Embraced by the Earth and Perfectly at Home

I will spare you a photo of my bare feet squishing into mud, but the experience today in Lisa’s Garden between the new zinnia rows we were weeding took me back to some of childhood’s best moments.  The feel of satiny mud slithering between my toes, the excitement of trying to keep from slipping smack down into it, is classic summertime, and I got to go there today while on the job.

The childish joy of sloshing through mud reminds me of other summertime joys–the visiting of assorted grandchildren and the way they embrace our gardening life. Here are Nina’s little garden shoes next to mine, waiting for a morning walk.

 

Any visiting children usually join Robby and me on our morning meanders around the yard, looking for new things like open moonflowers, the first clearwing or hummingbird moth, or finding black swallowtail caterpillars on the Queen Anne’s lace.

 

 

Isaac experiments to see just how bad a snapdragon bite might be.

 

 

Here he takes blossoms from the trumpet vine and tries witch fingers on for size and for impressing his little brothers

 

 

With a yard full of traditional round coneflowers, imagine everyone’s laughter at finding these with their crazy centers.  We thought maybe they should be called “Rod-flowers!” Their centers are certainly not cones.  We all like it when nature goes just a little goofy like this.

 

And speaking of goofy, Simon maintained his equanimity even when he found himself falling off a small bridge at the Norfolk Botanical Garden into a lush stand of lizard’s tail.  Maybe he felt just a little like I did today as I sank into the mud with my bare feet—embraced by the earth and perfectly at home.