LOOKING FOR LAVENDER

IN BIRDLAND WE GOT A LITTLE RAIN--JUST ENOUGH TO TEASE US. Not enough to turn off the heat or dry up the dust or coax the wild blue asters into blossom. The corn is in tassel and maybe it was enough rain to get a little bit of a crop this year, but not a big harvest. The corn is sending its sweet, sweaty smell out with its pollen. It's a green, fertile smell, but not particularly pretty. Grandma always used to say that we need rain the most when the corn was tasseling, but we are still several inches down. The last rain was maybe 2/10ths of an inch, and we need an inch a week to pull us out of this drought. Even with watering my garden every evening, it grows so slowly without rain.

What we need is lavender. Lavender will bloom despite the dry weather. Last week some of my knitting friends made a trip up by Rantoul to visit the lavender farm at Sharp'sCrossing. It was hot, but the heat diffused the lovely scent so that when we got out of the car, wafts of perfume greeted us. We could see the smaller field from the road, and turned into the driveway where we saw a big, white barn with old wagon wheels spaced around the wall. A larger field of lavender was next to the barn. We went first into the barn where we could sample tiny little lavender shortbread cookies and see various crafts—soaps, tinctures, sachets, pillows, lotions, wreathes and wands—all made from lavender. In the barn we picked up scissors and rubber bands, and then went out to the fields to cut bundles. There were three varieties, I think, and I picked a bundle each of two of them. As we walked out of the barn, the owner called after us, “Cut ginormous bunches.” she said. “There's plenty out there.”

The plants grew in regular diagonal rows through heavy-duty weed barrier. They grew in pretty, rounded cushions. Some plants were already harvested, and these were hemispheres of greenery, almost like topiaries. Others had sprays of tight, blue flowers, an open invitation to the bees and other pollinators. But I didn't see too many bees. Maybe it was the drought—or the mid-day heat. One field was long stemmed, and I picked plenty of that. I cut and sniffed, and cut and sniffed until my nose didn't work any more. Then I took my bundle inside and started again in the other field. They wrapped up my two bundles in purple tissue paper and gave me ribbon and the directions for making a lavender wand. Lavender is one of my remedies when I have trouble sleeping, and a wand would be just the thing to keep by my bedside. I also got a spritzer bottle of lavender water in case the wand doesn't work its magic.

At home, I have old glass bottles in all the windows, dug up from a stream in our woods, where people sneak in to dump trash. I filled each of the bottles with a few stems of lavender to freshen the rooms. At the lavender farm they had a bunch in a vase that they said was a year old, and it was still fragrant. I figure I'll keep these in the bottles until next year, and then I'll take the buds off these stems to use for a new eye pillow. The lavender lady said to put the stems in a pillowcase and roll your hands over it to remove the buds from the stems. 

I was inspired to research the growing of lavender and found it is drought resistant. I'll get a couple of plants to add to my path to joy, or maybe I'll start another path in the sun, just west of the garden and chicken coop. One thing leads to another in my planning, and I begin dreaming about the marriage of bees and lavender: lavender honey!

Rain in Beauty; Bloom in Peace; Blessed Be.

SONG OF THE CICADAS

IN BIRDLAND THE CICADAS SING their buzz-saw songs. Ode to an Outboard Motor is my favorite. I remember a cicada visitation a long time ago. This year's emergence may even be the same clan. I'll have to do the math. My niece and nephew (now 19 and 20) were small and they were on an overnight visit to the farm. It was the same visit when I bribed them with the promise of waffles for breakfast to get through the entire night without crying for their mama. Instead of waking every hour or so to lull them back to sleep with reassurances that they'd see my sister in the morning, I woke to small voices calling into my bedroom “Aunt Mary? Aunt Mary! We didn't cry!” Monica was holding her brother's hand and Justin looked hopefully up at me. It was still dark, but I was so grateful for the uninterrupted sleep. What would you do? I jumped out of bed and fixed them waffles. After breakfast I sent them outside and they came running back to show me the bug they had found. It was the size of Monica's thumb, white with maraschino cherry red eyes. It looked like a model of a cicada carved delicately out of cream cheese. It wasn't moving much. I had never seen anything like it.

