Lazy W Marie

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

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springtime in october

Hello again, and happy almost Halloween, 2021! A lot has happened at the farm since last I wrote here, and I know a lot has happened in your world, too.

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We remark so often these days on the paradoxical grinding whirlwind of time, how it seems to both hover on a moment or a task and also spin wildly, too fast, all at once. How the days and weeks and months are accumulating and dissolving into memory like no year we have ever experienced before. It’s easy to guess why life feels this way right now, after the (forgive me) unprecedented chapters we have all survived. We taste life so fully now, all of us, and we like it. We cannot get enough of it. We are gluttons for living and living fully.

I am awake alone, writing this in an ultra quiet house at three in the morning, windows open with mild air seeping in, not even a trace breeze. I am enjoying the luxury of perfect coffee hot and strong in my grateful mouth and belly and my brain firing with new thoughts. The night sounds are muted, and my heart is grateful for a happy farm, for safe, well fed animals and for all these gardens that are not just thriving in autumn but refreshed, colorful, very much alive and ready for something miraculous to happen.

Everything happening is miraculous.

We are living a season of springtime in the midst of autumn. Not just this spectacular weather, but also a renewing of body, mind, and spirit. However quickly time seems to be passing, it is passing with great meaning and accomplishment. Time and energy seem to rush and flow through us like the cold Thompson River in Estes Park, powerful and cleansing, life giving. It feels incredible, this renewal. The fruits of our ongoing labor feel incredible, too. From one corner of life to another, we see goodness and give thanks for it constantly.

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I continue to swell with pride for my husband’s professional life; how his personal evolution is bringing everything he touches along for the exciting ride. Every week we build and improve the farm, sometimes making huge changes and sometimes just tightening things up, suiting them just to our liking and hopefully the animals’, too. Our multi-generational family time is warm and glittering, an ongoing gift that truly is a dream come true. Mom and Dad are so much fun. Jessica and Alex and their sweet pups are limitless sources of joy! We are surrounded by siblings and nieces and nephews and friends who might as well be family. Every week we gather to celebrate something big and wonderful, and I love it all.

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When Jocelyn rejoins us for the second time in this crazy life, she will have such a powerful nest to enjoy. We miss her like crazy, but in a happy, expectant way right now, not a grieving way. Like the way I felt just before she was born. This time, though, I’ll wait for it to happen naturally. She is worth every single minute of waiting. The party is going strong, showing no signs of slowing down, and she can join in anytime she is ready.

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I have lost track of all the answered prayers. I walk the farm and meditate intentionally every day, and I try to journal enough to keep up with it all, but the avalanche of goodness is more than I can keep up with. Sometimes it literally makes me giddy, delirious with gratitude. I hope that the condition of my heart and the effort to acknowledge it here an there is enough of a thank you. Thank You.

More soon, but before I signoff, a great journal prompt:

“How much overlap is there between
what you say is important to you
and how you spent your attention
over the last month?”
~James Clear (author of Atomic Habits)
XOXOXO

friday 5 at the farm, life lately

1. Doing: We just wrapped up the 2021 Oklahoma County Master Gardeners’ Tour! After receiving the invitation earlier this summer, Handsome and I have spent lots of time and energy preparing for a bus full of talented gardening friends to visit the Lazy W. I have really been missing the community, and it was an honor to be considered, so we dove in and had a blast!

Of course in true Oklahoma fashion, our long standing drought busted wide open the very morning of the tour, with a cold front and all day thunderstorms. Ha! But Jess and Alex joined us to help with guests, and we made some very happy memories despite being soaked. Also in gardening and activities news, I spent a day last week with my friend Mer. We drove to Stillwater to see her stepdaughter Ash as well as tour the OSU campus botanic gardens and the Bustani grounds. The gardens were deeply inspirational, and time with a dear friend refreshed my soul. In between these two events, gardening and farm cleanup has been the name of the game. With heavy rain predicted again tonight, I won’t be watering for a while, and all the weeding and mulching is caught up, so everything gets a little rest, including me.

