Long Live Small Farms: Postcards from the Garden State

"It was fifty years since he had begun with his Mary, full of hope and pride, the merciless soil had hugged them to its bosom ever since each spring without rest. But he did not think of that. The soil gives forgetfulness. Only the present is remembered in the spring, even by the aged who have spent their lives tilling the earth." - Spring Sowing, a short story by Liam O'Flaherty.

Organic, non-GMO seeds on display at DePiero's Farm in Montvale, New Jersey, another family farm whose sun will set with a retail development slated to replace it. With the earth now providing its glorious bounty from the seeds, I am thinking of those who bring the food to our table: the under-appreciated farmers. Let us not have forgetfulness for them.



NorthJersey.com reported on the plight of small farms in New Jersey, noting "Statewide, the last 64 years have seen the number of farms shrink from 25,000, to 9,071. Bergen County has only 60 left; Passaic County, 78." The article talked about farms diversifying and meeting the demand for entertainment, like hayrides and corn mazes. I see crowds at the farm during the fall and for things like peach picking in the summer, but many seem so quiet the rest of the year.  I like how James Abma, owner of Abma's Farm in Wyckoff, put it that, ultimately, the onus is on the customer. “If they want to continue to see the small farms and garden centers, they have to patronize."

There's a lot of opposition to developing DePiero's Farm, and I'm not for development either, but I feel for the family farmers too. We can't lionize them, but not patronize them. Admittedly, I do most of my shopping at Trader Joe's, so I can do better too. My mom and I try and lunch regularly at local farms (save for the winter) and I buy produce and baked goods too when I stop by. We stopped here just before the arrival of spring, and here are some postcards of farm visits from this season, my love letter to the American small farmers. Don't judge New Jersey by what you see on television by our governor or horrendous "reality" shows. We are the proud "Garden State."

 

Family farms are a part of my American dream. 



There were just a few others enjoying a Sunday treat and we didn't spot a soul in the greenhouse except workers and there were few shoppers. My mom remarked on how it was a little sad, but I noted we don't come here either usually (our other farm haunts were closed for the season). Imagine if this place was booming with customers. I seldom pass by a shopping mall and not see its parking lot packed.

 

I was dreaming of their bakery offerings and I was not let down. I had a comforting warm hot cross bun and chamomile tea.

 

 

My mom and I, both lovers of gardens, were overcome with a sense of joy upon entering the greenhouse. A neighbor remarking on the joy a small daffodil plant brought her when seeing it bloom each day said when you have plants, "Who needs medication?"

 

 

 

 

One of life's miracles: seeds sprouting. Gardens are not only place of beauty and magic, but are healing too. It turns out there is a natural antidepressant in soil. According an article featured by Gardening Know How, "Mycobacterium vaccae is the substance under study and has indeed been found to mirror the effect on neurons that drugs like Prozac provide. The bacterium is found in soil and may stimulate serotonin production, which makes you relaxed and happier. Studies were conducted on cancer patients and they reported a better quality of life and less stress.

Gardeners inhale the bacteria, have topical contact with it and get it into their bloodstreams when there is a cut or other pathway for infection. The natural effects of the soil bacteria antidepressant can be felt for up to 3 weeks."

 I left with asparagus, frisee, red raspberries, some local honey and a cheerful daffodil plant. Cheery red tulips were on the cart too. I loved that for Grace's first birthday my mom bought her a bunch of tulips even though she's just a baby. She said, "It's important." I think flowers are too. So are books and farms.

 

"I love tulips better than any other spring flower; they are the embodiment of alert cheerfulness and tidy grace, and next to a hyacinth look like a wholesome, freshly tubbed young girl beside a stout lady whose every movement weighs down the air with patchouli. Their faint, delicate scent is refinement itself; and is there anything in the world more charming than the sprightly way they hold up their little faces to the sun. I have heard them called bold and flaunting, but to me they seem modest grace itself, only always on the alert to enjoy life as much as they can and not be afraid of looking the sun or anything else above them in the face." - Elizabeth Von Arnim's Elizabeth and Her German Garden. How much we can learn from tulips, and from nature.

