I worked all day today in my garden. I didn’t plant a garden last year, so there is a lot of work to do, to gynormously understate. By day’s end, I could see the shape of this year’s garden, though I haven’t planted seeds yet. In the center of my garden is an elderberry tree, very beautiful and healthy, just leafing out. A little to the south is a lilac tree that is about to burst into bloom– it is spectacular, covered with blossoms so fragrant they take one’s breath away. I worked for a long time on my raspberries– nettles have seeded themselves around and throughout my raspberries, making it tricky to pick the berries as they come on — the berries are there in profusion, but you have to figure out how to get to them without touching the nettles. It’s interesting, though, at this time in my life, nettles — teas and infusions — are precisely what I need for health and well-being. Whatever grows where we live that is edible and medicinal, guaranteed, it is something we need for health.
I’ve been letting my sheep out of the pasture to graze around the house each day for a couple of hours. I’ve so enjoyed their company. Sheep are beautiful, gentle, companionable animals to those of us who know and love them. They are also very smart and interesting. Their eyes allow them to see behind themselves, without turning their heads. 
They recognize and remember faces for a very long time, including human faces. They associate me with food, of course. Today I brought out a plastic container of hangers from the barn. All my sheep had to gather around and sniff and inspect the hangers and container, to determine edibleness. The sheep love grazing on my overgrown lawn; dandelions and clover, in particular, are delicacies.
My beloved barn swallows are back. They have a nest in the rafters of the barn, near the sheep pen. It’s been there for years. They have eggs in there, so they swoop down and around on any person or creature entering the barn with plenty of scolding. Soon enough, I’ll look up and see a constellation of little beaks emerging from the nest, waiting for worms, bugs, and other culinary delights.
Wildflowers in full bloom on my property now include bluebells, wild bleeding hearts, trillium, and columbine, as well as wild currant, all in blues and pinks.
Gardening and walking across my land (to close gates to protect the sheep and for other reasons), I saw brown bunnies with white tails (many), hummingbirds, bluejays, goldfinches, robins, crows, garter snakes, and one little mouse or mole, not sure, whom I uncovered in the course of clearing my garden.
The cherry trees have blossomed and are now leafing out, and it looks like, Goddess willing, we will have lots of cherries.
I always have energy sufficient for really hard work during the full moon. Now that I’ve rested a bit, though, my Amazon crone joints, bones and muscles are complaining a bit. Nevetheless, it’s been a wonderful day. Sometimes the best thing for me to do, I’ve learned, is to get my hands into the dirt, spend time with the sheep, pay attention to all the many animal friends who live with me in this beautiful space that is my home.
Open thread. Talk to me about the full moon, spring, your gardens, birds, animals, children, neighbors.
Heart
Finding spring takes a bit more work when you don’t have a yard and ability to get in to the bush, or woods, and have vision loss enough that you cannot go out from about an hour before dusk, until sunrise is complete in the morning. So I didn’t see the moon. And I can’t see the stars anymore.
But I hear the birds, and today saw a peregrine falcon in its characteristic downward swoop going past my windows, noticed that some yards have tulips blooming if they face south, and see pussy willows for sale at the market.
I’ve seen white-tailed brown rabbits too, but I did also see white hare all winter. Another sign of spring which I’ve not had yet this year is the smell of skunk attack floating in my window at about 2 a.m. when it was on its meander looking for garbage nummies, and some car or cyclist startled it.
But I have a question. I was listening to a program about people who have an organic farm, who bring their small amount, select meat to farmerrs markets; pigs, the organic free range kind I guess you’d say.
The woman has the pigs loose like you do with the sheep, when she’s in the garden or working outside, and said the pigs run to her when they see her, grunting and talking to her, and roll over for her to scratch their bellies, and rub against her nuzzling her hand. And she started to cry when she described how she felt when she had to send them to slaughter.
So assuming your sheep aren’t just their to fertilize your garden and inspect the gardening tools… what do you do Heart? How do you manage it?
