"Summer magic, the soft summer magic, drifts across the meadow. Summer magic, it weaves through the willow, right into your heart."~R. Sherman

I was properly horrified to glance at my feed reader and realize that my last post was three weeks ago! Where has the time gone? It feels like it should be May, and here it is the first day of summer. Philip and I have pledged between ourselves to be as intentional and aware as we possibly can in this sweet, fleeting season. I tend to idealize the summers of my childhood when there was nothing more pressing than a fresh stack of library books and the prospect of the neighbors’ swimming pool in a long series of afternoons that stretched blissfully out into forever. I have to make time for summer’s pleasures now—they aren’t just doled out like popsicles as they were when I was a little girl. But there’s something about a pleasure that’s deliberately created that has a magic of its own.

And the magic of summer is like no other.

Hearts grow dearer and heaven seems nearer, Winter dreams come true. Oh that magic, what wonderful magic summertime can do." ~R. Sherman

We’ve been taking as many meals as possible on the front porch these days. There have been a lot of quiet dinners, just we two, where we’ve talked long and low about the things that matter most to us over fresh summer vegetables and grilled delectables, watching the lightning bugs come out and the moon silver the front pasture and the trees around the house. And there have been a few joyous evenings with friends, mouth-watering seafood and ice-cold champagne and homemade ice cream. We’ve always been astonished at such times to hear the grandfather clock inside chiming midnight, the time has flown so happily. These are the hours that make summer what it is for me. Good company, good conversation, good food.

actually, a springtime breakfast on the porch. but the same general idea.

Last weekend we hosted some of our dearest friends for one of our ‘work-swaps’, and while we accomplished much during the day, it was tempting to stay up all night talking and catching up in the rocking chairs on the porch. We ladies managed to chat ninety-to-nothing over life philosophies and God’s latest work in our hearts while weeding the garden–and even during a bee inspection. But when the four of us starting talking books and Masterpiece Theatre and theology around the table, all bets were off. I’m ashamed to recall how many times I interrupted someone else in my zeal to introduce writers as diverse as P.G. Wodehouse and Dorothy Sayers into the conversation.

With the garden, my main goal has been to keep everything alive and watered in the uncharacteristically brutal heat we’ve had this June. The tomatoes are still green but promising great things. And I’ve planted my strawberries in wicker baskets hanging from shepherd’s hooks for a change, on the recommendation of a master gardener I met in England. We’ll see how the slugs and chipmunks like that! The brambles are all coming in nicely and they are succulent and delicious—provided I can beat the peacocks to them! Adhiraj and Panav have developed quite the taste for raspberries. It’s the first time I have scolded them for anything, and that is saying quite a lot. (Speaking of the peacocks, they have settled into their home here with a familiarity that continues to enchant us. One afternoon I was playing the piano in the front parlor when I had the uncanny sensation that I was being watched. I turned warily to look over my shoulder, and met the inquisitive stare of two peacocks, craning their bright blue necks as if to figure out what the heck I was doing in there making all that racket!)

Adhiraj and Panav*

Hermione and Perdita, the Nubian doelings, are the delight of my heart. We could watch them at their antics forever—though Perdita attempted such a fancy caper yesterday she actually sprained her ‘ankle’ and consequently was prescribed a day of ‘stall rest’. Needless to say she was not too happy about it, but the little hoof was much better today and she’s sporting a fancy pink wrap just in case. It has been so much fun to see those little goats assimilate with the rest of the animals. The sheep were not so sure at first and tried to bully the newcomers. But Puck, their enormous big brother has been gentleness itself. He follows them around, as if to assure himself that they really are goats. And when they are confined in their pen from time to time, I’ll catch him reposing right against the fence on the other side, as close as he can get. My Great Pyrenees, Diana, has been a darling, as well. I watched her in the pasture the other day, napping in the shade near where the goatlings were grazing and then heaving herself up to move closer again every time they edged farther away.

Hermione and Perdita love their new quarters in the barn. Hermione thinks that the manger makes the nicest bed, while Perdita prefers the platform of the yet-to-be completed haydrop.

