I pick many of my flower bouquets for other families at the farmers
market. Today I wished for a beautiful bouquet to call my own. While
my children were napping and Daddy was home, I decided to take my bike
for a ride along our winding driveway, filling my straw bag with
flowers as I noticed them. My flowers of choice today were Day Lilies.
I gathered them to my heart's content, noticing their varied and
vibrant colors and sweet fragrances.
I learned recently that the genus name for Day Lily, Hemerocallis comes from the greek (hēmera) meaning "day" and (kalos) meaning "beautiful". The flowers of most species open at sunrise and
wither at sunset, possibly replaced by another one on the same stem the
next day.
I appreciate the transitory life cycle of the Day Lilies. They put all of their energies into only one day. They make a magnificent appearance and in turn inspire other blooms to follow and on it goes. Truly an inspiring lesson from a flower living it's life to the fullest!
I biked along the fields and onto the path in the woods. Coming along for the ride were my vintage quilt and a few favorite Japanese Haiku books...
A perfect star growing naturally and happily along my bike route, there must be magic in these woods!
We enjoy summer lunches and dinners outdoors under our canopied table. Today we sliced up tomatoes my children harvested from our garden. They were still warm from the sun as we delighted in each bite. Homemade lemonade, blueberries from the yard, cheese, bread and a summery corn soup. A small bowl filled with ginger slices to cleanse our palette and rest our tummies.
We sat under the trees in the dappled sunlight and laid out a tablecloth to set our favorite German board game called Orchard. The object of the game is to collect the smooth wooden fruit in your baskets from the various fruit trees before the Raven eats up every piece! My husband and oldest son happily started up their first round of Orchard while my daughter engaged herself in her own version of the game that she had made up herself called Naturesway.
The object of her game was to roll the dice, (a Nasturtium blossom) and then pick one treasure of her liking from a point on the leaf. At the end of the game, the person with the most beautiful arrangement of treasures gets to have the prize in the center.
My youngest son and I also played along and we had many rounds of play. Following each new round my children would go out and collect new treasures found in nature.
We visit the lake near our home almost every evening, taking in the mountain views set out before us as we wade deeper into the welcoming waters. The sun sets, turning the sky orange and pink as the mountains recede into twilight shadows. We always leave feeling happy and content in nature's offerings to us. We are refreshed and feel vitalized from the cool mountain waters. The sweet smell of the crystal clear water brings me back to when I was a child enjoying summers swimming. My children's tiny footsteps pattern up and down the sandy shores, imprinting the sweet message that little ones have been playing and swimming here on this summer day.
