garlic mustard, ‘Alliaria petiolata’ being photogenic on this cloudy day

Montmorency cherry tree

There is a small cherry tree blooming in the orchard and I’ve been down to the bridge to pick nettles again. I walked back around the field and into the woods a ways, along the creek, looking for garlic mustard, but didn’t find any patches bigger than that growing against the stump of an old black walnut tree which the county sawed off a few years ago to clear the view of the bridge. The mustard is already blooming small white clusters of flowers, and it grows thick all down the west bank of the creek, mixed with stinging nettles, both plants that thrive in disturbed soil, markers of human interference, but useful ones, in moderation. The sight of its leaves and flowers is familiar to me -and yet today is the first time I can name it.

A few weeks ago the peach trees bloomed. Every year before this, I somehow missed them. They opened up vibrantly pink blossoms the day before Nettie’s fifth birthday, almost glowing in the morning sun. The blooms froze a few days later, which happens more years than not here in Nebraska, but I’m thankful for the blooming even if we won’t have the fruit. I cut some and brought them inside and the flowers made the kitchen smell of honey.

My middle and index fingers are stained yellow with the pollen of dandelions. I keep wandering outside with a bowl or colander to pluck off the sticky heads and bring them in to boil into tea or syrup. I gave a small bottle to some neighbor-friends who brought home-grown tomato and cabbage plants yesterday. We scuttled back and forth awkwardly, each of us coming forward like some poorly-dressed magi bearing gifts, setting them in the driveway for the other to retrieve and then backing up to half-shout at one another over the garden fence for a few minutes. They noticed the hens scratching around the yard and asked if we had extra eggs, and I was relieved and happy to have something useful to give them, unlike a few flower plants and dandelion syrup, which are more novelty than necessity.

I’m not sure why I keep making it except that now more than ever, I have this desire to make things that can be put into jars. I suppose it’s the evolutionary gatherer instinct that responds to crisis by laying aside more things to eat, even if dandelion syrup isn’t a strictly necessary foodstuff. Then again, I keep planting flowers, too, and there’s no evolutionary explanation for that. I guess maybe we don’t have to rationalize or justify the desire for beautiful things, though perhaps we should try to cultivate our ideas of what we consider beautiful.

I’ve been taking still life photos from time to time, of my kitchen counter. The left side of the sink where I do the bulk of the kitchen work - making bread, chopping vegetables, straining tea, pouring syrup into jars, even starting seeds all happens here. I like to see what this most-used part of the house looks like from moment to moment, the subjects and light and shadows migrating throughout the day. It helps me take notice of the beauty of the mundane and humble, the things I’ve looked at a hundred times but not really seen.

The other night we worked with the donkeys on halters, trying to convince Hazel and Beau to follow the lead so that they can have their hooves trimmed with Tru in a few weeks. They consented to the halter but locked their front legs and wouldn’t take a step even with Nettie’s coaxing and so we all stood around for half an hour while Tru snorted and paced jealously in the adjoining pen. As we walked back up to the house, migrating White Pelicans flew graceful and effortlessly overhead in undulating groups of a few dozen at a time. I found myself standing still, almost holding my breath as they passed, listening to hear their wings, squinting in the dusk-light to witness their presence and being in my small square of sky, if only for a few silent moments.

It was the vernal equinox yesterday, and the day was warm here, summer-like. The grass grew greener throughout the day, and we watched the first daffodil lift its drooping head and open its vibrant petals to the sun. Children’s book author and illustrator Tasha Tudor wrote that there is stardust on daffodil petals - and there is, if you look closely. The chickens’ combs flashed crimson as they scratched in the mulch, quietly gossiping with one another. The goats lay lazily in the sun, Tru the donkey took a dust bath. There was a moment of excitement when we realized Leonard was not barking at a sparrow or far-off hawk, but had chased a mink up a tree. We had a mink visit at exactly this time last year, which reminds us that the chicken coop probably needs some attention.

In the morning, we stood outside the window at my Grandma’s care facility with a sign, smiling and waving. I talked to her on the phone and we watched Nettie run and leap over puddles on the sidewalk. She asked how long I thought this would last and I said I didn’t know. As we were leaving, I told her the daffodils would be blooming soon, and we would bring her some soon.

Dave, who is home from school, worked in the new garden for my cut flowers, just south of the house. There will be raised beds and pebble paths and a fence to keep out the kitties and hens, and gates made of twigs, though the carpenter shakes his head at this fancy.

On Monday, Nettie and I started kale seeds, and spinach and swiss chard. We will plant potatoes this weekend and look for onion sets. We hadn’t intended a large vegetable garden this year, but it seems the thing to do. I am thankful for the twenty pounds of flour I have left in the basement, and that I finally managed to learn to make sourdough bread last winter. I take comfort in our shelves of canned tomatoes and applesauce and peaches, which seemed last fall like a token - more a tradition or hobby - and now, seem necessary, even valuable.

I think of Tasha Tudor, stubbornly refusing to concede to modern conveniences - wearing her handmade clothes, milking her own goats, tending her gardens, living without electricity and a car, as time spun faster and faster around her. Maybe it wasn’t stubbornness or romance or old-fashionedness - but rather an instinct not to rely too heavily on those things you can’t produce for yourself.

It was always our intention to make a life here that was more conscious, more connected to Nature - and it seems now, that perhaps we’re all being pushed in that direction whether we choose it or not. The reality is that no matter how mechanized and monetized and digitized humans become, we’re still animals - and we are absolutely vulnerable to Nature. We found the daffodil frozen this morning, but I know in a few more days the others will raise their heads, stardust glinting in the sunlight.