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2. Reading: I have started listening to audio books, which is a big departure for me. I have always been kind of a snob against them and will gladly explain why if you care. My first foray was a pitiful necessity: The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky is a current group project with a deadline. I was muddling and suffering through the five-million-page book version and realized I would not finish it in time to participate in the remote book club discussion, and I have really wanted to participate with this particular group for a while, so I broke down and paid for an Audible subscription. Friends, it was a lifesaver worth every penny of the fourteen dollar fee. The talented narrator helped me differentiate the dozens of (IMHO) underdeveloped characters with complicated Russian names (I was not forming crisp images as I read). Plus, being so busy with tour prep these recent weeks, I had a hard time sitting still to read. at all Audio helped me power through a classic, and I am glad for it. Since finishing The Idiot, I decided to keep up the audio momentum during housework and cooking hours. Yesterday I started listening to Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. Nice palate cleanser, you know? As for actual reading, my whole body and soul are still vibrating from The Well Gardened Mind by Dr. Sue Stuart-Smith. I’ll have a full review for you soon. More exciting than my review, though, is that this weekend we are hosting an in person discussion brunch at the farm! Several friends read it along with me, and we are lucky enough to have snagged the author for a Zoom interview!! I cannot wait to meet her online, ask her some questions, and lavish her with affection for her gorgeous piece of work. And yes I will share more of that experience here, next week.

3. Eating: I personally cannot get enough eggs, Greek yogurt, and walnuts lately. Sounds pious, but I don’t mean it that way. These cravings have been as real and insatiable as tortilla chips and guacamole or dark chocolate and almonds. This week we have enjoyed a couple of different versions of homemade enchiladas and seared jalapenos, which was fun with friends here for dinner, plus one new sugar cookie recipe, which I baked strictly to fragrance the house on our first rainy day. Sadly, since Handsome is requesting fewer sweet treats these days, I have no idea what to do with all of my autumn baking energy. It is soon going to be an actual problem. Friends and neighbors should begin expecting anonymous deliveries of apple cider donut bread, pumpkin muffins, brookies, and apple-cinnamon rolls.

4. People News: My never-stop-working husband just passed his fifteen year mark at the Commish! This feels like such a pretend milestone, as if the real one is much more substantial, because each of those fifteen years has been so packed with drama, uphill battles, stunning accomplishments, and paradigm-shifting life changes, both for us and for his professional community. So much history under his belt, and all while our own story rages on in the periphery. We were practically newlyweds when he started and have built the farm during those years! Overall, what a beautiful whirlwind of endurance and growth. And a great portion of it has contributed to the enrichment of our marriage, for which I am so thankful.

5. Animal News: Little Lady Marigold is still sweetly aggressive and absolutely stuck on her morning routine. She also continues to be people shy. Did she even peep around the corner during the tour? No, but Meh made lots of new friends that day. We overheard some ladies pitying him for being so wet, and he ate it right up. The two flocks are still cooped up until my gardens heal a bit more from their recent reign of free-range terror. Klaus misses his bird friends, so I let him in the big pen every day to play. We are, not surprisingly, collecting a glut of eggs again.

Okay, more stories and updates soon! I would love to know what’s happening in your world. Are you sinking into autumn where you live? Are you baking or decorating or gardening accordingly? Anyone running a fall marathon? I’m not, but I am slowly ramping up mileage and feeling better than ever.

Thanks for checking in, over and out!

“For it is the body, the feeling, the instincts,
which connect us with the soil…”
~Carl Jung
XOXOXO

garden check in, mid august

Hello, happy mid-August, how does your garden grow?

In Oklahoma, we are already enjoying a few softer days here and there, with temperatures often below normal and rainfall above. Then the heat returns. Then it’s mild again. And again, more equatorial heat. We are challenged by army worms but blessed with butterflies and wasps and frogs and birds, and we still have the prettiest daybreaks and sunsets anywhere. The Lazy W gardens are still producing tomatoes, tomatillos, herbs, zinnias, and peppers. And seeds I have sown recently are already an inch tall. But the brightest summer colors are beginning to fade. I see it first in the hydrangeas, and they are as beautiful as old linen or well worn blue jeans.

me and my giant parsley branches…xoxo

The older I get and the longer I garden intentionally, the less I see each year as a separate event. Certainly, they do all swim together in the fast moving stream of time; but more importantly, it is all a beautiful continuum. One gardening seasons leads and contributes to the next. Last year’s failures and successes become this year’s goals and puzzles, which set the stage for next season’s main show. The flowers reseed and the perennials grow and mature. Some die. The trees change silently, imperceptibly, then all at once one day they are towering and full bodied. Our tastes evolve, building aesthetic ideals one upon the other, hopefully honing ever more clearly on what we actually want from our gardening lives.