We three went out to investigate and found them all over the yard, climbing out of little holes in the earth. I had never seen a cicada commencement, and the rest of the morning we watched while they kept ascending from their quiet, underground chambers. Over the next few hours they gained color and voice, and the use of their wings, and the three of us left whatever mundane activities I had planned to wander around the yard and wonder at the sheer number and volume of their songs. I haven't witnessed this magical event since then, either. This year by the time I noticed the cicadas, they were already on the wing. Constellations of perfectly round holes in the dry earth give witness to their origin. It's something, isn't it, to be buried for so long, like Rip Van Winkle, not knowing what you will find when you come out? I wonder how deeply they burrow and what might disturb their rest. Will new subdivisions destroy whole colonies? I imagine the plowing in the fields displaced whole populations long ago. I don't know if my small diggings in the yard bother them. I hope not too much.

Yesterday the cicadas' song provided background music to my visit with my high school friend, Valerie from California. Although it was hot, it was lovely to sit under the umbrella at my little picnic table, sipping iced tea and catching up. She told me about her travels and her California home, and I showed her the beginnings of my summer project: to visit each corner of my house one by one, and give it a thorough cleaning and “ridding out.” (Our friend, Nancy, once told me that her grandfather used the term “rid out” to mean getting getting rid of things you don't need, as in “rid out the drawers.”) I began with my grandfather's tool shelf, which now lives in my kitchen and holds books and curiosities. I pulled it from the alcove Michael had built around it so many years ago to find great clots of dust and cobwebs. I also found 26 cents and a plastic green marble-shaped gremlin. How satisfying to vacuum back there, to rub orange oil into the baseboards behind it, even though they'll be hidden til next time I rid out that kitchen corner. The shelf has chipped and crackled sea-green paint, and I thought about my grandfather who built it. I made myself part with several of the books and a box of trinkets. Mostly the shelf is a museum to artifacts we've found in the yard: a headless, armless china doll, spoons, a brass bell, a tin whistle encrusted with corrosion. It is good, once a year to revisit all the corners of my life, to contemplate what buoys me up and what drags me down.

Cherish Beauty; Contemplate Peace; Blessed Be.

Close Knit Community

In Birdland the sky is gray and the snow is spilling down again. The last cycle of snow and melt and re-freeze had left us with a bare yard and only the grays and tawny browns of a winter landscape. The fields and garden are dry, as if the freeze has squeezed out all the moisture. Yesterday I noticed the hackberries scattered all over the ground like currents in a bun. Did the wind shake them down, or did the trees just let go with the cold?

Now a flurry will add another layer to the wintertime landscape. The sky is leaden as far as I can see to the West, and it’s cold but not windy, so I expect by noon we’ll have a nice frosting on all the fences and a blanket for the yard.

Today I am rushing to get my work done because of two important visits. This afternoon is my knitting circle at the Steeple Gallery Coffee House—a weekly gathering of wonderfully creative and fun women who meet to knit and share and visit and drink coffee. It convenes on Fridays, so I can only come during semester breaks, making today’s visit even more special for its rarity. I’ve got a finished project to show—a felted knitting needle holder that I copied from Susan. But I need some advice, because my washing machine doesn’t agitate, which is necessary for the felting process. Mine is pretty, but not quite felted, and it doesn’t like to stand up on its own. Should I just wash it about twenty more times, or try to felt it by hand, or ask Susan to agitate it for me in her washer? When I told Barbara about the flower I was going to knit for a decoration, she dug up a crocheted flower she had cut off of an old sweater and gave it to me. Now when I look at my project, I think of my connections to both of these lovely women—something to be glad of in the gray days of winter.

The second visit is from some of my nieces and nephews. Once in awhile they converge at

Birdland for a holiday. Some are home from college; some are already back at high school. I like to bake for them. I’ve got cookies already made, and plans for pizza and scones, waffles for breakfast.

They are busy young people, and they won’t all be here, but I am grateful for any who can spare the time. They come to get out to the country and away from their routines, and though I know they love me, they come more to visit with each other. I’m happy to provide this venue and mostly stay out of the way. They energize me, and give me an excuse to get the house clean, make up the guest beds, and pull out the board games and the ping-pong table. Ellis will be glad for their company. My youngest is the last little bird in the nest, and he loves to hang out with his cousins.

The snow continues to fall in tight, tiny crystals that collect first in the packed down places in the yard, showing me where the dogs have trotted out a new path around to the side of the house where I’ve plugged in their wintertime water bowl.

They also have one to the edge of the field where they go to bark at the coyotes whose commute takes them down our grass waterway every morning. The sky is now a bright white in the West, and the snow is falling faster, with bigger, fluffy flakes. It’s time for me to get to my baking and cleaning, my preparations to receive my guests.

Believe in Beauty; Dwell in Peace; Blessed Be.

Mary Lucille Hays lives in Birdland near White Heath. She cherishes family and community and any excuse for a gathering.