While fairies dance in a place apart
The first thing we noticed when we glanced out the window on Mayday morning was that the first poppy of the season had bloomed!
These gals are rare this year, despite the rain (maybe they like dry years better?) and we only have a few fuzzy buds that have graced us with their surprising blossoms. I think we're on number four, when in past years we've had dozens in the patch. But each one is precious to us, and what a treat to start the glorious month of May!
We dressed in floral frocks and headed over to Nana's to celebrate the flowers.
She had Sweet Williams for the girls to plant in little pots.
Polly wore her first ever pigtails. (You might have to squint to see them.)
Learning to "tamp the soil down."
My mom really is Queen of the May. Her garden is buzzing with action from earliest dawn. Bees, butterflies, flickers, finches, hummingbirds, squirrels. The flowers show off their freshest colors, violet and magenta and gold. The honeybees are smitten.
The side of my mom's yard is blanketed in a sea of wild onion this year, tiny white delicate blossoms that look like the perfect forest for fairy lodging. The girls picked them in big handfuls and delighted in sniffing the slightly bitter oniony aroma.
"In the leafy treetops the birds sing good morning." Nana is a born children's librarian. She has a fun little ditty on the ready for any occasion.
Me and my very own little spring blossoms. Pretty as poppies, wild as trolls.
Later we went to Raley's and a student saw me in my Mayday outfit. "Hey Ms. Beatty,"He called across the parking lot. "I like your dress!" Student sightings are something I've never really had to consider before in my wild get-ups. I'm quite sure I flushed red while tripping over my hem yet again.
We got home and romped in the backyard awhile. Lucy is learning how to take pictures.
Billy boy keeps watch on the little burrows that dot the yard. This is intensive work for him and requires hours of staring. To my knowledge, he has never killed anything, thank goodness.
The girls are very interested in burrows too. This night, Polly had a nightmare about a snake that woke both of them up. They are constantly thinking they see snakes, which always turn out to be mossy sticks or pine needles.
We set the table outdoors for a spring meal.
When Darin got home from work we feasted on one of our favorite meals: Baja style tempeh tacos from the Veganomicon.
The wind blows out of the gates of the day,
The wind blows over the lonely of heart,
And the lonely of heart is withered away;
While the faeries dance in a place apart,
Shaking their milk-white feet in a ring,
Tossing their milk-white arms in the air;
For they hear the wind laugh and murmur and sing
Of a land where even the old are fair,
And even the wise are merry of tongue;
But I heard a reed of Coolaney say--
When the wind has laughed and murmured and sung,
The lonely of heart is withered away.”
HAPPY MAY ALL!
p.s. Thank you for your kind notes on my last post. I am still on a total 90's revival. (who would have thought back then that the 1990's would one day symbolize the "simple life"? ) More on that later.
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