Small Gains

It feels like we have lost half the month.  In some ways, we have.  We've missed three weeks of school, with the travel and then our long illnesses.  June has flown by and my birthday is just eleven days away.  Midsummer's Eve is just five days away!  Even so, I still feel tentative about saying that all this is behind us.  I am terribly afraid of the same thing or any thing coming back to knock us down again.  We are mostly better, still coughing and blowing noses, but we are mostly up to our regular tasks again. 

That's good, considering there are so many things to do this time of year.  The pressing one, at the moment, is raspberries.  They must be picked every day and Roan is my usual helper.  He was well first, and he also just enjoys it.  I think the fever was good for him, if you believe things like that.  I've noticed developmental leaps after illness other times and there are child development folks who agree.  On the whole, he is more helpful and thoughtful, more settled into being six.  He is enjoying his increasing skills and the trust I give him.

As you can see, it looks like he is picking a walnut tree, instead of berries.  Berries patches, being contrived early successional places, are the perfect haven for things that like to take over.  Like grape vines, and garlic mustard, and so much goldenrod.  It was pretty last year.  It is a mess this year.  Grape vines are not kind to berry brambles, so out they come.  I just rip them out of the way as I pick, though there is a long way to go.  I can see this taking awhile, in addition to simply moving some berries over to our yard.  It seems like the work I did last year was all for nought!

The garden feels like it is getting away from me.  I have been able to do little spurts of hoeing, trying to take it easy, in between the occasional thunderstorm.  Grass still wants to take over the Annex Garden over at the Roland Estate.  The potatoes are big and bushy, but need hilling again.  The tomatoes need pruning, and the whole place needs weeds to go away.  At home, I've put the first broccoli into the freezer and we enjoyed a very pretty head of buttercrunch lettuce.  And the tomatoes need pruning.  It is a theme with me right now.  The vigorous growth that June brings needs a little reining in.

As we face Midsummer at the end of the week, I am hoping to get back to school things.  I've got some stories for St. John's tide planned, along with a shift to more Summery decorations.  We're planning a bonfire for Friday, in hopes that it all works out.  We've been saving old wood for some time, along with cardboard bits that will keep it going.  We're hoping to have a few guests, so I am praying that we are all ready for that.  I'd like to make fairy cakes, too, and some sunny cookies.

I'll admit that I feel nervous making any plans, but we really missed out on May Day and we just need a good celebration right about now.