Emmy and Elizabeth weeded the Red Shiso at the beginning of the week and I weeded it again today in a soft rain. We have had great germination and now just need to keep the slugs off the tender baby plants.

Despite daily rain, punctuated by wild storms of hail and high winds, we continue to smell the Flowers and tie them up after they get knocked over by the weather. The Roses are so beautiful right now. Their perfume fills the whole garden.

The textures and colors in the herb and Rose garden are so lovely right now.

The center circle of Catmint, (Nepeta Blue Hills Giant ) sets off all the Roses especially the Mary Rose which grows up in the middle of this circle.The lime green of the Angelica in the foreground contrasts nicely with the soft gray Lamb’s Ear (Stachys lanata). I made an Essence from Lamb’s Ear for the first time this week. Hopefully next week I can post a description of this gem and some of the other new Flower Essences I have been making.

Across this garden, the Crambe Cordifolia contrasts with the maroon of the Smoke Tree (Cotinus coggygria purpureus). Smoke Tree was a small Flowering tree that I had never seen until I moved to New Hampshire. It seems to like this climate and flourishes with little supervision in the dooryards of many old New Hampshire farms.

There is a white Rose on the other side of the Smoke Tree that also benefits from the Smoke Tree’s dusky tones.

The Clematis and Peonies also outrageous at the Solstice. So much beauty!

At yesterday’s breakfast there was a small box sitting on the kitchen table with a return address from someone I did not know. I opened the box carefully and found precious gifts inside.

A new friend named Ruth read in the blog how late the gardens, specifically the Cherokee Trail of Tears Garden, were going in.

Ruth said in her letter to me, “I live in Huntsville, Alabama which is on the Trail of Tears. I felt maybe I should send you something from this area that would carry the spirit of this place. Maybe these things will help this garden.”

Not only the garden Ruth, but me too.

Each object was tenderly wrapped in beautiful pink, orange, and gold paper.

I opened the first parcel and found this. Ruth explained, “one is a rock with a fossil in it- we find these things all over this area and up into Tennessee where many of the Native Americans on the Trail came from. Much of our earth is made up of fossil rocks- it’s not all the red clay that people associate with the south-”

Ruth’s next parcel contained this. Ruth notes, “I’m also sending an arrowhead which I found in my garden. I have found several there, and they probably were left by ancestors of many who were sent on the Trail. Actually I am not sure whether it’s an arrowhead or a scraping tool!”

Ruth’s final gift was a tin of altar sand from her personal prayer altar. She explained, “Finally, I’m sending some beautiful red sand from the banks of the Cahaba River, which is South of here. It isn’t on the Trail of Tears, but I felt moved to send it anyways!” She went on to explain, “Maybe because I have had a bowl of it on my altar for a long time, and it’s had many tears cried over it during hard times ( it’s seen a lot of smiles, too, though!).”

What sweet comfort and support offered from a stranger. Thank you Ruth. You are a stranger no more to me. I am grateful for you reaching across the illusion of strangerness to remind me of our common ground, the tears and the smiles of our similar journeys. The fact that we all walk trails of tears at times gives us so many opportunities to connect through our vulnerabilities. I am so grateful you did. You lightened my load!

My gratitude to all of you extends in so many directions. Even as I spend most of my daylight hours out in the gardens, even as my hands do garden tasks, I remain so grateful for all of your many, many kindnesses and think of so many of you with love and gratitude. Your love and encouragement in all its forms lifts me up. I thank you all.

At the Angels request, Ruth’s gifts. including the paper and ribbon. were put in a beautiful red pottery bowl Ben threw and glazed. The bowl was then placed at the center of the Cherokee Trail of Tears Garden at the beginning of the spiral of brassicas.

The Angels explain, “Each of you beloveds necessarily walk your own Cherokee Trail of Tears. The Grandmothers of the Cherokee Trail of Tears remain a steady presence of comfort and support as you walk. We, the Angels overlighting your journeys, never leave your side. We love you and are with you always. Yet even as we remain steadfast companions on your journeys, we are glad when you find kindred spirits from the human community. This gift of Ruth’s, placed at the heart of this garden, expresses the interconnectedness of all life, but it also represents the great gift you give to self and others when you reach across to another on the Trail and offer your love.”

June. Also about weeding. This week, Emily, Lizzy, and I have worked in the berry patch. We have been down there for three days straight and we are STILL not done. Someone told me a few days ago that it had rained 21 out of the last 28 days. This was a lot of encouragement for weeds. The berry patch has never been more of a jungle.

The weed situation was compounded because I did not get an initial once over weeding and mulching done in the berries in April. Consequently all the bindweed that would have come up easily then became an immense tangle smothering the Raspberries, Red Currants, Gooseberries and Black Currants. The small amount of crab grass in the Blueberries became a lush thicket of grass, so our work there was really more like sod removal than weeding.