I took Orion to the park yesterday. We played on the slides and kicked a ball around, and I couldn’t stop grinning at his constant commentary about “twees, Mummy, an’ gwass – Mummy, look!” It was awesome.
I spent most of all day ouside too,other than hanging some curds for goats milk feta.The heirloom determinate mix is now in the little garden,as are the cherry tomatoes and purple basil.It still needs some type of irrigation layout.Dh tilled the two big gardens.I’ve never been very good with the tiller.It’s big smelly,noisy and drags me everywhere.
I replanted more beefsteak and mortgage lifters,and yellow squash,for some reason it never came up and the row of zucinni next to it did.
Finally put the two remaining hollyhocks in the ground that I had raised on the porch.It’s still covered in plants.I think I counted fifteen more flats?I’ll probably get the peppers and eggplants in tomorrow.I’m debating where to put them.
Today is laundry day.The dryers broke so I’ll most likely be at it till suppertime.I suppose there’s some benefits to hanging things outside,they smell better for one thing.I miss my fluffy towels though,and don’t get me started on what line drying does to “unmentionables”.
I like trying to plant during the full moon.My mil sore by it.The bank and hardware stores in their little town always had calenders that went by the moon sign.Even when the weather was good if it wasn’t the right sign she wouldn’t plant.At the time I thought it was just a bit of appalachian supperstition,but now I sometimes wonder if their wasn’t something to it.
Ah Anji! My little boy’s at the “tweeees” stage too! He goes around the garden looking at all the little flowers, and is especially fascinated with ladybirds.
His name is Rowan, and not long after he was born, we planted a Rowan (or Mountain Ash) tree in the garden. You know the little stubby bit of umbilical cord they have when they are born, that comes off after a few weeks? We buried that in the soil when we planted his tree, so there is a little bit of me and him under the tree. It didn’t blossom last year, but it has this year, and I never realised how lovely Rowan blossom smells before! That means there’ll be berries in the Autumn too – can’t wait!
Love this thread, Heart, and your post, it’s just what I needed. I wish I lived nearer and I would pop ’round and say hello to your sheep – I love sheep!
xxxx
I know that voice. Been awhile since I’ve heard it, skipping on the hills, leaping over the mountains.
Hey, women.
Sis, I don’t slaughter my sheep, no way!! I have never raised animals for slaughter and am a vegetarian. I raise them for their beautiful fleeces so I can wash them, card them, felt and spin them on my spinning wheel, that’s the theory anyway, but really I raise them for love. They are the most comforting animals to me. I love it when they all come running down the pasture when I get home from work bahing their heads off, even though the only reason they’re doing it is, they want a few flakes of alfalfa. HA! I love just watching them graze on the hill or sitting there all together chewing their cuds after a hard day’s grazing in the pasture. :p
I need to get all of them sheared and it is getting harder and harder to find someone to shear them for a reasonable price. There used to be a father and son out here, Basque shepherds, immigrants, and they were great. They could shear a big, strong ram in maybe 10 minutes and give you the fleece all intact. It’s really amazing, they have a way to sheer that the whole fleece is all together in one piece by the time they are done.
Hi, Katherine Turner.
You are way ahead of me planting-wise! 15 flats, ow, my aching back. 
I know what you mean re hanging out the laundry. There’s nothing like the smell of sheets that have been hung out to dry, but towels, etc., all scratchy and rough is the down side, even though they smell good.
I know that the Plain People always plant by astrological sign. I used Amish science textbooks for my kids years ago and there were chapters devoted to planting by these signs. I’ve been thinking of trying that myself this year though I haven’t so far.
Hey, Debs and Anji, sweet stories about Rowan and Orion!
One thing I didn’t like about moving from my old house, Debs, was I bore some of my kids there and had planted their placentas near the roots of various trees. Sniff.
I loved this post Heart, it rings very close to home right now. I’ve been digging for weeks now, tilling, planting, hoeing and so forth.