 

The Abram Demaree farm stand in Closter, a cozy, no frills lunch spot. As soon as they reopened for the season, we were here.

The Greek gyro with spinach, feta cheese, tomatoes and tzatziki sauce.

 

Sharing their warm homemade apricot pie with a cup coffee. 

 

 

At Demarest Farm in Hillsdale. I wrote previously about the uncertain future of this farm after it was put for sale, and thankfully it has new owners.

 

 

From the hot buffet, a twice baked potato, zucchini, veggie chili, an onion roll and cranberry apple herb tea. We bring our reusable cutlery to reduce our impact.

 

 

An apple blossom and fresh fruit.

 

 

I couldn't think of a happier place to be on Mother's Day.

 

 

They had a complimentary breakfast buffet. Our red picnic ware was cheerier than Styrofoam.

 

  

Long live these farms, and long live the small farmer.

 

Nature's candy: strawberries. "He walks by the table and stops to look at a bowl of fresh field strawberries, still half full. David says that his daughter calls these "happy strawberries" because they grow wild. He says she thinks the fruit sold in stores is "unhappy because it sits in boxes" separated from the plant." - Brindle 24 by J.J. Brown.  I'm so tired of out of season, tasteless strawberries from thousands of miles away. These strawberries are happy indeed.

 

 

At Old Hook Farm in Emerson, the first asparagus of the season.

 

 

At Abma's Farm in Wyckoff.

 

 

Happy meal: carrot ginger soup, roasted red pepper hummus with veggies and a sour cream orange cake.

I brought one of their Chinese almond cookies home for tea time with my green jasmine tea. With a book: heaven.

 

We decided to put our money where our mouth is and signed up for a CSA (community-supported agriculture) with Abma's Farm. They use non-GMO seeds and utilize organic farming methods but are not certified organic because of the paperwork. I have been wanting to shift towards both local and in-season produce. With the ongoing drought situation in California, I'm not comfortable with so much of our produce coming from there, especially if such wholesome, high quality vegetables are in our own neck of the woods from local farmers. I'll never become a total locavore. I can't imagine parting with my avocados, bananas or mangoes, but I want to incorporate local foods much more. I still love Trader Joe's especially for pantry items, but with the CSA we're buying little produce there now.

 

Our first week's share: arugula, spicy salad greens, spinach, radishes, and a jar of local honey. Production was behind because of the weather. We signed up for the egg share too so will be getting half a dozen eggs each week for 20 weeks. It's like getting a present from Mother Nature.

 

 

Week two: spinach, arugula, kohlrabi, broccoli leaves, radishes and a head of lettuce.

 

 

Week 3: turnips, kohlrabi, Swiss chard, arugula, lettuce, bok choy and eggs. In addition to the eggs we signed up for, we decided to do their other add-ons, a dessert bread and wine. A raspberry chocolate chip bread and a Tomasello Winery Blanc de Blanc sparkling wine.

 

 

The two wines from the first two weeks: an Daffodil White semi-dry wine and an American almonique almond wine.  

I don't drink more than a glass of wine at a time. Like the produce we're getting, this was about going outside our comfort zones, enjoyment of life and supporting local agriculture.

In HGTV's House Hunters International, a guilty pleasure show, a couple living in Paris was buying a second home in Provence with a baby on the way. The couple was sitting on their sunny patio at the end enjoying their breakfast with local honey, and the woman, an American,  talked about the French understanding the "art of living." I think that's why I've been drawn to Parisian and French things so. But we can't all move to France. I want to embrace the "art of living" in my backyard here too.

I also think our culture creates an unhealthy relationship for youth with alcohol, not treating it as something with pleasure and happiness, but as taboo. I hate the excessive drinking as a right of passage for youth.

