Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

after the full moon

Monday delivered another unseasonably cool August daybreak. Walking from the kitchen door across the south lawn, two steaming mugs of perfect coffee in hand, I first noticed the humidity and then alternating pockets of warm and cool air. My eyesight was still blurry and dreamlike, barely awake, so in those stumbly moments, the brackish air around me seemed to manifest blue and pink, puffy handfuls of varying temperatures. It was an illusion, I knew that, but a gorgeous one.

To my left, of course, the sky actually was colorful. Oklahoma sun rises are surpassed in kaleidoscope beauty only by Oklahoma sunsets. Monday was no exception. Blues, pinks, and oranges. Silver and gold.

Later that day, after an easy run and half a day’s work, I walked back through this same space, west this time, downhill toward the shade garden. The sky had lowered and turned a suede gray. Still humid, but the air was stirred up now, all blended into one smooth, mellow flavor. Birds called from every side the way they often do only at dawn. Tree frogs and locusts raised the volume.

Full moon singing.

I spent some time cutting back sunflowers that were damaged from weekend thunderstorms. Thinking the whole time about Jessica turning twenty, I gathered enough for a hefty bouquet, set aside lots of dried seedheads for next year’s garden, and donated the rest to the horses and chickens.

(Besides sunflowers, did you know our horses will also eat arugula? Weirdos.)

Klaus kept me company most of the time, but he was often distracted by Meh splashing in the pond or crickets burrowing in the soft earth. My loyal pup appeared at my side half a dozen times with a muddy snoot and spiky-wet legs, belly, and tail. Little-boy happiness pulsing off of him.

I continued on emptying the raised beds of weeds and bolted leafy greens.

It’s a wonderful full moon task, this garden clean up. Right now is the perfect time for culling dead things, releasing what is damaged, and then letting everything rest. Since Monday I have grabbed an hour or two here and there, cleaning flower beds and working over exhausted vegetable plots, trying to help the farm catch its breath at this special time of the moon phase. Soon we will get another deep drink of rain, and more August heat, so this rest will be put to good use for new growth.

Just like in life, you know?

Wednesday night we drove to nearby Harrah to purchase a few round bales of hay for the bachelors.

Klaus accompanied us and smiled literally the entire time. I swear he puts of a certain kind of heat from his abundant joy. He loves truck rides so much.

When we arrived back at the farm and pulled through the barn to unload, Chanta, Dusty, and Meh thundered uphill and found us pretty quickly. They nibbled at a hay bale that was still wedged in the truck bed while Handsome wrestled, rolled, shoved, and pulleyed the other three behemoths into the barn. (We will eventually invest in a tractor with a hay spike; until then, it’s my husband’s brute strength that keeps things happening around here.)

We later dropped that delicious contraband over near the bonfire pit and deck yard, beneath some oak trees. I walked-rolled the big aluminum hay ring across the farm to encircle the feast.

I love fresh hay. Fragrant, tender, all shades of grassy neutrals and some green threads too. I love massive, dense bales that seem to be concrete blocks wrapped up in a flaky layer of goodness. Being stocked up makes me deeply content.

Early this morning, we took another walk south with perfect coffee in hand. Our Hot Tub Summit ritual continues. The farm was half wet from gentle overnight rain. The clouds were dappled, this daybreak as colorful as Monday’s but much warmer. The horses were standing at the new bale of hay, beneath the oak trees, eating breakfast (which actually appeared to be the end of a midnight snack). Sunlight from the east stabbed right through the steamy darkness and landed on the scene, illuminating all of it. Chanta’s hindquarters especially were glowing. Dusty took a deep breath and folded his legs to lay down. His big head lowered until his chin touched the wet leaves, and he fell asleep. Just as the farm was waking up.