Emily began the week saying she liked the process of unwinding bindweed from each Raspberry cane and following it to the ground to uproot. Now I think she will run for the hills at the very mention of the plant.

Here she is day three in the berries, working her way down the rows patiently.

Lizzy moved in to mulch every place we cleared. We knew she had had all she could take of this activity when on load four or five she fell off the tailgate into the wheelbarrow which flipped on its side landing her on the grass. No doubt this free fall will become part of some choregraphed dance piece.

On Friday Lizzy and I planted the Venus Garden. The theme for the garden this year is Forgiveness. I don’t feel like I have a single coherent thought on this issue. In fact, I felt quite unprepared to plant a garden around this theme, but the Angels said to get on with it. So, we planted.

The basic geometry is that of a five pointed star with a center spiral of Mehera White Marigolds. The star is planted in a diverse group of many kinds of Purple Flowers. The points are more Meheras and White Osteospermums. The star is outlined in Yellow Marigolds and the whole garden is ringed in Sweet Alyssum.

Lizzy and I did some fairly rudimentary math to get the star laid out with stakes and string. Then like a good dance improv ( or what I imagine it is like to do good dance improv), we found ourselves nudged to plant things this way and that. Much to my surprise the garden slid into being with great ease.

That could basically sum up the week. A harmonious, joy filled, and smooth week of planting when I expected to be scrambling.

Bella, our elder stateswoman black cat, sat on the steps to the barn as we planted. She is very shy so we were very happy that she joined us.

All the Flowers for this garden were grown in the greenhouse. I had not started any Petunias. Since I associate Petunias with forgiveness, I expected the Angels to send me out to buy some, but they wanted to go with exactly what we had grown. Not surprisingly, we had exactly the right number of plants for the spaces to be filled.

Here we have just finished planting the inner spiral of Meheras and the points of the star. Lizzy is just starting a ring of “Violet Queen” Cleomes.

This is what the design looked like on paper. Below is what it looked like when it was all planted.

There is one little clump of orange icelandic poppies right there at the bottom. It will be interesting to see if the Angels will ask us to transplant them elsewhere. Planting the Alignment Garden last year was like marching with a well practiced drill team. Everything was done so precisely. This suggested a connection to its theme of Alignment.

I wonder if part of the Forgiveness theme will involve leaving this “imperfect” rogue patch of orange Flowers. We shall see.

We finished the garden with the Yellow Marigolds. As the last Marigold was planted, I asked the Elementals if I needed to water the transplants in. This is my standard operating procedure for anything being transplanted. An emphatic NO was followed about two minutes later by another twenty four hour deluge.

Here is the brook at the bottom of our hill today. It is still raining.

A busy week. Rain a near constant companion. Joy too!

Here is Lizzy surveying the scene with her cousin Caroline, moments after receiving her college diploma amidst a torrential downpour. Note mended ankle!

Everyone, including cousin Taylor in her signature pink raincoat, beat a retreat across a lush landscape to the dance studio where the cousins celebrate with some improv dancing.

The next day, Sunday, Ben runs a half marathon. The rain begins again right after he finishes running.

There is a two day pause in rain storms on Monday and Tuesday with overcast skies perfect for planting. The Angels’ plans to have us plant the gardens this week prove inspired, as always. Emily, Lizzy and their friends Lilly Callahan and Anna Pierce Slive prove to be a joyful foursome of enthusiasm, humor, and zesty wisdom. I haven’t had this much fun planting the gardens in years! Here we are planting the main vegetable garden which this year is a series of concentric rings broken by three equidistant paths. From above, it looks sort of like a peace sign.

The center was all lettuce.

In addition to the lettuce in the center, this garden has beans, parsley, leeks, basil, squash, pumpkins, corn, zinnias, and red shiso planted in it this growing season.

Compared to many years, this garden is very simple in its design and I am grateful for this.

The fabulous foursome rests on their laurels for a victory photo when the first garden is DONE! We even have a few moments of blue in the sky!

May May also thinks she needs a rest after her arduous supervisory duties.

The next garden, planted on Tuesday, is a spiral of brassicas including cauliflowers, broccolis, cabbages, and brussel sprouts with the outside of the spiral several rings of potatoes.

Here is Lizzy planting tomatoes behind this crop of garlic. Peppers and Eggplants also went into spaces outside the bigger gardens.

A pause at dusk on Tuesday. Almost a real sunset but not quite.

On Wednesday Emily and I worked to put annuals in all the different Flower beds. It rained harder and harder but we kept at it until everything was planted. Tomorrow we plant the last of the big gardens that needs to be planted.