And there is always, always something happening outside. Something I absolutely love about living here is how much quiet drama is constantly available to us outdoors. Yes, summertime is rightfully the most glorious group of months because of the exuberant food supply and almost tropical colors everywhere. But the end of summer is hardly the end of the gardening year. I love knowing that. I love feeling deep in my bones the connectedness of all these efforts and all these various months and days. The life-affirming continuum of summer that leads to fall that leads to winter that was all preceded by dozens, hundreds, thousands of repeats of the same pattern. What if I die and someone takes over my gardens here? The work I do now, the choices I make, will become that gardener’s starting point. Just as the work done here fifteen years ago started me in my adventure. Or my Grandpa! His garden, though never my own, really started it all. I digress.

summer shade garden in mid august, where the chickens play

For most of this month and next, I am following a self imposed five step plan to keep the gardens thriving and happy and prepare for the coming season. I see it in these stages: Edit, Nourish, Fast Food, New Color, and Reflect.

#1 Edit ruthlessly! This is hard for me at first then becomes deeply satisfying. I pull hidden weeds, prune overgrown, leggy perennials, shear back flowering annuals to give them a chance to bloom again, and then completely yank out the summer vegetables that are well past their primes (looking at you, Japanese eggplant). I do a little bit every day, sometimes in passing, and then I do a lot with more focus in certain areas of the farm, a few times per week. One day it will stop growing back, ha. I have developed the habit of walking around with a five gallon bucket, a pair of scissors, and a little hand trowel to make the job easy and accessible. I was so gratified to hear that my friend Dee does this too! Once I get over the emotional conflict of uprooting plants, the thrill of creating blank space for the next project is even better than emptying an overstuffed closet in the house.

tomatillos, blackberries, beans, & parsley, plus blank space…xoxo

#2 Nourish! This time of year, all the shrubs and perennials especially benefit from a generous application of farm compost. I mound it up generously and let the chickens scratch it in then water lusciously, knowing most plants can still grow, still embolden their roots plenty, before frost. I am eyeballing the beds during this task to see where I might add more structure in fall, especially some evergreens. I am also tallying up how many new bags of mulch we will need when it goes on sale soon.

#3 Fast Food: As I type this, Oklahoma still has at least 62 growing days to go, probably more like 73. That’s a lot of warm, fertile weeks! I have already been sowing seeds for fresh sweet peas, bush beans, Swiss chard, pok choi, spinach, and arugula, all quick producers. I also planted some extra zinnias just for fun, but I think Leon the rooster scratched up and ate those. It’s fine. Soon I will add more lettuces, kale, radishes, carrots, beets, and more. I am amazed by how quickly they germinate right now in this warm, welcoming soil. It’s a different experience than springtime. And what a comfort to have these things to nurture in place of the things we lose at summer’s end.

#4 New Color: Before we know it, the nurseries and hardware stores will be overflowing with a flush of new color. I am excited to add lots and lots of it to our containers and beds, and I am wide open to inspiration based on what I see and what I feel will last the longest. I sometimes begin this season with a color scheme in mind but often abandon that completely when a certain flat makes my mouth water. The only plan I will absolutely keep is helping Jessica and Alex plant their first perennial border. That is exciting! Boxwoods, hydrangeas, and spring bulbs, here we come!

#5 Reflect: Again mindful of how “this year’s” garden is simultaneously part of both last year and next year, and realizing that my memory has better things to do than memorize verities and dates with much specificity, I am resolved to journal a little more intentionally. I want to capture my satisfaction with what has gone well and capture the regrets I have or the lessons I am learning.

I will always want more and more sunflowers. Always more…xoxo

This is where I am in the gardens for now. The days pass too quickly because they are brimming with goodness. I am so happy having the flock free range. Grateful for a ribbon of affectionate cuddling with the horses. Really fascinated with the compost process. Overall, just blissing out here. Thank you for listening!

One more thing, friends: I am slowly reading a new book called The Well Gardened Mind, researched and beautifully written by psychiatrist Sue Stewart-Smith. I am gleaning just so much from its pages, I cannot wait to tell you everything. If you believe intrinsically in the value of gardening to restore and maintain our health both physical and emotional, this book will resonate with you. Here is one luscious quote for you now:

“As children, and let us not forget it, as adults too,
we need to dream, we need to do,
and we need to have an impact on our environment.
These things give rise to a sense of optimism
about our capacity to shape our own lives.”
~Sue Stuart-Smith
The Well Gardened Mind
XOXOXO

life lately, as we approach the end of july 2021

Well, my summertime blogging streak did not last long, ha! But I am happy to be back at my keyboard, brimming with good feelings and stories worth sharing and enough words to match.

