Lazy W Marie

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

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rooted & grounded

And just like that, we have leaped across the verdant threshold between seasons. My heart is filled all over again with excitement for the coming gardens and with hope for so many yet-unanswered prayers. I know I say that a lot, about hope, but please know that we also celebrate the brick-and-mortar resolutions, the answers, the rewards of waiting and hoping, all the time. Our world lately has been riddled with both good news (really good news), encouragement to expect more of it, and some healthy perspective about how much worse life often is for others. Gratitude is not strong enough a word to express how I feel about it all. I am in awe of what God has been doing for us and the people near us.

Jessica planting some joyful color in her apartment courtyard garden…xoxoxo

Seeds are germinating left and right. The Peeps have officially outgrown their indoor trough home and have moved to the flight pen outside. Broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage starts are suddenly voluptuous; their neighboring snow peas are tendriling upwards on arched cattle panels; and the Mouse Garden is a thick, highly textured bed of kale. Kale!! The Yukon Gold potato box has sprouted with food, and what so far looks like just green confetti will very soon be full ruffles of spinach, kale, arugula, and fancy lettuces. Last year’s chicks, now fully mature hens, are laying eggs regularly and eating all the wild clover I can pull from our new watermelon patch. The horses are shedding as thickly as the cottonwood is about to be blooming, and speaking of blooms, all four of our fruit trees seem to have kept their precious springtime flowers and are all set up for a heavy season of apples, peaches, and plums.

The house stays warm enough most days, now, even with the heater off and the windows open, to keep a sourdough starter going, and I bake fresh bread as often as we crave it. We stay busy outdoors so much longer these days, with the gradually later sunsets and mild weather, just moving easily and with great pleasure from one task to the next. Klaus keeps us company the whole time, and it is wonderful to find him exhausted instead of restless at the end of a day well spent. (My husband says he feels the same way about being able to exhaust me, ha! Hibernation is not for everyone.)

Our middle field especially is greening up, and just a moderate effort to scoop up and relocate manure is making a big difference. The compost bins have stayed so full that I recently started a second, much larger area for experimenting with a faster decomposition method. But now I think it’s too far away from a water source. Oh well, the honeybees love it!

My little herb garden is waking up from winter, and it is so fun to try and visualize what will return, where the truly blank spots are, how to reshape and replenish the small area. It’s a luscious intimacy, to know a garden for a length of time, to become familiar with its dimensions and habits and needs and wants. To know how it behaves in each season, what is asks of the gardener, what it offers in return. In the spaces between perennials, I am scattering seeds like cinnamon basil, dill, zinnias, and more. By Easter Sunday everything should be erupting there. Already, in this garden and in the areas flanking the vegetable gate, day-lilies and vinca have returned. I am so excited about the gomphrena and Mexican petunia. For now my eyes feast on the Jane magnolia petals falling all over the front sidewalk.

We have been craving to host an outdoor yoga night and will do this soon. The weather is just so close to being reliable, and we have only a short list of deck repairs to make first. Local and interested in moonlit yoga and meditation? Stay tuned!

The first three months of this gorgeous new year have been filled with incredible Love, satisfying work, plenty of restoration and deep breathing, and just good, plain, happy daily pleasures. Life at the W is not without stress and certainly out hearts have aches like everyone’s; but we have laid hold of some powerful antidotes and some very agreeable reminders for each other about what matters most, about how to shrug off distractions and quickly refuse energy siphons, and how to really sink in and enjoy the moments. Magnify pleasures. Minimize irritations. When either of us buckles from some outside pressure, I think we are pretty good at showing each other grace and welcoming each other back to paradise. Because paradise, really, is how it so often feels. For these things and much more, I am so deeply grateful.

One last update, I just finished The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. My sister Angela had recommended it, and I found it to be not just thought provoking but deeply confirming of so much I have already been considering. Lots to discuss if you have read this!

Happy Sunday, friends, and happy springtime!

Rooted and Grounded in Love
XOXOXO

what a wonderful world, senses inventory

A little Senses Inventory to tiptoe into this spectacular, leisurely Sunday. Lots of texture to experience. And let’s add cravings to the mix, okay? As always you are warmly invited to add your own inventory in comments… xoxo

See: Feathery, scrappy hula-hoop dream catcher accepting all the sun and maybe some dreams too. Wedding chandelier, also made from scraps and a hula hoop, like a cotton jelly fish in the breeze. It’s hanging from a red bud tree which is on her last leg and covered in blue-green scales. Still beautiful. A grove of Oak trees making willing trades of their waxy green for crispy browns and orange. Yellow wildflowers growing in the shade, where the sand is being slowly overtaken by grass. Thank goodness. Garden gate dressed in skimpy, sexy morning glory vines. Nature’s lingerie. Rusted milk cans bursting with bouquets of garden tools. So many rakes, spades, and poles. Where did they all come from? Sun streaming in with vibrating energy from behind us, pink and gold and fierce this morning. Floods of it washing over the pasture to our right, setting that miniature prairie on fire. Cold fire pit below the deck where we’re sitting. Cedar benches circling it like a little Stonehenge. Unlit strings of lights above us. Fruit trees to our left, thinner now and bronzing. Feathery willow tree downhill, keeping watch over the pond. Almost yellow.

"I hope that all your dreams come true; just remember that nightmares are dreams too."
“I hope that all your dreams come true; just remember that nightmares are dreams too.”

Hear: Chorus of angry crows above the forest. Blue jay squawking, other birds warbling gently, a single woodpecker. Interstate noise in the distance, once again easy to imagine it’s the ocean. Klaus scampering loud and clumsy across the wooden deck, giving chase to Natasha. Twigs cracking. Acorns pinging on the smokehouse’s tin roof.