With the high prices of food I’ve gone back to the big garden and have put down corn, beans, peas, carrotts, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, onions, lettuce, spinach, potatoes, eggplant, canteloupe, all of the garden basics are here and this fall we’ll can them up for a winter of food as well.
I had forgotten how much work a large garden is, it has been several years since my last large garden. I think I had also forgotten just how healing it is to work in one as well and I remembered just how much I missed it.
I’ve also put in some more herbs this year to add to the herb garden. All in all I think that gardening does more for my spirit than just about any other activity.
I’m right there with you, lost_ari, wanting to grow as much food as I can. It IS *so* much work, also so therapeutic, just as you say. I’m in a completely different world when I’m gardening.
Since buying our home 7 years ago I have tried to garden only to have everything I have attempted to grow die. My husband has even suggested that we throw rocks down as we both seem to lack a green thumb. This year my 7 year old boy who simply loves gardening is taking it over. He has been researching what he thinks might survive, and next weekend we are going to give it a go as a family. We will see if he somehow got the “green thumb” that neither my husband or I seem to possess.
It hasn’t happened yet, but I can tell sometime in the future that I’m going to be bit by the gardening bug and start wanting to cultivate land of my own. For now, I love learning about wild edible and medicinal plants, wandering around in the forest and foraging for berries.
That sounds like a wonderful day you had, Heart.
Oh thank goodness. I couldn’t bear it to think of those lovely sheep becoming Irish Stew, or some other abomination.
It does sound like a lot of work, but also, like a paradise. I know this sounds perverse, but it made me quite sad to read this post about your home. Envy.
What a great post, Heart. Happy full moon to you.
Lilac season is so divine…I have to stop and inhale every single one when I’m out walking.
I spent Mother’s Day helping my mom on her organic farm. We weeded the daylily bed together, while deeply engaged in one of our “usual” conversations – about unschooling, the philosophy of education in general, the meaning of and varieties of “intelligence,” humans’ purposes in life, and living authentically. Then after a snack break, we planted rainbow carrots together, and collected eggs from her 7 chickens. I searched all over the fields for Chickweed, my favorite herb/plant ally, but couldn’t find any… so I gathered bunches of fresh dandelion and violet leaves and flowers, to make infusions with. My 2-yr-old niece joined me, curiously watching me munch dandelion leaves… she tried a bite herself, wrinkled up her face and spit it out. She then gave the rest of the leaf to me and said, “TA TA eat it!!” (”Ta ta” = auntie in French).
She then went back up the hill with her mom and papa (my brother and sister-in-law) to “help” them with their garden, and when I went up later to say goodbye to her, I found her at the end of the row of peas. She was sitting in the dirt, in just her socks, gleefully bent over a hose with a small hole in it that sent a mist of water up to her face. I kissed her curly head, giggled at her giggling, and told her I’d see her soon.
I went home with super dirty fingernails and a sunburn that’s still peeling today. Ahhh, farming in the springtime.
Ah, eeni. You are such my soul sister! Chickweed is the other edible plant I need at this time in my life, says Susun Weed, a cup a day, and I have LOTS! Everywhere. To think people turn horrific chemicals loose on these amazing gifts that are *free* to anyone who takes the time to find where they grow. My mom was like your mom, and way ahead of her time, or just the recipient of the wisdom of her womenfolk. I remember eating fried dandelion leaves when I was a little girl, probably five or six. Just like I remember my grandmothers and my mother composting and growing worm farms and making amazing compost piles decades before it became trendy.
Are there any better conversations than the conversations women have while gardening? I know of none!
Sis, yeah, I know what you mean re envy. But I know too that nobody would want to have to live what I had to that resulted in my having this land– being forced out of work I loved, losing my magazine, which was my voice, losing my business of writing and publishing, being hung out to dry by the Religious Right/patriarchy movement, having to file a lawsuit and see it through five days of a jury trial. I know nobody would want to have to do what I have to do to keep my place either– work 60 miles away, commute by exhausting and uncomfortable bus, be gone five days a week, 13 hours a day. Definitely nobody would want to do all the stuff that needs to be done here that I can’t do and can’t pay anybody to do. So, so much that needs fixed/repaired/mended and here I am, gone 13 hours a day and 56 years old in a few weeks and still raising children for another eight years.