Since last we spoke, Handsome and I celebrated twenty years of marriage, all wrapped up in a solid month of celebrations, farm visitors, staycation weeks, and some projects sprinkled in, just for good measure. We reunited with a few beloved friends, sparked a couple of new friendships, and spent lots of time (and money) eating restaurant food. We also celebrated our youngest niece’s birthday. How is Kenzie fourteen already??

The farm is, as I type this, still unreasonably green and lush for late July. The year’s extravagant rainfall and mostly below average temperatures have really shown us how much wants to grow here, given the right conditions.

We are flush with tomatoes, marigolds, blackberries, tomatillos, zinnias, herbs, roses, hydrangeas, and more. Soon, we will have okra and squash in abundance. Until a few weeks ago, the easement along the front edge of our property was bursting with tall prairie grass and wave upon wave of bright yellow wildflowers. Call them weeds I you want to, but I love them. The front field, where we have the winding meditation path, also boasts these beautiful natural features along with some blue wildflowers and a smattering of hot pink cosmos and rusty colored amaranth. I am smitten by the textures, depth, and variety. We recently invested in a brand new zero-turn mower with a generously sized deck, so Handsome can more easily maintain the paths out there. If you visit us, please take a few minutes to wander! I promise you there are good vibes in the quiet where Chunk-hi used to play, and you might see the flattened hiding spots where the deer sleep.

Speaking of good vibes, we are still buzzing with romance and gratitude from our big anniversary party. We filled the house and south lawn with a few dozen friends and family to renew our vows with happy witnesses, eat some decadent cake, and dance ourselves into blissful exhaustion. It was a much anticipated event that was twice nearly ruined by weather, but at the last minute, on the second reschedule, everything came together and everyone had a great time.

We still feel so cushioned and energized by everyone’s love and support. Good marriages don’t happen in a vacuum, after all; we feel lucky to be integrated into such a healthy community. Twenty years! Twenty years of adventure, ups and downs, terrifying moments with our kids, heartbreak with extended family, evolving friendships, paradigm shifts, incredible career trajectory, romance and tradition-curating, and of course this little farm experiment of ours. Two decades of absolute amazement that we still get to live with each other, still get to build the exact kind of life we want and enjoy the daily process of loving each other. It all feels way too short and fast.

The same weekend that we celebrated twenty years, Jess and Alex celebrated six months! Already these gorgeous young kids have made memories and tackled life curveballs together, working hard and loving their pups along the way. We are so proud and happy.

Are you reading anything worth sharing? In the morning minutes while I drink coffee and wait for daybreak, I am still working through Ask and It Is Given as well as a perpetual devotional by Bob Goff and a new book about the connection between gardening and mental health. More on that third book, soon. The rest of the day and evening, when I manage to claim some time to sit and read, I have sworn myself to only fiction. It’s a way for me to capitalize on summertime freedom, ha. Recently, a Tana French book blew me away: The Witch Elm. Everyone who likes this author says to also read her Dublin murder squad series, which I intend to do. This week I am reading Silent Corner by Dean Koontz. He is one of my all time favorite writers. Like a good, lose-yourself-worthy palate cleanser.

Last month, Jessica read The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, and I read it a second time to discuss with her. Ten years later, with so much about life that is vastly different now, was a wholly different experience. Hearing my adult daughter’s remarks was unforgettable.

She was a baby the first time, recently gone from us, and my world was spinning and bottomless. Now she is “home,” and I understand so much more about the hell she and her sister endured in those years. I wonder what will have changed ten years from now, if we were to read the book again, what healing can have happened. Will Jocelyn be whole and home and fully returned to us, a second time? (She is okay now, but we are not completely okay without her.) Will we have grandchildren? Will my husband be talking about retirement or consulting work? Will I have published five or six or ninety books? Will someone have found the safe cure for squash bugs and grasshoppers, and will our kitchen walls be opened yet?

One more update to share before I close this up and see where I can move the needle around the farm today: We have been invited to participate in the 2021 Oklahoma Master Gardeners’ Garden tour! So on the last day of September, a tour bus (or two?) filled with talented, passionate local gardeners will spill out into the driveway of our farm, and we will welcome them for a little exploration. Lots of changed here since the same five years ago, and I know that August and September will bring rapid changes in the vegetable garden and flower beds, but overall I excited to share our space and reconnect with the gardening community. I had pulled away from volunteering when our life could not bear so many hours away, but gosh I have missed the people.

