A wish for a boring season

I set off for a walk in the upper meadow this morning, wading through knee-high grass wet with dew, and by the time I came down my pants were soaked through up to the hip. Neither meadow has been mowed this year because the tractor has been out of commission, but this week we learned that the gearbox for the mower deck has been rebuilt, which means we'll have a functioning tractor soon. If you're wondering what it costs to get the gearbox rebuilt for the mower deck on a Kubota tractor, trust me--you don't want to know. It's significantly less expensive than buying a new tractor, although it doesn't necessarily feel that way.

So the meadows are overgrown and hard to navigate, but the birds don't seem to mind. This morning I saw what I believe was a blue-winged warbler, although the photos are too awful to share. I heard a kingfisher down by the creek and saw more blue-eyed Mary growing where I'd never seen it before. I credit the broken tractor: no mowing means more opportunities for stuff to grow.

In the lower meadow the garden plots are also overgrown, but I found four thick asparagus stalks sticking up over the weeds. It makes me sad to forego a vegetable garden again this year, but it's just not possible to maintain a garden while splitting time between two houses. I've put a few herbs in pots and we'll have some tomato plants over in Jackson, but our big garden plots lie fallow for the second year in a row.

Oh, it was just this time last year that a flash flood washed away a chunk of our driveway and our garden shed (with all our garden tools inside), which means it was about this time last year that a deer totaled my car and my nephew died and it felt like everything was falling to pieces. Three years ago next week my mother was dying, and six years ago my first grandchild was being born. Eight years ago my son was graduating from college. Ten years ago next month my daughter was getting married and I was diagnosed with cancer. Seasons of life, right? Somehow, the tragedy of foregoing a vegetable garden pales into insignificance. 

This summer, I think, will be a season of coming and going, waiting for the power company to tear the place up and then seeing what it will take to put it all back together again. No big plans, no life-changing experiences, nothing earth-shattering on the calendar; I have some courses to plan and some writing to work on, but mostly I'll relish sitting back and rolling with whatever comes my way. I hope it's a tremendously boring summer. If the most exciting thing that happens is seeing a blue-winged warbler in the upper meadow, that will be just about my speed.

I love to see spider webs sparkling in the dewy morning.

That S-shape is the path I took walking up the hill.

Red-bellied woodpecker amidst the leaves.

Dandelions just begging for children to blow on them.