Still, it is entirely and definitely a mystical place, Goddess-given, full of old growth trees bearing, I swear, in their trunks, arms, and leaves, the spirits of women, teeming with life, plants, insects, birds, animals, fish in the stream, and I am proud that the life that is here has been my first priority, keeping this place as a haven for living creatures of every kind. I have dreamt of this place being for women one day, a place kind of like Kate Millett’s farm, but hers is more of a retreat for artists. I’d like my place, one day, to be home, a place of rest for old, radical babes. Like me. Like you.
So, we’ll see. For now, I just have to concentrate on !#$^$&$%&@#%#$%#$% keeping the #!$^&$$@&#$%#$%#^%&%$& place. Gotta enjoy it as much as I can, get lost in it on warm spring days, so I can keep writing the mortage checks every month that pay for it, that represent so many hours of my life.
Sigh.
xxxooo to all.
It’s autumn here.
I planted tulips tonight. My back door is a mass of colour – potted up impatiens that will need to be moved inside before a hard frost.
New seedlings are coming up in the garden, both planted and self-sown, taking advantage of the warm moist soils after the drought.
We have more chickweed than you’d know what to do with – the cows eat it, and the chemicals I use on thistles and gorse stubbornly refuse to harm it. Where the ground is bare after the drought it’s established but I think once it’s grazed new grass plants will come through and it’ll only flourish in the poorest areas of the paddocks.
I’ve been considering scooping up a spadeful of nettle seedlings and establishing them somewhere in my garden – they make such nice soup, and don’t grow out here with the vigour they have in Scotland.
Sometimes it feels like a charmed life, walking amongst the cattle, growing a year-round garden, clean open space to watch the stars.
http://2bsophora.blogspot.com/2008/05/evening.html
Oh, I am so happy you have all that Chickweed, Heart!!
Eat/drink lots of it and say hi to it for me! 
When I first “met” Chickweed – through the wise woman/herbalism class I took – I loved it so much I ordered a pound online, then drank a quart of Chickweed infusion every day for a month and a half.
Compost piles and worms – yes! My mom went to an organic farming conference last month and entered a raffle, and won the prize she had been hoping for – a huge bucketful of worms! I laughed so much when she told me, because I have never seen anybody that giddy over WORMS.
Oh, I wish we lived closer. I’d love to spend time with you and your lovely sheep and Chickweed and gardens!
Heart, your lovely photo moved me to use my urban moon images of the past two nights to thank you. and run a bit of a rant/nudge to certain women we hear way too much about lately. -naomi
I don’t know if “gynormously” is a typo, a Wickedary term, or a Heartism, but it’s my new favorite word.
It just struck me that women, most have to live urban. I mean here, you have to have a man’s salary to own land, and the means to get to it (public transport not good even within a town or city). So few women alone own land. I haven’t figures but I’d suspect any that do, they got it after their parents died, or their male partner died. Or their lawyers.
Then, because many of us are not terribly useful in the building depts, and when we get old even if we did do it once to some extent, it’s not safe or possible anymore, we can’t repair, and as you say, don’t have the money to hire it.
So we live in rabbit warren apts in towns and cities. Take me, from a family all who grew up in the bush, and further north where bush did not grow, and I was the one took to it best. Always went with my dad bush camping and canoeing and hunting. Now, because of the money men earn, all my men folk who never liked that before, have acreages, and cottages in the country, and boats, and airplanes and god knows what else.
I, a woman, have a tiny apartment that takes 75 percent of my income. Earned on a woman’s wage, now in a woman’s job.
But I’m going into the mountains next month. Whoopee. And I’ll see wildflowers and small things scurrying around.