Happiest of Thursdays to you, friends!
XOXOXOXO

 

trying to stall time and some special things this week

My brain has this notion that if I plan just a few extra events to break up our routine and also take time to write about our day to day living, then time will slow down a bit. Is this true? I mean, is this a sound theory? Because life is so great; we are happily obsessed with 97.46% of its details, but lately the days are slipping by way too quickly.

If you have any authority or expertise in this department, I will bake or work in your garden in exchange for your help. Thanks in advance.

********************

Following a lovely Monday with my nieces, this past Wednesday was so much fun. Whether my time-slowing theory works or not, Wednesday was a carpe-diem victory in every way.

After some basic early chores and a 7-ish mile run in Choctaw, I showered, did a little sewing, then picked up my long-lost gardening buddy Maddie and her youngest brother for a visit at the farm! We spent all afternoon swimming, brushing horses, and eating watermelon. I loved every minute. She is so good with him, he clearly adores her, and watching them together made me super nostalgic for my own siblings.

“Gabe, are you having fun?” “Why wouldn’t I be? We have watermelon!”

Except I was horrible to my own sibs. Cruel pranks, meanness, cold shoulders, you name it. Except with Genny for some reason. And Philip. I was pretty nice to them. Mostly Angela and Joey were just fun to tease, okay?

Ask me sometime about the school bus trick, ha!

Back to Wednesday.

A quick dust up around the house, a change of clothes, and by early evening Handsome and I were on the road to the Lake Hefner area.

Our friends Mickey and Kellie had invited us for dinner, and we all had the best time. We have been at several larger parties with them but alone just the four of us only once before, and we always enjoy their company so much. Wednesday night was such a treat.

More than a treat. Our dinner date turned into a long, meandering, nourishing conversation that left us feeling like we had known each other all our lives.

And the food was sublime, of course. Mickey and Kellie are foodies of the highest order, and they spoiled us with beef tenderloin, bacon-sauteed Brussels sprouts, and roasted potatoes then sent us home with extra portions of dessert, which was made-from-scratch strawberry shortcake.

By the way, Mickey is the friend I mentioned recently who helped me improve my running form! He is maintaining a mind-blowing streak right now. Crazy cool. And I love listening to him and Handsome talk cars.

Kellie feeds my brain with talk about magnetic earthing, total-person wellness, her love of both the beach and Colorado and excellent food, yoga, and a recent foray into Orange-Theory. I haven’t personally tried this workout yet, but her reviews alone get me interested.

While in their home we enjoyed some reluctant and therefore precious greyhound affection:

She’s blending, she’s blending!

After that mid-week burst of socializing, time did slow a bit, lusciously. Thursday thrummed with the leftover energy of all that love exchanged. And writing about it since then has helped press it all into my skin, again.

You write to live life twice, after all.

Since then, routines are keeping us busy. Running all the miles, collecting eggs and admiring the Memorial Day chicks, playing endless games of fetch with Sir Klaussen, watering and exploring the gardens.

 

 

Life is good. Beyond good.

If I cannot slow time exactly, then I will be content to magnify the moments.

Thanks to our friends and family for helping to make our week special. We love you all!

“Kindred spirits are not so scare as I used to think.
It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.”
~L.M. Montgomery,
Anne of Green Gables
XOXOXOXO

 

friday 5 at the farm: early summer joys

Friday already? Yes, it’s Friday! Wow. We just accomplished another full-to-bursting work week and are sliding fast and furious toward the weekend. I couldn’t be happier. Actually, Handsome and I were just reflecting on how these past couple of weeks have been particularly satisfying. Filled with all sorts of boxes checked, obstacles demolished, attitudes refreshed. Prayers answered, too, let’s not forget that. We sure can’t take all the credit for being in a place of peace and contentment. Thankfully, the goodness around us far exceeds what we are capable of drumming up ourselves.

Real quick, how about a Friday 5 at the Farm?

Here are some things bringing me total and utter joy this week.

#1: Baby chicks are growing! Mama Hen and her little flock of six are happy and energetic. We love them.