Let’s see…we’ve had our first honey harvest this summer. We were literally giddy over the taste of two years’ work, although, when it came right down to it I felt rather bad about stealing from the bees. They have really done all the work and I am so proud of my girls. But there was just nothing to compare to that first sample of liquid gold: it was the soul of all our spring flowers infused into one toothsome bouquet.

Ophelia, pre-shearing*

And where have all the other days flown away to? Hoof trimmings and vaccinations and shearing (the sheep didn’t recognize each other for days, silly babes). A jaunt to my beloved Jekyll Island in May. Books read and book club meetings. Mucking and painting and renovating and cleaning and the thousand and one daily things that make up the making of a home.

La mer a berce mon coeur pour la vie...

And writing! Oh, my goodness, I’m writing like crazy this summer! Hoping to finish the rough draft by the end of August, but we’ll see how it goes. I don’t want to frighten the muse away by demanding too much of her.

And thus concludes the most random post I’ve ever written here. All this to say I’m still around, and that I hope you all have the dearest, most magical, summery-est summer of your lives. God bless!

~Lanier

"Summer's lease hath all too short a date..." ~Shakespeare

*photo credit, Griffin Gibson

Hermione

Meet the newest member of our family, our beautiful Nubian doeling, Hermione.

Afraid I’m going to be a little occupied around here, what with bottle brigade and romps in the yard and stroking those gorgeous Nubian ears. And I may or may not have had her in my lap at the breakfast table this morning…

She’s a week old and already a diva. Now we’re just looking for a playmate for her, as it’s really best to raise them in pairs.

But she’s rapidly charming the socks off all the rest of the family:

Philip just missed the full-blown kiss

And Puck? He nearly jumped out of his black knee-boots in surprise. I wish you could have seen the distinctly goat-ish double take–he all but rubbed his eyes with his hooves.

She’s nothing short of a gift to us all. And we love her to utter distraction.

"Remain in Me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me." ~John 15:4

It was a brilliant but brisk winter day, and I was none too sure I wanted to brave the cold with my clippers and shears. But the calendar would not be denied. For it’s a cardinal rule of gardening here in God’s country that pruning must needs be effected no later and no earlier than Valentine’s Day. I’d as soon lay a rose bed to mulch under the nose of the right reverend George R. Briggs, or sow the least summer seed before Good Friday, as trespass so serious a decree. I won’t even speculate as to what garden calamities might come of such an aberration, as I’ve never been brazen enough to hazard it.

But this year was different. Or, at least, it seemed so, as I stood in my warm den with a mug of hot coffee and contemplated the exchange of my shearling slippers for the cold comfort of the Wellies waiting outside the kitchen door. More dispiriting, still, was the overflowing mess that the brambles had profligated themselves into over the previous growing season. When I had taken myself in hand at last, fortified against the elements in coat and gloves and armed with loppers, I stood before the trellis, thoroughly and uncompromisingly stumped. I was too lazy to go all the way back into the house for the aforementioned George R. Briggs and his unambiguous instructions on Pruning for the Home Orchard. So I did what any level-headed gardener would do: I went after the roses.

Roses are much more straightforward, and I have a longer history with them. Roughly one-third off the climbing varieties and more-than-you’d-think-at-first-go off the others. Nothing too challenging. But as I worked, I noticed a strange frustration growing on me. Or, more accurately, in me. The fact is, the whole idea of pruning was rather a touchy subject at that particular moment in time. I had been reading in John 15 about abiding in our Lord the Vine, and the Father-Vine Dresser Who takes it upon Himself to prune the branches so that they bear fruit that is undying and everlasting. And I had fretted with Him in prayer that very morning about the disparity between that lovely and simple condition and the sense of fractious feverishness that had begun to steal into my own life of late.

Yet again.

Old foes of haste and hurry; the siren wail of the urgent and indispensable; the choking burden of choices and expectations. In short, I was right royally overwhelmed. And beleaguered with the problem of what to do about it.