Heart, I was an avid reader of your magazine and loved it and it spoke to me on levels that I cannot even describe. I know your journey has been a sorrowful road and I cannot even imagine what you have gone through. I am thankful that you are in a good space of healing and peace. I am sorry for all those who hurt you and wounded you. My ex-husband fought me over my kid’s homeschooling and they ended up going to school. I have a 20 year old and my son is graduating this Sunday and I have one more who is 15.
You put a photo of them in the magazine do you remember?
I am glad that I have found you again, and I am glad that you found “you” again. May your journey continue to unfold in beautiful and loving ways. I commend your strength and heart. Love to you and your dear ones.
Oh, we have a mango tree and I’m watching it and need to tell my brother to go and get the bamboo stick and tie a net to it so we can pick them in a few weeks.
Melissa, I do remember you and your children, and welcome. Thank you for your comforting and encouraging words. Stay strong, my sister, I’m glad you’re here.
Sis, yes, all the elder women living in tiny apartments because how on earth are we to manage acreage, farmland, farmhouses without money. But if we could get together, and do it together, we sure could. I believe that. I go to Michfest every year where I am reminded that women can do everything and anything they need to do to make women’s community work. We need to be together in community, young women and older women all together.
I’m so glad you are getting out into the wild places. Goddess knows, if I couldn’t do that, I don’t know that I could survive, and that’s not hyperbole. Throughout the summer, every chance I get, my family and I are out in the wild places in tents, the wilder the better, and every time we go, I think to myself, maybe this time I won’t go back.
funnie, HA! I know I didn’t make up “ginormous,” but I might have made up “GYnormous.”
I neglected to mention the most obvious and important sign of spring in these latitudes.
Long long days. Now, it’s not dark until around 10 p.m. Soon it wont’ be dark until 11:30 p.m. Sunrise at 5:20 a.m. now.
You can’t imagine those of you who don’t experience this, the elation, the exileration. Spring moves very fast here, she has to or she can’t get things seeded. One day the tree buds are in tight little knots, two days later they are open, two days later in bloom. So when you made your post, only trees and plants facing south had the knots beginning to open. Now those are in bloom. The lilac flowers on the south are in tight bud. They’ll be full open by the weekend. And then, perhaps seven days of staggered blooms and, too brief and gone. That’s how quick.
What an extraordinary full moon! I have been feeling her since Friday. I had a dinner picnic in the moonlight in the park Saturday at midnight. We had some precious hot clear days here in Eugene – the first in
months and months, and being in the moonlight was magic.
This moon brought many things Scorpionic – emotional clarity, deep intuition, energy, death. A dog I love deeply is dying of cancer. I have been helping her guardian, a very close friend, with things to make her better. All I can do now is be their friend, give her energy healings and love, bring them comfort and humor.
Heart, I would so love to hear your story! Is it on this blog in an older post? If not, know that I am hoping to read about it someday.
[...] to SheCodes, Attorneymom, Professor Tracy and Tami on The Queen’s Council Podcast. I think Heart had a hand in it. Oh, and I suppose I should also credit the many, many Athena’s who have [...]
Everyone should immediately go read Allecto’s post linked in 23 above. It is stunning.
I sadly did not have any hand in the Queen’s Council Podcast, but those women ROCK the house all of the time.
Julia, I lost my dog some months back and am still missing her so much. It’s the first garden without her coming along to investigate all the dirt I’ve turned over and to follow whatever trails she finds. I’m so sorry you’re losing your dog, so hard.
My story. I guess I should put it in one place instead of scattered through a million posts everywhere!
I think about how much of the hard labor falls to me and the kids.I guess it’s natural to succumb to a slow seething resentment over the years.Especially when dh goes off to a race for the weekend with a buddy ’cause all the contractors were given free tickets.oh well,God Bless Nascar,I cooked veggie and did what I wanted to this weekend.
Cheryl,I remeber your magazine.It was awesome!.I had a midwife who shared her copies with me.I always wondered what happened to you.Glad I found your site.