"In Europe we thought of wine as something as healthy and normal as food and also a great giver of happiness and well being and delight. Drinking wine was not a snobbism nor a sign of sophistication nor a cult; it was as natural as eating and to me as necessary." — A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

Week 4: arugula, garlic scapes, a head of broccoli, lettuce, spicy salad mix and escarole, with our add-ons: eggs, a chocolate chocolate chip bread and Tomasello cherry wine. Even my husband who is a chef is unfamiliar with garlic scapes. I love how much we are learning.

 

 

Escarole from the CSA with some basic pantry items from Trader Joe's like pasta and organic white beans. Red pepper flakes added some heat. We savored the meal on the patio fireside. This is good living.

This has already been a life-changing experience. Even if we had planted a large garden this year, we wouldn't have had things like bok choy or kohlrabi. Kohlrabi is my new favorite vegetable, and I feel like I'm cooking across time with my grandmother in Switzerland who prepared it with lots of butter and parsley for her family.

Gene Baur, in his book with Gene Stone, "Living the Farm Sanctuary Life: The Ultimate Guide to Eating Mindfully, Living Longer, and Feeling Better Every Day," said, "Our food is among the most intimate connections we make with the earth." I feel more tied to the earth when I visit a local farm. I think that's why I feel so content at them. Our world is so fast moving today and technology plays such a heavy hand in our daily lives. At farms I remember what matters most: health, good food (even better when shared with family and friends), gratitude, and respect for our earth which provides so well for us, a reminder to treat her kindly.

I don't think Americans understand the true reckoning of their ability to shape the country by where they choose to spend their dollars. Election day is important, but equally is where we vote with our wallets. Family farms, mom and pop restaurants, bookshops, and charity thrift stores all get my vote. This canvas tote says it all: Support Local Farms. Don't let small farms be a disappearing act.

 

For the Beauty of the Earth: A Visit to the New York Botanical Garden

"We have a little garden,
A garden of our own,
And every day we water there
The seeds that we have sown.

We tend our little garden
And tend it with such care,
You will not find a faded leaf
Or blighted blossom there." Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes by Beatrix Potter

Seeds in the gift shop at the New York Botanical Garden. If only we tended to our planet, starting in our own communities, with such care.

If people began to care about flowers, they'd begin to care about the planet, Lady Bird Johnson believed, according to Andrea DeLong-Amaya, Director of Horticulture at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, Texas. DeLong was interviewed for an NBC News story on the spell bluebonnets cast each spring in Texas. Lady Bird, DeLong-Amaya says, was a woman ahead of her time. "She was very sensitive to the importance that nature plays and wanted to share that with people and the joy of the wildflowers and the joy of nature." Lady Bird Johnson would say, "Where flowers bloom, so does hope."

Lady Bird cultivated beauty in this world. I want to spread beauty in this life too: of flowers, of words, of heart.

A cheery yellow pansy on my front steps adding beauty.

Botanical gardens are so many things to me, including a place of immense beauty where you cannot help but be in awe not just of flowers and trees but of life itself. It is so striking when you walk the grounds at these types of gardens how there isn't any litter to be found. I contrast that to the multiple discarded water bottles and other trash found on our quiet suburban street I live on in New Jersey. I keep finding "Nirvana" water bottles when walking my dogs and add them to our recycling bin. Littering doesn't seem very zen at all. So much litter is also by the drains that say, "Dump No Waste. Drains to Waterways."

No litter thankfully near these snow drops at the botanical garden.

Poems celebrating spring line the walkway to the conservatory where the orchid show we were there to see was held, including O Sweet Spontaneous by E.E. Cummings, Come Slowly -Eden! by Emily Dickenson and Let There Be New Flowering by Lucille Clifton. I think of Elizabeth von Arnim writing in Elizabeth in Her German Garden,

"while admiring my neighbour, I don't think I shall ever try to follow in her steps, my talents not being of the energetic and organising variety, but rather that of that order which makes their owner almost lamentably prone to take up a volume of poetry and wander out to where the kingcups grow, and, sitting on a willow trunk beside a little stream, forget the very existence of everything but green pastures and still waters, and the glad blowing of the wind across the joyous fields."

