My husband has abandoned his book in favor of the story unfolding around him… sparkling water, honking geese, the ever-changing sky.
Castle by the lake
Using stones, sticks, leaves, acorn caps, and lakeside clay, my children are constructing an elaborate castle, complete with throne room, furniture and dishes, tiny paved patio, and bathroom fixtures. Who needs Lego?
Inspiration
We are visiting the peaceful lakeside house of our wonderful friend Martha, and it is a restorative retreat for the whole family. Here is my son deeply immersed in writing.
Wild Geese
For the anniversary of September 11th, a painting and a poem.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting — over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
— Mary Oliver
Jim
This image is available as a high-resolution print on 8.5″ x 11″ archival paper.
Lichen
One of the goals of our Botany block is to explore the range of plant categories we find in our immediate surroundings, wherever we happen to be, from fungus and seaweed to flowering plants and trees. This was our first study of lichen, discovered growing on a fallen twig, and it was quite small. But the more closely we looked, the more we saw.
Lichen is actually two plants, a fungus and an alga, working symbiotically: the fungus provides housing for the alga, and the alga provides food for the fungus. Like many traditional marriages.
The Secret of the New Jersey Town
This spring we visited Maplewood, New Jersey, where my husband grew up. In exploring his old haunts, like the town library, we discovered that Maplewood, New Jersey is the Home of Nancy Drew! (The library carries the entire collection.) Not to mention the Bobbsey Twins, and the Hardy Boys, and Tom Swift! I don’t see how my husband could have lived there all those years without realizing he was sharing his home town with so many celebrities. (Actually, with the publisher of their series.) I think he was busy reading the Horatio Hornblower stories.
Well, with a daughter making her way through the Nancy Drew books, he now has total Nancy Drew Awareness. Here they are having some father-daughter-dog time. I’m fairly sure he’s awake. My husband, not the dog.
Carol
Amish Free-Range Lucky Charms
When grocery-shopping as a family, we acknowledge that tastes differ.
Phyllis
Ben
On the Waterfront
Holiday
Happy Labor Day, everyone. May your picnics be filled with joy and free of ants (and relatively free of Labor).
This hope-colored sky
My Aunt Bett, who lives on Orcas Island in Washington State, has fallen and broken her hip, and probably will not be able to go home again. Ninety-three years old, still spunky and bright, still living in her house (with much help from her gentle and patient son and daughter-in-law), surrounded by beloved books and photographs, accustomed to feeding the songbirds and the stray cats that come to her door, she is taken aback by transplantation.
Formerly fiercely sociable and independent, she has found it very hard to grow old, to lose family and friends, to give up her dog, her car, and now her nest. We call, we send our loving thoughts, we hope it makes a dent in the sorrow.
Here is a sketch of Aunt Bett I made on our last visit. I post with it a poem she shared with me that I love. Thanks to Jason for finding its author for me.
With Caleb Age Two on the Porch
My weatherglass does not lie; This hope-colored sky Will again be gray with rain, But while the sunlight flows Honey-warm and honey-slow It is enough and more To simply sit and rock With this small and sleeping Grandson in my arms.—Ken Wood
Doug & Krissy
Rob
Anne’s Aunt KT