Midsummer

Right on cue, the cicadas began their insistent thrumming tonight...Eliza swears she heard them last night, and she probably did, but it wasn't until tonight that they caught my ear.

In tangible celebration of this first high point of summer's riches, Ani harvested a huge beet this morning.

It still boggles my mind that she put the seed in the ground, covered it, and 2 months later...a beet.

We don't have a scale, so in lieu of weighing it, she measured it.  Then she carved her name in the skin, and carried it around for an hour and a half, showing anyone who would stop and listen.  She was proud.

She was particularly taken with the beautiful color and pattern of the inside, but ultimately decided that eating it was going to be the best part.  It was.

Not to be outdone, Eliza's turnip patch produced this hefty root. From the garden to lunch in about 15 minutes. We were all buzzing a little from how awesome that is...

:: :: :: ::

Midsummer is such a time of bounty for us: it is not only Eliza's birthday this week, the Summer Solstice, the anniversary of the start of my life with Dan (17 years), and Midsummer, it is also the anniversary of our wedding, ten years ago today.  One of Dan's gifts to me was a new volume of poetry by my favorite poet, Mary Oliver, and in it I found this.  It reminded me of a walk I took this week under the beauty of an evening sky, from which I returned with a hand full of black raspberries for my love.

I don't want to live a small life.

I don't want to live a small life.  Open your eyes,

open your hands.  I have just come

from the berry fields, the sun

kissing me with its golden mouth all the way

(open  your hands) and the wind-winged clouds

following along thinking perhaps I might

feed them, but no I carry these heart-shapes

only to you.  Look how many how small

but so sweet and maybe the last gift

I will ever bring to anyone in this

world of hope and risk, so do.

Look at me.  Open your life, open your hands.

Mary Oliver

I am feeling so grateful for this life we are having.