November Hill farm journal, 158

 Finally, some rain yesterday evening! We’ve been rotating around the farm with hoses, watering any plantings that haven’t been in the ground long enough to develop mature root systems, and of course the vegetable garden. 

Another wonderful reason to plant natives is they are generally very drought tolerant after the first year of regular watering. 

Even before the rain, things were looking beautiful. The bee balm in this bed is stunning right now.

The golden Alexanders look like constellations. And the prickly horse nettle behind is a native that I pull out of the planted beds, mainly because of the prickles, but it’s also aggressive. The bees do love it though!

The button bush is nearly ready to bloom. It will soon be a mass of white “buttons.”

The front walkway is also looking nice, with the transplanted rattlesnake master on the left also getting ready to explode into bloom.

I’m a little behind in garden chores this week. I still have a fair bit of mulching to do, and weeding, and continuing my work in Poplar Folly. Once again, I’m reminding myself that the goal is not to finish everything, but to have pleasurable, meaningful time working on the things I love. Framed that way, I will never run out of these tasks, right? Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have been brought up in a culture that places value on the doing of things rather than finishing them in an effort to have nothing to do, a completed to do list, and some intimation of perfection in one’s life because everything has been done and there is nothing left but to gaze upon it.

For me, this requires a shift in what pops first into my mind, and I take that step, always aiming for that step to eventually disappear from my mind altogether.

Today the high on November Hill is predicted at 84. What a relief for all the equines and for us humans working outside! There’s a stiff breeze blowing and everything has been watered by the rain, so from that perspective today’s pleasurable tasks will be less than usual this time of year.

Writing update: I’ve taken a turn this week and have shifted from novel format to TV series pilot episode. I had got a bit stuck and felt like maybe this story is more a visual one than the printed page. I’m giving it a try and we’ll see how it goes. 

I tweeted today that I’ve spent every July 4th for the past 20 years sitting with my herd because of fireworks set off by neighbors. I’ll do the same this year, but I’ll wear black while doing it. I’m not happy with the state of our country, with the Supreme Court’s decisions of late, and for all of my life there have been so many things I find wrong about the way this country works. Independence is in my opinion something to be celebrated by the responsibility it brings. None of us is free unless all of us are. Right now  the rights of many are being trampled for the rights of a few. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so ashamed our country. 

I read a poem this week that encouraged us to be seeds and wait for the water. To plant food and feed ourselves and those who need it. I believe in voting, in being engaged politically, in writing letters and making phone calls. I believe in making our immediate smallest circles, our homes, as peaceful and beautiful as possible for our own pleasure and comfort. I believe in advocating for those people and animals and plants and the planet who need people with louder voices and more privilege to make change happen more quickly than it otherwise might. I also believe that we are all seeds, and that water will come.