#2: Some foot TLC, including new stretches and a topical anti-inflammatory. After a break that felt much longer than 3 days, I finally logged 8.2 glorious, humid miles between Thursday evening and Friday morning and am super grateful to be back at it.

#3: Homegrown salads! Every big bowl is layered with a variety of lettuces and greens, raw veggies, and farm fresh eggs. I could live on this meal. Actually, I kind of do.

#4: This overflowing trough garden and our new flat deck make me happy every single day. In the early morning hours, the light is lavender and pink and the birdsong is orchestral. By midday the dragonflies are buzzing low and I crave my best lawn chair and a good book for soaking up the sun in privacy. Early evening brings cooler temperatures and lacy shadows from those oak trees. And if we are lucky enough to step outside at night, we are rewarded with velvet black, diamond-crusted skies and lots of frog song. At any hour, I love to brush my hand across the globe basil planted here and bring the fragrance with me. Even my husband notices.

#5: An evening at Vacation Bible School with our Jedi OKC friends! Man that was fun. So many happy kids and so many stellar people making good things happen for them.

 

And with that, we are off to the next chapter. What daily gifts have brought you loads of utter and complete joy this week?

Carpe those diems, friends, they are rare and beautiful.

“I promise if you keep searching for everything
rare and beautiful in this world,
eventually you will become it.”
~T.K. White
XOXOXOXO

 

 

going by feel

I had scribbled this down in my notebook a full week before it all clicked. Our friends Mickey and Kellie visited the farm on Memorial Day, and together with my sister Angela and brother Philip we all luxuriated in some pretty great conversation. As the golden hour grew purple and the honeybees were going to bed, we explored the vegetable garden together. I was pulling errant weeds, and Kellie asked how to tell the weeds from the plants. Our visit was nearing an end, so I just tried to answer briefly. You know that feeling when starting a brand new conversation would have been too much? But she and I had shared thoughtful vibrations about so many other things, how I wished to explore this with her that night!

Private note: This has both of my grandfathers wrapped up in its sentences: My paternal Grandpa Dunaway who was a sharp-witted, light-hearted writer and has always been my personal Will Rogers (also son to Papa Joe the slightly famous beekeeper), and my maternal Grandpa Rex, who you know by now was the world’s best gardening mentor and given to much puttering in exactly his own style.

bare-handed & going by feel

Assuming all basic safety from garter snakes, burrowing frogs, and other deadly creatures, the best way to pull weeds is bare-handed. After a brief re-acquaintance between the inner edge of the forefinger, the first pad of the thumb, and the exact dimensions of every upwardly mobile green thing in the garden, the task becomes commonplace, an easy old dance, even more familiar (and I will say more useful) than riding a bike.

The fuzzy, round barrel chest of a cucumber vine is easy to distinguish from the skinny weeds growing thick against it, though the weeds are also fuzzy. Another fuzzy-stemmed neighbor, the tomato plant (blunt and wounded thanks to a llama without borders) has a somewhat squared off base, and is woodier. Alpha and well rooted. Vastly different except for the green and the fuzz.

The gardener should be able to go at the task with eyes closed, flicking gingerly from one thread of life to the next, deciding which can stay and which should be plucked out. Just a swift, underhanded twist of that well informed forefinger, and the cooperating palm is filled with chlorophyll and potential energy, one tiny decision at a time.

If, in a fit of momentum, the gardener grazes too near a bed of arugula, crushing a few leaves or maybe even uprooting a thread like seedling or two, then the sharp, peppery fragrance will announce the misstep quickly. A friendly alarm to redirect, so that no more than a trace of food is lost. And even that bit of green will find its way to a happy chicken’s belly.

This is one of my favorite things about easy gardening moments. Pulling weeds bare handed and getting really up close and personal with every shape and texture, usually with my eyes closed.