Oftentimes we see His hand at work in our lives, lopping off things which we have no control over, and even as we flinch under the shears, we trust the love that guides them. But, just as often, He may hand the clippers over to us, asking us in faith as under-gardeners, to have a go at our own lives. To act on the promptings He’s been nudging for some time or to recalculate the cost of a particular endeavor. I really believe that personal assessment and regular, routine ‘fruit inspection’ is an indispensable part of a disciplined spiritual life. It doesn’t speak very well for my discipline, then, when I recognize its necessity only after my garden has gotten rather out of control.

But I recognized it that day as I was working away in my own tangible little vineyard. And I stopped in mid-cut and the clippers swung idle in my hands.

Okay. I said it out loud. Is there anything You want me to see here?

And if I sounded a little miffed, I have to think that God doesn’t mind honesty as much as He does self-reliance clothed in pious speech. I was frustrated. And He knew it.

I finished up with the roses and then I went and contemplated the brambles again. Half of the trellis is set to blackberries and half to raspberries. But it was such a tangle you could hardly see where one ended and the other began. I seriously entertained for a moment the thought of leaving them to themselves, taking a year off. But only for a moment: the memory of last summer’s berries, warm to bursting in the morning sun and so abundant I could feed them to Puck through the fence without reserve, won the day. I took off my coat, as this was serious business, and pushed up the sleeves on my hoodie.

And as I confronted the confusion of shoots and canes, a bit of wisdom came to me. At first I attributed it to the honorable George. But I now know it to have come from a much nobler Source.

Dead things first.

The string of words became a little motto as I looked closer among the canes, sorting out those distinctly brown from among the winter-silvered green. And it was amazing what clarity their removal brought. So many of the tangles resolved themselves as the dead vines were cut and dragged away. I was humming the phrase to myself like a little pep talk as I hunted the next candidate when, suddenly, it hit me.

Of course! Dead things—old encumbrances; old entanglements. Old sins and old habits and old regrets. Old, toxic thoughts about graceless-living. In short, the very things Christ has set me free from and which I, like the Apostle, tend to carry around with me like a dead weight. “I know You’ve dealt with this in the only way possible, Jesus, but let me haul it around a little longer just to prove how sorry I am.” And it’s amazing how cunningly those worthless things accumulate while our back is turned…just when we think we’ve seen the last of them.

“Let the past sleep,” says Oswald Chambers, “but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ.”

Dead things don’t need to be analyzed, critiqued and disputed over. They are obvious and they need to be hauled out from among the living things and tossed on the burn pile.

After such strong and severe simplicity, I returned to my brambles with a considerably lightened heart. I wondered if I’d see anything else worth pondering when my glance fell on a shoot that had sprung up from the trellis with all the energy of summer-past, and rooted itself in the middle of the lawn. And the funny thing is, the more I looked, the more I saw of the same thing: far-flung branches arching off the original site so that they had toppled to earth and put down roots far from the vine and from the rich soil I had prepared for them. What well-intentioned canes they were, fat and sleek and many yet bearing the scarlet banners of last year’s leaves. I almost apologized to them as I tugged them out of the ground and cut them back to a reasonable length.

But they had to go, of course. They would steal all the energy from the fruit—not to mention make a wilderness of my backyard. They are the stuff of scanty harvest and exhausted resources. The things that stretch us beyond our means. That make us feel, as Bilbo so wisely observed, “like butter scraped over too much bread”.

After that, it was the real heart of the matter: the strong, healthy canes, the ones that were growing where they were supposed to and had borne last summer’s berries. And these were the toughest of all. It’s always hard to convince myself that I’m really supposed to cut them back that far. But as I set to with my loppers, three more little thoughts came wafting to mind and settled in my heart:

~Every single shoot needs scrutiny.

~Pruning is always more severe than I think it needs to be at first.

~It gets easier.

Like I said, I’m a novice. But it certainly gave me a passel to tuck away and pray over. I want to learn from the Master Gardener. And I want a whole lot more than a freezer full of berries by this time next year. I’d like to think there was some fruit that remains, unspoilt and unchanging, to the glory of His Name.

