four to six weeks

when the garden calls you must stop what you're doing and make pickles. the cukes were ready on friday. which meant all weekend plans had to be abandoned. i set to work saturday morning with the dew and the goldfinches. my mind was free to wander onto prettier things. i picked and picked. my head getting more and more clear with each snap of the stem. i haven't posted much lately about things i'm doing like gardening and growing up a fine young boy. i guess i'm just craving the realness of it. the dirty work of gardening and parenting and helping people die. i could tell you that i am so glad to drive that gravel road each day. it shakes my thoughts loose. i could tell you my baby nursed for the last time a month ago and i burned all my nursing bras. i could tell you that i am trying to cut back on wine and coffee, or that my biggest project this summer are the roads avery and i built in the "back 40". i could tell you that the people i build relationships with keep dying, or that i am still searching for the sacred. i could say a whole lot. but as paige has said more times than i can count, "i don't know where to begin. things are changing, i'm changing." and i am. and you are, we all are. we're all changing...





and the messages from the garden come as they always do. as a reminder to me to pay attention. as i neared the end of the row, i found a "mother cuke" with a small "baby cuke" attached to it at the stem. i was pleased that avery was occupied by the raspberries but i went to show him anyway. he instantly broke the baby away from the mama. and there it is. my babe and i are entering a new phase. and who knows where we'll be in four to six weeks when those pickles are ready.