 

 

 

Glen Miller and other classic big band and jazz music piped in as I walked through the serene setting. The music and the beauty all felt so timeless.

 

 

 

 

I cannot see water lilies and not think of the painter Claude Monet. I love the new water lilies stamps being offered by the U.S. Post Office.

I adore the travel you can do at botanical gardens. From deserts to rainforests in one day.

Steve was carrying Grace around and holding her to the flowers, I wondered what imprints might be made in her ever forming young mind.

All this strolling through the gardens whetted my appetite for a late lunch from the garden's bounty.

In their Pine Tree Café, the Asian Garden salad: baby kale with carrot slaw, broccoli, cucumbers, edamame, toasted sesame and wasabi peas with a soy ginger dressing, with an organic mint tea and a clementine.

In a "Cheater's Guide to Living to 100" in the April 5th issue of Parade Magazine, it noted "The world's most robust 100-year-olds stick with diets that are 95 percent plant-based, says journalist Dan Buettner, who spent more than a decade examining the healthiest, longest-living people around the globe. "They eat a little meat, but mostly fish." 

 



Browsing in the gift shop, I think of how much environmental awareness and stewardship needs to be taught at an early age.

 

 

East Coast seed bombs in the gift shop. Here's to spreading seeds about caring for our planet. I believe in the power of smalls steps like recycling, buying secondhand and hang drying laundry as often as possible, shutting off lights, and using reusable bags as a few examples to reduce our impact. Happy Earth Day!

 

Winter 2015 Storytellers: A Season of Books

"Who knew that in a world of digital entertainment, people still actually need the comfort of books when faced with the possibility of being homebound?" NorthJersey.com considered in an article on a rush on print books at the library before a blizzard that did not materialize.

I was at the library the day the storm was supposed to start too, for books and DVDs. Even though it was a small bill, we cancelled our Netflix account a while back, preferring the frugality of the library. While Steve was binge watching the library's House of Cards, call me an old soul, but I was binge watching their copies of As Time Goes By, an older British comedy series I've only seen bits of. I adored the witty writing and wonderful acting (oh that Mrs. Bale with her shipping forecasts and lunches that will be served in 8 and a half minutes). I loved just as much the scenes of the British countryside, the blue and white dishes in the pretty kitchen, all those cups of tea, and also the reading.  Lionel and Jean would read in bed at night and Lionel came back from the library once with everything from Moby Dick to Winnie the Pooh, the latter which puzzled Jean. Lionel said, "I've got more time for reading now so I thought I'd catch up on all the books I think I've read but actually haven't." After he read a few lines from it, Jean was so charmed and asked if she could borrow it next.

I read Winnie the Pooh too last year from the library to Grace. I love the coziness of the evening hours. We have the classical music channel playing softly in the bedroom, painted a soothing lavender color, with inviting lighting. What better way to end the day than a cup of herbal tea and a book?

Like Lionel, I'm also catching up with some writers I haven't read enough of, like John Steinbeck, and discovering new favorite authors, some alive and writing presently, others from over a century ago. I saw the film Wild this winter, based on the memoir by Cheryl Strayed of her adventure hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. She, like Chris McCandless in Into to the Wild, carried cherished books and words with her, and she left quotes along the way for others to find, including Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. I carry words within my spirit too. I'm sharing favorite passages and reflections for other readers and for my own memory too.

These were my storytellers for winter 2015. So many had a common thread: home.

This storyteller had me thinking about loving my home: At Home With Madame Chic: Becoming a Connoisseur of Daily Life by Jennifer L. Scott, the blogger of the Daily Connoisseur. I read her book, "Lessons from Madame Chic: 20 Stylish Secrets I Learned While Living in Paris" from the library and bought a copy for my sister last year, and she returned the favor giving me her latest for Christmas. Jennifer's life was forever changed when she stayed with a hostess she refers to as "Madame Chic" in Paris for a semester while at university, and is a testament to how travel can alter your life's path. She writes on many topics, like decluttering, using all of your quality items, and savoring life to the fullest. Her latest book is on home life, and here are some favorite passages.

