A quick walk through the garden this morning…. 

This was my most beautiful summer garden, full to the brim with flowers and herbs, rambling vines, beautiful fruits, sweet corn and sorghum, sweet potatoes and cassava. 

It is at the turning point, when the sunflowers have started to shrivel up and it becomes jungly.

In this climate the weather tips from the deep winter and the rooty, leafy vegetables of the North, into balmy European midsummer when the poppies bloom and the golden barley is ripe for the dry season….

…proceeding to the hot, dry climate and cooling fruits of the Mideast and arid parts of India, before descending horribly into the hot, sticky, insect-rung bowels of equatorial Africa, when wading in to pick an over-ripe cucumber is like finding Stanley.

A garden is in so many ways a manifestation of the self. Physically, this is the land i am made from, the micro ecology here lives with me always in sacred partnership, and my favorite vegetables i have saved seed from season after season know me and know this place. 

 Also it is here often, in the solitude of vines and flowers, i find the quiet presence of Love walk beside me, and the landscape of my life manifests here in the layout and tending of this intimate place.

I think it is good to know these questions:

What landscape are you drawn from? What thrives and flourishes in the secret garden of your heart?
Whether or not you know the answers.

It is a melancholy walk through this morning, because i am saying goodbye to this garden, and even the best of partings has a spot of sadness in it. 

My son and I are leaving this afternoon for France, where we will stay and work on organic farms (WWOOFing). I am equal parts excited and anxious to meet new people and places, to learn new things, but of course there is so much to leave behind here. 

Ethan will be holding down the homestead here while we are gone. He says he will try to write here, and maybe even post some dad recipes!

I am not sure what it will be like to be traveling, but I hope to also post about the farms where we will be staying, so things will be a little different here until the end of August when we return. 

 Wishing you a beautiful summer!