This is not an ordinary week. My big kids are off adventuring with their grandparents and cousin. The little ones and I are keeping busy at home—really at home because Scott’s car engine blew out on his way home Monday. He’s got the minivan for the week.
We’ve got this.
Sometimes I really think the backyard is the nicest place to be.
I would like to borrow your backyard, with its temperate San Diego weather, for the summer. In that context, the backyard is indeed a lovely place to be. I bet you don’t even have mosquitoes.
Ah, Hannah, I had to chuckle when I read your comment because I wrote that post in the morning, but by 11-ish it was way too hot to be outside. I was thinking: that’ll teach me to post about loving the backyard!
We live pretty far inland, with no coastal breezes—more a desert climate out here in East County. The summers get really hot. But—and it’s a big but—even at its hottest, it’s a pretty great climate, because it always cools down at night. No miserable hot sticky nights like our Virginia summers. We can usually get back out in the yard in the evenings, when there’s some shade, and often a breeze.
By 2pm yesterday I was missing my Virginia central air for sure! (Only one window-unit AC in this house, and I haven’t cranked it yet. We try to make do with ceiling fans for as long as possible.)
Melissa! I thought you’d be excited to hear that we have a small swarm of honebees in our backyard, and we offered them on freecycle for someone to raise.
“Exploration,” says John Stilgoe, author of Outside Lies Magic, “is a liberal art, because it is an art that liberates, that frees, that opens away from narrowness. And it is fun.”
Yes: it is so, so much fun, and that is why I write these posts all chattery with excitement over this or that connection the kids made today. (Or that I made myself!) I know I get carried away, but that’s the point, isn’t it, that way leading on to way has carried me away?
And yet—and yet—I think we are at once ‘carried away’ and made more fully present in the now, more rooted, by these relationships between ideas about things past and future. The joy of connection makes me want to celebrate this moment, this brief encounter with wild-haired child and broad-trunked tree, bus going by, sign on church wall, Scottish warlord creeping over the tower wall and startling the English soldier’s wife who has just put her babe in arms to sleep by crooning that the Black Douglas won’t get him. Child, laughing, shouting “Dinna ye be sae sure aboot that!” across the courtyard outside the library. How can I not celebrate this freedom?
Every day is complicated, messy, and full of friction. And every day has glorious or cozy moments worth celebrating. I seldom bother to chronicle the friction and the mess because writing time is fleeting and precious—and childhood even more so. I’d rather capture the small joys that I might forget—or take for granted—if I don’t take time to set them down in words.
(Excerpt from this post about Real Life, quoted here because I don't want anyone to be under the impression that things are always perfect around here! Heaven knows we are anything but. Perfect, frictionless, orderly? Nope. Happy? Most of the time!)
Be like the bird
Who, pausing in flight
On limb too slight,
Feels it give way beneath her,
Yet sings,
Knowing she has wings.
Gasp! Breathtakingly gorgeous, Lissa! Made my morning.
Posted on July 1st, 2009 at 9:43 amGorgeous photos! Yes, your backyard is definitely a great place to be! Enjoy …
Posted on July 1st, 2009 at 9:48 amOh, those are lovely.
It must be a bit perplexing to have 5, 3, and Baby — and nobody else! It’s such a different type of daily life, isn’t it?
Posted on July 1st, 2009 at 11:04 amI would like to borrow your backyard, with its temperate San Diego weather, for the summer. In that context, the backyard is indeed a lovely place to be. I bet you don’t even have mosquitoes.
Posted on July 1st, 2009 at 11:49 amNot that I’m bitter, here in Texas.
Posted on July 1st, 2009 at 11:50 amBeautiful!
Posted on July 1st, 2009 at 8:14 pmAh, Hannah, I had to chuckle when I read your comment because I wrote that post in the morning, but by 11-ish it was way too hot to be outside. I was thinking: that’ll teach me to post about loving the backyard!
We live pretty far inland, with no coastal breezes—more a desert climate out here in East County. The summers get really hot. But—and it’s a big but—even at its hottest, it’s a pretty great climate, because it always cools down at night. No miserable hot sticky nights like our Virginia summers. We can usually get back out in the yard in the evenings, when there’s some shade, and often a breeze.
By 2pm yesterday I was missing my Virginia central air for sure! (Only one window-unit AC in this house, and I haven’t cranked it yet. We try to make do with ceiling fans for as long as possible.)
Posted on July 2nd, 2009 at 5:30 amGorgeous flowers!!!! Keep enjoying those cool mornings!!!
Posted on July 2nd, 2009 at 4:22 pmMelissa! I thought you’d be excited to hear that we have a small swarm of honebees in our backyard, and we offered them on freecycle for someone to raise.
Posted on July 5th, 2009 at 5:55 pmOh my goodness! That IS exciting! Have the people come to take them away yet? Did you (or will you) get pictures? I’d love to hear all about it!
Posted on July 5th, 2009 at 6:10 pmNasturtiums are one of my absolute favorites. Unfortunately, mine are doing poorly this year..thank you for sharing yours
They are gorgeous!
Posted on July 14th, 2009 at 1:11 am