"Driving to see my childhood home was very significant for me. It taught me the importance of home, especially to children. Your home is more than just a shelter. It is more than just a place to showcase your design skills. It is more than just a means to an end (especially if you would rather live somewhere else). It is the most important place of your life. It provides you solace and refuge from the harsh world. It provides tangible comforts, like your cozy sofa and warm bed. But it also provides other comforts in the energy it gives off. You will have so many memories in this home. There will be many firsts here, and if you have children, they will remember even the smallest details about your home - especially all of its off-beat character."

We are celebrating three years in our home this April, and we have had so many happy memories here: our garden wedding party, the arrival of our daughter Grace and puppies into the world, fondues for Christmas, and large family gatherings like Grace's Christening last Easter.

When Scott visited her old childhood home, which once boasted a beautiful garden that was tended by her mother that had become wildly overgrown, she found ripped screens and various states of disrepair. She took solace though, reflecting,

"But even though our old home had physically seen better days, I knew in that moment that we had taken the soul of that house with us to our new home. And as I branched out and left our small town, I'd taken all the best bits of home life - the essence of its soul - with me wherever I went. It's the soul that matters most, after all. And even though over the years I've lived in everything from a cramped dorm room at school to a grand apartment in Paris and finally to our family town home in Santa Monica, I have taken the soul of home with me, wherever I am.”  

Jennifer talks about falling in love with your home again, remembering all the things you loved about it when you first moved in, and to not wish away the life you are leading now. I love our home and quiet street but not our congested area, pricey property taxes, cost of living and air quality when a nearby quarry is active. I sometimes wonder what life would be like elsewhere, but we're settled here for at least the next few years. In the film version of Lonesome Dove, Diane Lane's character is always dreaming of a better life in San Francisco to which she is advised, "Life in San Francisco is still just life. If you want only one thing too much it's likely to turn out a disappointment. The only healthy way to living as I see it is to learn to like all the little every day things."

Jennifer reminded me about the excitement I felt when we drove past the house before we moved in. I love the little things about home, which make up the soul of it. What does the soul of home mean to you? Home to me is where my family and dogs are, where I can savor a cup of tea and a book, and other little things, liking hang drying laundry. There's nothing like the sun beating down on freshly cleaned laundry in the summer. I rented for years and had no outdoor space to do this, and how I love it.

 

Home is also tending a garden. Our herb container garden, and my beloved geraniums.

Home is savoring life. This is our own little paradise out here.

 

Jennifer encourages us to keep our homes and our tables clutter free. Clutter is my constant enemy. When my parents came to visit one weekend, I  put a pretty lace table cloth on, lit a candle, and baked a cranberry apple crisp, with pineapple and coffee on inviting blue and white dishes. Why don't I dress up my table like this all the time?

 

Cannery Row by John Steinbeck, 50 cents from the C.A.T.S. Resale Shop in Westwood, New Jersey. I can never resist looking at the books at charity shops or library sales with prices like 50 cents for a paperback. You never know what storyteller awaits you, and even though I have so much to read, Steinbeck wanted to jump to the top of my list.

This passage reminds me of a different kind of home, the home of our planet and it recalls how much life something like a river we take for granted gives. So many of our rivers here in New Jersey and elsewhere are polluted, treated recklessly by mankind.

"The Carmel is a lovely little river. It isn't very long but in its course it has everything a river should have. It rises in the mountains, and tumbles down a while, runs through shallows, is damned to make a lake, spills over the dam, crackles among round boulders, wanders lazily under sycamores, spills into pools where trout live, drops in against banks where crayfish live. In the winter it becomes a torrent, a mean little fierce river, and in the summer it is a place for children to wade in and for fishermen to wander in. Frogs blink from its banks and the deep ferns grow beside it. Deer and foxes come to drink from it, secretly in the morning and evening, and now and then a mountain lion crouched flat laps its water. The farms of the rich little valley back up to the river and take its water for the orchards and the vegetables. The quail call beside it and the wild doves come whistling in at dusk. Raccoons pace its edges looking for frogs. It's everything a river should be."

