Garden Time

I recognize June by the flowers, now. 

I used to know it by review tests, and restlessness.

Lisa Asher, unschooled teenager, in Growing Without Schooling magazine

Lots of planning this year as we had to start a garden from scratch. I was studying up on seed saving so I hope to try more of that at the end of the season. I also went to my first seed swap. What a joy! I had a marvelous time and learned so much from some of the neatest people.

We started much more seed pots inside than is rational...

 Here was the big dig-up-the-lawn day. Yikes!

This is the view I wake up to. Sigh. Apple blossoms are gorgeous, and the 

hum of the bees is the best part.

 Rhubarb is always one of our favorites. We were sad about not having our usual supply until the kids ran in one day to tell me they discovered we do have a rhubarb patch- 

they found one deep in our woods.

Our duct tape nature bracelet tradition passed all the way down to the sixth child. 

What will we do next year?

The Peace of Wild Things

BY WENDELL BERRy

When despair for the world grows in me
 and I wake in the night at the least sound
 in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
 I go and lie down where the wood drake
 rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
 I come into the peace of wild things
 who do not tax their lives with forethought
 of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
 And I feel above me the day-blind stars
 waiting with their light. For a time
 I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.