And it points gently to so many Universal messages I have been receiving lately. Messages about being quiet, going about my work more privately, relaxing into the moment so much that I can keep moving with my eyes closed. Trust and steady movement, knowing that nothing is wasted. Believing that every detail in this complex life is beautiful and useful. Acknowledging that as different as I feel from people near me, we have some things in common.

Most of all, the message that it’s okay to operate by instinct once you are informed and practiced. That is exciting. 

I love you and miss you Grandpa Dunaway, I love you and miss you Grandpa Rex, and I love you too Kellie. I am so happy to know you better and better.

Go by feel and trust in Love
XOXOXOXO

,

a new shade garden for the farm

A childhood daydream is coming true for me, right here at the farm: We are building a new shade garden.

It will grow beneath the canopy of some blackjack trees, in the sleepy, loamy area just downhill from the house, right between our bonfire yard and my raised beds veggie garden.

 

 

When you stand outside my kitchen and turn right, you first see the herb garden, then past a little expanse of lawn you will soon see this new shade garden adjacent to full sun beauties, then beyond that some sandy hills full of frogs and turtles, then the pond which is blessedly full and glassy right now, and beyond that your eyes fall easily on the back field and western horizon which is every evening ablaze with color.

 

I snapped this photo yesterday evening as some intense winds stirred up those clouds. The sky looked like whipped denim.

 

We all sure do love Oklahoma sunsets. And this telescoping alleyway of one view after another, culminating in a long drink of sunset reflecting on the pond is one of my favorite features of the Lazy W. Especially in warm months between the hours of about 5-9 p.m. because bats and dragonflies fill the dusk. It’s a little bit of magic, and we are working to maximize that.

In my mind, this new space mimics a garden my grandparents grew in Oklahoma City, when I was in grade school and still climbing trees barefoot and using grated blue and purple chalk for eye shadow. Back then, they grew the most beautiful and luxurious examples of everything good and fragrant. And they seemed to do so easily, though I know they worked hard. Here and now, we already have one each of hydrangea, viburnum, bleeding heart, and an optimistic little white azalea. That’s not much for so much open space, even keeping in mind the tree roots. Soon we will add larkspur, foxglove, hollyhocks, extra herbs, more Hydrangea, more viburnum, and definitely more azaleas plus a few thick ruffles of caladium. Because in addition to mimicking my grandparents’ style, I want to nod generously to our beloved French Quarter. The aesthetic there never fails to conjure up a certain mood, a certain pleasure-seeking vibe that both Handsome and I love. More on that another day.

 

 

This afternoon I spent the sunshine hours adding mulched up leaves and composted horse manure to the bare beds, incorporating it into the soil and breathing in the perfume. I was happy to find lots of earthworms but so far no baby snakes. I then spread several bags of black mulch over the newly cultivated areas and stood back to admire how great everything looks with that clean, crisp, uniform backdrop. The white azalea blooms are visible from a greater distance now. The “garden” is more clearly defined from the “path,” and I swear emerald green becomes Technicolor green with that mulch and a heavy dose of molten sunshine.

 

 

All this color and freshness eliminate the feeling of desolation you sometimes get by looking at too much dry, barren earth and dead things. Does that happen to you?

The overarching goal here is to grow more ornamentals and edibles for our private use, near where we luxuriate daily. (Market growing is happening in the front field this year.) We want all of it back here to be part of the landscape, orchestrated more or less with curves and repeated groupings, and far more easily maintained than before. The borders and mulch will do a lot to accomplish that.

I wish my Grandpa could see this latest farm improvement, because he and Grandma inspired so much of it. And all these years since Handsome and I bought this place, Grandpa was so encouraging and supportive.

But he is with me when I smell crushed tomato leaves and when I accidentally mow a garlic row. He is with me when I “double dig” exactly the way he taught me to and when I mulch the grass clippings of course. And on cool mornings when I wear his quilted nylon vest with pockets.

This childhood daydream coming true is already more beautiful than I ever thought a real garden of my very own could be.

XOXOXOXO