) It is a certain wind, during the late part of summer, about through October, and it makes you feel that summer is truly over. Haven't you felt it? It's that sort of grown-up-breeze that cavorts by and makes you glance up and notice a crimson-painted tree, or the deep azure of the sky, and makes you think of firesides, and shawls, and the Blue Ridge Mountains. This particular wind also makes me want to go "A-gypsy-ing" which merely means, a sort of restless feeling that makes you want to ramble through field and forest, or go traveling, or do anything except stay inside and do ordinary things! :) Please tell me you know what I'm talking about! Sarah just smiles at me! But she is just as eager as I for the fall and all it brings! :) Do try to see if you have a Gypsy Wind anywhere about your home! I can't imagine that it would merely be a breeze peculiar to our land, for I've felt it at all three of the homes I've ever lived in! Be on the look-out for my Gypsy Wind this fall, and let me know if you've felt it! :) It is one of the biggest blessings of the end-of-summer! I like that verse in Psalms: "Fire and hail, snow, and cloud, stormy winds fulfilling His word.." and I often think of the Gypsy Wind in that way. It seems like a bit of a promise of God to remind me of the beautiful, riotous, Autumn coming. Try to notice it! We have become so focused indoors, (most of us) that we never stop to notice the transitions between seasons. They are nearly as important to me as the real seasons themselves. Like anticipating some special event! I don't know. Maybe I'm just strange that way! Hope not!-Rachel

Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder - Pig in a Pen

Hey Everyone! Matthew had loaded this fun song onto his iPod and we've been listening to it in the truck while going to work recently, so I thought I'd show you this video! :) We can't believe how incredibly fast the guitarist and mandolin player go! Hope you enjoy it!

-Sarah

Our Latest Enemies

Living in Virginia Beach there were city-type trials. Things were easily stolen if you left them out. There were some creepy people round-about. Living in Ocean view we had inner-city type trials- things were routinely stolen from someplace or another. Pretty much one out of every 2 people you met were creepy. We saw drug deals and other sad things like that. Potential danger was....everywhere. But now living out in the country.....we have new problems. Real enemies. There is an army encamped on our land, and they are out to get us. No, they arent people, and the only way to battle them is to squish them. They are the Bugs! These creeps are everywhere! We spend hours in the garden picking them off plants. Then when we come inside, there are flies everywhere. I seldom come in from gardening without later finding a tick on me. The beetles and moths congregate on our porch, waiting for a chance to come inside. Maybe it is because of the porch-lights, but I feel they have personal designs upon our sanity! :) I am not a "girl" about snakes or lizards or frogs. I like picking them up. But when it comes to disgusting little bugs that you don't notice until they are ON you, I draw the line. Bugs I recognize are not so bad, unless they happen to be clingy Japanese beetles, or potato-bug larvae, or daddy-long-legs. But we have weird bugs out here. There is one that looked like a shrimp. Another one looks like it has an elephant trunk. We have 4-inch long wasps, and multiple kinds of ticks. Not to mention stinkbugs and gigantic tomato horn-worms. *shivers*
Not all the bugs are gross though- we have some of the reddest ladybugs I've ever seen, plenty of butterflies, (who lay the catipillars we have to squish!) these beautiful golden beetles, and fireflies that make Matthew and I laugh because they look like they are either shorting out, or hyperventilating! :) I am not sure why I departed on this strange little bug discussion, but it might be because I feel something crawling on my shoulder right now that I've been trying to ignore. These creatures have no concept of the fact that a house is made to keep them out!
-Rachel

Crawdads and Excuses

"You get a line,

I'll get a pole honey!

You get line,

I'll get a pole babe!

You get a line, I'll get a pole

And we'll go fishing in the crawdad hole

Honey, baby mine!"

This morning, ignoring the fact that it is raining, Anna, Leah, and Benjamin crept out of the house, careful not to be followed by everyone and their brother, and went crawdad fishing. Basically, the old gentleman at the feed store, a Mr. Udell Butler told Mama that those tall stacks of mud along the side of ditches are crawdad towers. They dig down in the earth and stop once they find water. I had always assumed that you would catch a crawdad in a creek. But Mr. Butler told us that you take a string, tie a piece of raw meat onto the end, and drop it down the hole. When you feel a tug, you yank the string back up, and in theory, you should have a crawdad. Unfortunately, those wee beasties simply eat the meat and drop off halfway like some natural claw-machine. (those ones that you pay out the nose to use at the grocery store and then it drops the ugly teddy bear right when it gets close to the hole! ;) Nontheless, after unlucky fishing yesterday, the kids went out again this morning and still didn't catch a thing. But Daniel is as excited as any Tom Sawyer to go out and try his luck. He says he is determined to catch one. And when Daniel is determined to do something, it generally works. Too bad he can't debate the crawdad out of his hole, or something equally logic-minded, for then he'd be sure to win! :)

The other day when Matthew was on a walk with me, and we had the two little girls, I was picking a glorious bouquet of swamp honeysuckle and ferns. I LOVE flowers! I fill my hands with them at any chance I get! I cannot thrive very well away from them. And I don't like the hothouse ones. I like the wild ones. Anyway, these ones smelled particularly good. Shame on me. A bit later, Matthew quite politely informed me that I had pollen all over my nose. Blast! I spend half my life with pollen on my nose, because where there are flowers, I must be, and where there are scented flowers, there's my nose, and where there is my nose, there ends up being pollen. Ho-hum. So I wrote this poem as an excuse.

"My Excuse"

By me!

"I have pollen on my nose

From the smelling of a rose

And the sniffing of the honeysuckle bloom.

And a yellow sort of dust

That is transferred on there just

`Cause I stopped to smell the rich perfume.

I was happy as a bee

Buzzing round the apple tree,

And I paused to take a sniff from every bud,

And I really couldn't care

That the branches pulled my hair--

That my toes were sinking quickly in the mud.

Yes, I'm brushed with powdered gold

In a fashion quaintly bold

From the smelling of the flowers in the lane.

And I know I am the type

That forgets her nose to wipe

So my dear, you must remind me o'er again!"

What do you think? -Rachel