the blue muse

Dill is my favorite herb, and I let it grow wild everywhere in my garden. In summer, I put it almost everything I cook. (When I cook, which, I admit, isn’t often.) These stems are as tall as I am, like so many other plants in my garden. All the rain we’ve had has made everything twice as high as usual.

The kiss me over the garden gate is already above my head.

I spent yesterday weeding and mulching two more beds in the side garden, laughing at how far behind I am in my chores, but enjoying the process all the same. I usually aim to have all of this done by Father’s Day, but this year, I couldn’t make it happen. So now, I will putter my way through the beds all summer and tidy up as I go.

I also spent a lot of time reading this weekend, I’ve discovered a series by Nancy Turner and I am just loving these books. Last weekend I read These Is My Words, and this weekend, Sarah’s Quilt. There is one more in the series, The Star Garden, which I can’t wait to start. The books chronicle the story of a woman who traveled through Arizona and Texas as a child in the 1800s and settled there–they are very much like grown-up versions of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie series, and honestly, I couldn’t put either one down until I had finished. I know that I am going to miss Sarah Agnes Prine when I am done reading them all. Those are the best kind of books in my opinion, the ones you miss.

Reading these stories made me marvel at how easy we have life compared to the way people used to live. We take so much for granted, all the technology and conveniences we have that allow us to rise above simple survival mode. We grow food in our gardens because we choose to, not because we have to. We don’t have to boil water in cauldrons to do our laundry. We have air conditioning and indoor plumbing and electricity, and we only pay attention to them when they don’t work.

We tend to think about the “good old days” in terms of all the things we wish we still had and did, but we forget how hard it was just to get through life. Reading these books has certainly made me appreciate mine.

Life is good, even when it’s not easy and carefree.

That’s my lesson for the summer.

Savor the simple things.

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Wishing you a week filled with summer’s flavor.

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