Smell: Coffee, less sweet today, finally.  Faintest bit of chlorine. My own lotion and deodorant. Not much else. There’s an unusual cleanness to the air today, crisp but empty of even wood smoke. Weird. Nice though.

Taste: Only my coffee. The chewiness of the cream reminds me of New Orleans.

Touch: Cool breeze, gentle like breath on my skin. Especially nice on my neck and bare shoulders. Warm coffee mug in my left hand, skinny ink pen in my right. Mesh lawn chair beneath me, paper thin rubber flip flops riddled with craters and sticker scars. Now a wash of warmth on the back of my neck.

Think: If instead of living here I were to just visit this place, maybe stay for the weekend with a stack of books and empty spirals, a pair of running shoes and yoga mat, I would see it as a perfect retreat. I would wonder how this place exists and never want to leave, would want to absorb every detail at every time of day and never step inside. If I were a visitor my eyes might not see work undone or projects to schedule, manure to scoop, gardens to clean. My eyes might see it as beautifully and lovingly as I do at this moment. How much time am I wasting in life? Since autumn is historically when our life tends to change in big ways, October is more of a New Year marker than January. So I sit here thinking how different life is now compared to last October. And how will things have changed by October 2016? What dreams will have been pursued, what miracles will we have in the bank? What burdens will be lifted, or traded for new ones, because we will be stronger then?

Feel: Settled. Feeling settled and energized both physically and emotionally. Optimistic way beyond the outer affirmations kind of optimism. Feeling truly excited for the challenges and opportunities right around the corner. Trembling with happiness for my people.

Crave: I crave a fragrant, slow burning bonfire, deep laughter, and meaningful conversation. Lingering affection. Easy, soaking-into-your-bones kind of stuff. Craving blocks of time to write. More than blogging. Really writing. Craving soup and watermelon too.

Okay friends, thank you so much for joining me today.

Have yourself a really wonderful Sunday.

“They’re really saying I love you…”
XOXOXOXO

 

 

 

 

It’s Definitely Still Summer, Y’all

  Happy Labor Day weekend, everyone! I know this weekend marks the beginning of lots of fun autumn traditions. The season *seems* like it’s changing. School is in full swing for most folks; football games are on every other television everywhere; and apparently Starbucks has started serving their famed pumpkin spice latte again. Don’t even get me started on Pinterest, Hobby Lobby, etc. Not that I haven’t grabbed a few ideas myself… But I open Pinterest and cinnamon-orange wafts up from my laptop. It’s just too much, too soon.

   So, the man made environments we create for each other all tell us it is no longer summer but now already autumn. What does nature say? Maybe not quite yet. Here in Oklahoma the temps are still right at 100. The humidity is high, but the rains are pretty far off. The horses are still sweaty the birds still spend their afternoons seeking shady refuge, doing nothing; and everything is still blooming and producing! Only the sumac has started to don tinges of crimson. Everything else is still a lush, verdant, summery green. It’s still summer!

   The Farmers’ Almanac says we still have 22 days of summertime. TWENTY TWO DAYS before autumn officially begins, folks. That is almost a month. And we all know that autumn itself is in flux. You just never know what it will bring.

   So in protest of a premature fall, I will be wearing all the white cotton sundresses I want, even if I have to wear them once in a while with tall boots or a scarf. In fact I will wear all the white I crave. And I will be laying out to read my book club book. I’ll be tending the garden, swimming, and grilling outdoors every chance I get.

   Because I just LOVE DANG SUMMER SO MUCH.

   Let’s not be in a hurry to see it slip away from us, ok? Let’s cling to every hot, miserable, extended day we can. Grill with me Swim. Pick wildflowers. Take naps outdoors. Watch the summer stars. Count dragonflies in the afternoon and fireflies at night. They’re still out there! They still need love too. Eat as many watermelons as you can find. And fresh basil, while you can.

   The idea that basil will soon be bidding us adieu makes me weepy.

   The only autumnal tasks I’ll participate in THIS EARLY are planting some garlic, starting seeds for lettuce, kale, spinach, etc. maybe a few new trees.

   If your’e not yet convinced to continue enjoying summer… Consider this:

   The Farmer’s Almanac predicts a hefty winter for most of the continental United States. See for yourself right here.  We should expect and prepare for colder than normal temps and wetter than normal conditions, too. It’s gonna be fine, but seriously wintry.

   Remember how miserable you were last spring, after Groundhog Day but before Easter? Remember waiting waiting waiting for that first blush of green? That first daffodil? That first day warm enough to run errands or work outdoors without a heavy coat?

Dormancy has its place in life. Let’s not rush it.
Lets embrace and celebrate the life before us while it’s here!

   Those final weeks of winter are so. Flipping. Long. I was on the brink of insanity last spring, with all the days and weeks of waiting. Every DAY was long. So right now… every day should COUNT.

   For September and early October, then, I intend to squeeze out every last drop of summer. Every grilled meal. Every lap around the pool. Every early morning run. Every weed pulling, even. Because too soon the weeds will disappear, but so will the zuchinni. And the zinnias. And the melon vines. So will the roses and basil.

   Join me, please! Let’s let Summertime 2013 know that she is loved and will be soon missed. Celebrate every remaining week. They will pass quickly. Let’s endure the heat. Let’s endure the humidity and the electric bill and trips to the store to buy chlorine for the pool. Let’s even endure the mosquitoes, friends.

   Because the beauty of summertime is so temporary.

   We can soon enough go back to our fluffy sweaters, orange-clove simmering spices, and pumpkin recipes, I promise. Just not yet.

Happy Labor Day Weekend!
Let’s Swim Through It.
xoxoxoxo