Here a river in Capitol Reef National Park in Utah.

I love the bookends of the day, the quiet hours of the evening and of the dawn too. Of the early morning, Steinbeck writes, "It is the hour of pearl—the interval between day and night when time stops and examines itself."

The hour of the pearl in Albuquerque, New Mexico at the Cinnamon Mornings bed and breakfast.

Last year we did day trips with Grace instead of a full vacation to save money and to make life easier. I loved the comfort of home at day's end with baby, being with our dogs and the frugality, but I also really missed the road trips Steve and I took in Washington state, California and the Southwest. There's almost a religious experience of being out there with just you and the land. Everywhere around where I live in New Jersey is so congested there's no escaping it. Steinbeck's Doc sees America firsthand.

"He put on a little knapsack and he walked through Indiana and Kentucky and North Carolina and Georgia clear to Florida. He walked among farmers and mountain people, among swamp people and fishermen. And everywhere people asked him why he was walking through the country.
Because he loved true things he tried to explain. He said he was nervous and besides he wanted to see the country, smell the ground and look at grass and birds and trees, to savor the country, and there was no other way to do it save on foot."

Setting foot onto Rialto Beach in Washington state, and making imprints in sand, and on my soul too.

Becoming a mom has me thinking not just about enjoying the present, and hoping for the future, but reflecting on the past too. Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim was a Christmas gift from Shaw's Book Shop in Westwood, New Jersey. I looked this up after a mention of it on Downton Abbey, when Mosley loans Anna a copy of it. I now count it as one of my favorite books.

There's a heavily run Verizon commercial which may be my least favorite ad ever. It features a young girl and boy being dropped off at their grandmother's house, and the father tells them he knows her house isn't the most exciting, but when they get inside to their delight there's movies, video games, and face chatting, all high speed glory. They beg to stay. I have to beg the question, what values are being sold to us, especially by corporations seeking to profit from our behaviors and that of our children? I'm nearing 40 and everyone my age I've talked to says they are so glad they grew up before all this technology. My favorite memories of my grandparents involve making mashed potatoes, geraniums, eating summer fruit tarts, petting their rabbits and their overall warmth. We had a language barrier since I didn't speak the Swiss German dialect but it didn't matter. I reflect on how close I feel to them even though I didn't know them well, and what memories my soul picked up as a small child. Von Arnim reflected,

"Nobody told me about him [my grandfather], and he died when I was six, and yet within the last year or two, that strange Indian summer of remembrance that comes to us in the leisured times when the children have been born and we have time to think, has made me know him perfectly well. It is rather an uncomfortable thought for the grown-up, and especially for the parent, but of a salutary and restraining nature, that though children may not understand what is said and done before them, and have no interest in it at the time, and though they may forget it at once and for years, yet these things that they have seen and heard and not noticed have after all impressed themselves for ever on their minds, and when they are men and women come crowing back with surprising and often painful distinctness, and away frisk all the cherished little illusions in flocks."

Red currant berries one summer ready for pie, a culinary and time travel portal to summers in Switzerland in my youth.

Brookfield Days, Caroline #1, from the Little House Chapter Books series, from the library, tells the story of Laura Ingalls Wilder's mother, Caroline in her youth. Like all Little House books, simple pleasures transcend centuries. There's something so timeless like waking up to pancakes.

"Hotcakes were her favorite. She loved to drop a pat of butter on the steaming cakes. Then she'd pour sugar syrup over the stack and eat them before the syrup even had a chance to drizzle off the hotcakes onto her plate. Her stomach rumbled just thinking about it.

