Field Notes: The State of Things

Being here is all that.

Farmer started chemo on Friday.

There is a nest of baby bunnies in the vegetable garden.

We came inside with a pair of ticks after Tuesday’s walk. One Lone Star, one regular.

The peach tree that grows sideways towards the light is in bloom. Tent caterpillars have set up their gauzy homes in the crooks of the limbs.

Andrew came with the tractor and tilled the field on Saturday morning. The future garden looks real.  

I started too many zinnias – enough flats to cover the two heating mats, but too many, now that they have germinated, to fit under the lights. 

I have yet to unpack the carefully stored dahlia tubers and pot them up, but the soil is in the downstairs bathroom shower, at the ready. 

Inside the hoop house, the three roses have buds, the lettuce has germinated, the cosmos are seeded, the ranunculus and anemones and lisianthus are all planted up in black fabric bags of soil.

The strawberries in the planter are going bonkers.

A big fat bumblebee got stuck inside the hoop house with me. I tried in vain with my soil-stained hands to persuade him to exit. Leave him be, I told myself.

The unruly honeysuckle and the wild roses along the fence are nearly all leafed out. The last tulips and daffodils are still blooming.

The clematis has buds. There is a mouse nest in the leafy pile at its feet.

Something (someone?) is eating the rhubarb leaves.

The blueberries, wild and low, high and cultivated – they’re all covered in the sweetest bell-shaped blossoms, promising treats for the birds and a few for us, too.

A male Cardinal has staked his territory in the seven-trunk oak behind the deck. He flies over to the garage roof and back strutting his stuff. I hope he does not decide to fling himself against the breakfast room windows in a repeat of last year.

I don’t know where to plant the willow tree or the two Brandywine viburnums. I’ve paced the perimeter, wondering how our hedge might take shape.

In the vegetable garden, love-in-a-mist and bupleurum and cilantro have re-seeded themselves. Glorious. A slew of snapdragons and feverfew made it through the winter and are flush with new growth. A few heads of lettuce survived.

The wooden boxes – the raised beds – are falling apart, the corners busted. Repairs are needed.

We got the onions planted, but the peas are not in yet.

I ordered a big garden cart online, on sale. It arrived in a bashed-up box, the pieces for assembly mostly there. We think.

The resident handyman repaired a wheelbarrow wheel and replaced an outdoor faucet valve, returning the hoses to working order.

🌱

---

I decided to clean out my office. I now have a stack of 62 magazines for recycling and a kitchen bag of trash.

I dusted. Eek.

I took all the tchotchkes off my book shelves and stowed them away. Now, the alcove behind my desk is simply calming rows (stacks?) of books, (almost) no clutter.

I rewrote all of my lists on fresh yellow legal pads and graph paper.

I took all the bits of paper off my unmounted bulletin board and organized them in piles and baskets and folders: health, job, expenses, dog, farm, flowers, family, recipes.

I lined up my little ceramic bowls on the windowsill and gave each a duty: paper clips, earbuds, extra keys, thumbtacks, erasers/pencil sharpener, dried flower petals.

I stuffed anything vaguely electronic looking that I haven’t used in a while and can’t identify into a box. I took a box of old taxes to the basement.

I stacked up my sticky pads and lined up the pencil and pen mugs in a row.

It is a fact that no matter how hard I try and how often I declutter, my office will repopulate with flotsam and jetsam in a matter of weeks.

📚

---

I had, at last, a small breather between deadlines that gave me this time and space to immerse myself in garden and home tasks. To walk outside and stand in the warm grass while Farmer did his roly-polys, to follow him through the woods on his way to his favorite spot. To throw my arms around him when he came skipping down the hill to see me at the hoop house, acting like it had been a hundred years instead of a half-hour.

To lace up boots and pick off ticks and mulch beds and plant seeds. To turn the grow lights on and off and go up and down the basement stairs in search of the perfect vase. To pick up leaves, to pick wild violets, to pick a place to plant the poppies.

To close out all the browser windows, file the photos in folders, watch the rest of that flower video, fill out the spreadsheet with planting dates.

To worry less, sleep better, eat dinner with friends, finish one book, start another.

It wasn’t a big window really, just a clear weekend and a couple of stolen afternoons. But what a difference.

I listened to our friends talk of their travels, and I admit, I wish sometimes that we were not bound by dog and family and mortgages and jobs to the small realm we inhabit. And yet, I love my home and am happiest living simply and spending as much time as possible outdoors. And I can’t bear to be away from my dog or to go too long without seeing my family. If there is time enough for just these things, I’m happy.

💚