Pat, one of my sweet, smart class mentors,
and Elizabeth, a mind blowing multi-talented woman!

Keep dreaming up what you want, friends. Remember that it is a different act of faith that dreaming against what you don’t want. Keep visualizing the fruit of hope and work and Love in vivid detail, and walk steadily toward every big and small thing that brings you joy and satisfies you. It is good work, the business of keeping your flames fanned and lively.

“You gotta imagine what’s never been.”
~Sue Monk Kidd
The Secret Lives of Bees

grateful for this fathers day

Father’s Day 2021 holds, more than ever before, a mix of joy and gratitude, grief and anger, really the full spectrum. All of it can coexist, as we know, and all of it does.

My own Dad and my own precious husband continue to dazzle us with their steadfast love and hard work, despite what pain each of them hides. They both make fatherhood look easy, as if loving, providing, protecting, and guiding are what they were born to do. Even when their own needs for love and help, some fatherly support, might be lacking. Somehow, they always find new resources to draw on and make the magic happen.

Then my girls. They face this Father’s Day weekend, the first one, really, without their Dad. Last year on Father’s Day, the shock of his suicide was so raw, so included in that long, black storm. A year has passed now, and they have survived every day, every month, every season, riding the waves and somehow staying afloat. Their feelings are not mine to share. What I will say is that I could not be more proud of how they have managed this, of the lives they are building as beautiful, resilient, talented, and life-filled young women. And I could not be more thankful for their individual health and the fact that they are cultivating a true, adult, sisterly friendship. Please keep them and their stepbrother in your warmest, strongest thoughts as they pass this painful milestone.

Silliness & pure joy!! xoxoxo

This morning I am in awe of how charmed my life has been because of good men. My Dad first and foremost, my excellent grandfathers, and so many fun and loving uncles, friends, and mentors, all stepping into my life year after year, showing up at just the right moments, causing me to believe so strongly in the goodness of men as a group that I have angrily resisted modern movements that say otherwise. I love these men. I love the shape and strength they bring to the world. I love the way their energy makes me feel.

And then my husband. The handsome young man who, twenty years ago, stepped eagerly into the thankless role of “stepdad” but loved two little doe eyed girls without any caveat. He might have first loved them because they were mine, but in no time at all he loved them genuinely for who they were, and he dove in greedily to cultivate relationships with each of them. When outside forces tried to puncture that enthusiasm, he only redoubled his love. When crises piled up and life got excruciatingly hard and did not relent, he also did not relent. He stayed and loved harder than ever, and he prayed big and small prayers with me, and with God we did move heaven and earth. Then he gave himself over, again and very happily, to the fun and celebration of being a Dad of young women, all those little girl memories stored up and warming us. He continues to lead and guide, protect, give freely, and remind them to be safe and happy and free. It is an indescribable peace to have him loving this little family.

We spent a frigid but sunny afternoon walking and playing at Lily Lake. She is in her element here. Can’t you tell? xoxo

It cannot be easy for men to be the giver of unwanted advice the deliverer of hard facts and protectiveness, the “bad guy” when what their kids and families want is not best for them. It cannot be easy for men to crave the entire world for their families and work themselves to the bone to make dreams come true, but still feel like it is never enough.

I hope my Dad and my husband always know deep in their hearts that what they do is far more than enough. That what they say sinks in and inspires us. That how they love us day after day, year after year, makes all the difference in the world, whether life is bright and easy or dark and stormy. I hope they both know that we need them now more than ever, and that we love them and are proud to be theirs, no matter how they feel day to day. I also hope that my father in law knows that the foundations he laid for his son are still strong, still solid, and still thrumming with Love.

Harvey Wreath 1995

My gratitude overwhelms me today. Gratitude for the stability we all enjoy because of our Dads’ and husbands’ faithfulness and steadfastness. The comforts we all enjoy because they go to such great lengths to show their love in new and creative ways. The peace we all feel because, when it could have turned out so differently at so many points in time, we still get to be a family.

Tonight, when so many families cannot, we get to gather for a casual, delicious, laughter filled, memory making dinner. We have the inexpressible luxury of looking our men in the face and saying thank you for guiding us, protecting us, listening to our hopes and dreams, and flowing with the unending chaos of life.

Happy Fathers’ Day, and may Love and absolute peace and joy overwhelm you today.