As soon as Martha was dressed, the three girls rushed downstairs. The kitchen was warm and cozy. Joseph and Henry had already brought the wood in from the woodpile. The fire in the heart hissed and popped. The sunshine made the room glow with light."

Blueberry pancakes at my favorite café of all: our patio.

I also had at the great pleasure this winter of meeting Melissa Gilbert who played Laura Ingalls Wilder in the Little House on the Prairie series when she did a book signing at Bookends in Ridgewood, New Jersey for My Prairie Cookbook, which is part cookbook and part scrapbook and filled with memories of the show. I got her to sign it for myself and for Grace, and for Grace's library I got her children's book, Daisy and Josephine, a story of a young girl and her French bulldog, which has a few French words which I'm excited to share with Grace.

The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride by Daniel James Brown from Better World Books, is a page turner true story of Sarah Graves, a young woman traveling with her new husband and family alongside the ill-fated Donner Party who were trapped by a snowstorm after taking an ill-advised short cut in the Sierra Nevadas. This tale will never leave me. It is a miracle anyone walked out of those mountains at all. I was reading this book the same time I saw the film adaption of Wild, and I kept thinking of modern day adventurers seeking thrill, a challenge or escape versus these almost mythic pioneers making their way into the unknown world. Imagine packing your possessions and leaving cherished friends and family goodbye to travel thousands of miles into the unknown. I recall David McCullough looking at the Brooklyn Bridge in awe thinking of the people who built it in the 1800s, who were those people? I think the same when traveling out West. Brown notes,

"For Sarah, everything on the far shore, everything unseen beyond that line of trees, was outside the United States and outside the normal scope of her life. It  was a vast unknown, a blank slate on which her entire future and much of her country's future, both real and mythical, were about to be written. Everything she hopes for, and everything she feared, lay beyond those trees, and she could not yet know in what proportions they would me mixed. Whether she and Jay would prosper, what kind of lives they would live, what sort of children they might raise, what nation's flag they would live under, what hardships they might be forced to endure, what friends they might make, what  deaths they would eventually suffer - all that and more waited, unrevealed, beyond those trees."

Rock climbers in Utah.

Beatrix Potter: The Complete Tales was a Christmas gift for Grace. While I knew classics like Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny, I loved other stories just as much, one favorite being The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse. In it a country mouse Timmy Willie ends up by accident in the city, finding that life there much disagrees with him. Johnny Town-Mouse tells Timmy Willie his garden sounds quite dull, but to the contrary Timmy Willie tells him,

"When it rains, I sit in my little sandy burrow and shell corn and seed from my Autumn store. I peep out at the throstles and blackbirds on the lawn, and my friend Cock Robin. And when the sun comes out again, you should see my garden and the flowers - roses and pinks and pansies - no noise except the birds and bees, and the lambs in the meadow."

Pink petunias in my summer garden.

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway, from the library. This book may reflect on life in Paris in the 1920's, but nearly a century later, I found so much of its beauty timeless.

"With so many trees in the city, you could see the spring coming each day until a night of warm wind would bring it suddenly in one morning. Sometimes the heavy cold rains would beat it back so that it would seem that it would never come and that you were losing a season out of your life. This was the only truly sad time in Paris because it was unnatural. You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen."

At the New York Botanical Garden this spring. New life, in all its glory, budding again.

When We Were Very Young, A.A. Milne, a birthday gift for Grace, a charming poetry collection. Here, a passage from Spring Morning.

""Where am I going? The high rooks call:
"It's awful fun to be born at all."
Where am I going? The ring-doves:
"We do have beautiful things to do."

If you were a bird, and lived on high,
You'd lean on the wind when the wind came by,
You'd say to the wind when it took you away:
"That's where I wanted to go today!"

Where am I going? I don't quite know.
What does it matter where people go?
Down to the wood where the blue-bells grow--
Anywhere, anywhere. I don't know." -

Tulips and bleeding hearts in our garden from the spring of 2014. Happy Spring and Happy Reading.