"Tell us, ye birds, why come ye here,Into this stable, poor and drear?""Hast'ning we seek the newborn King,And all our sweetest music bring." ~ Charles L. Hutchins 1916

I had been looking for them for weeks, from the first real shock of cold weather in early November, expecting at any moment to be brought up short in the midst of a day’s round by the sound that is at once the most wistful and the most exhilarating I have heard in nature. To be arrested with the wild, sweet declaration of change in the air and the turn of the seasons. To be held fast and fixed in a spell of wonder that is the yearly migration flight of the sandhill cranes. I remember so many late afternoons in autumn, the yard around us violet with gathering shadows and the day’s last gilding just ebbing from the treetops as we stood with heads thrown back in a compliment of complete silence, watching the tiny black mass swirl and mount its heavenly way before pressing southward in a somewhat ragged ‘V’, always cherishing the jumbled cacophony of cries that must be deafening at close range and yet has about it all the poignancy and the bewildering exactitude of change ringing at such a distance.

They have always been a herald, a harbinger that electrifies me with aliveness and anticipation, and I love them for it.

But they have never been so late, in my memory. And I hadn’t realized just how intently I’d been listening for their glad tidings until it came.

It was one of those days that every second seemed to count. Every hour so carefully planned so as to press the last oil of productivity out of every moment. A day of loved preparation, no doubt, but ever teetering dangerously in the balance between ‘bustle’ and ‘huffing about’. The last sugar cookies were cooling on the racks and I was just measuring out the ingredients for gingerbread when I stopped as if I’d been tapped on the shoulder and caught my breath over that familiar ache of joy. I set down the jar of molasses and flew out the kitchen door, into the keen chill of a December afternoon, and whirled about, searching the sky.

I think I felt them before I saw them, in much the way that a person senses observation. For just as I turned in their direction, they appeared with a gliding sweep above the proud hedge of hollies that border the kitchen yard. At first I was too fascinated to realize that I had never seen them at such close range: their bodies were grey, not black as they always seemed, and I could even make out the darker tips of their enormous wings. I wondered wildly for a moment if they were going to land in our pasture, until it became obvious that the slow and solemn circle was on the ascent. Perhaps they had taken off from the watering hole out front—had been there for quite some time while I was inside and all oblivion, up to my ears in flour and colored sugar!

I stood transfixed as they mounted heavenward, as stately as a liturgical procession, with the occasional bird-shout of praise for good measure. And as they reached a certain height and came into a level with the slanting rays of the departing sun, an absolute miracle transpired. Each time the wheeling throng passed through the light, a wash of pure glory set them ablaze, running over them like the ripples of some heavenly watercourse, so that every wing was ‘sheathed with silver’ and every feather a flash of gold. On and on they soared, higher and higher, passing from shadow to splendor in a recurring parable of unearthly beauty.

Light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death…

Soon after they forsook the charmed hold of light, and in a matter of a breathless moment or two they had unfurled themselves into perfect formation. And like a giant bracket with one leader at the fore and two lieutenants flanking him on either side, they passed swiftly over my head in reverent silence and glided away towards the south. I was shaken as I went back into the kitchen and regarded my late occupation. It seemed almost silly to reassume something as earthly as the baking of cookies after so heavenly a benediction. And yet, not silly. Sanctified, somehow, in the purifying glow of this holy Advent which appropriates all willing things unto itself and makes of a flight of birds or a flour-dusted kitchen a sacred thing and an intersection of the lay and the liturgical.

Philip and I later talked long by the fire of why I was so moved: why the advent of a flock of birds would bear such a palpable weight of glory to my waiting heart.

Why their shrill, metallic cries would seem the very voice of one calling in the wilderness.

“It’s because we see them every year,” he said, “and we know what they mean.”

That is precisely it. It’s that same paradox that Lewis talks about in The Screwtape Letters in speaking of our thrill at the change of seasons juxtaposed with our love of the familiar:

He gives them the seasons, each season different yet every year the same, so that spring is always felt as a novelty yet always as the recurrence of an immemorial theme.

And that is precisely why Advent is such a present promise and Christmas a yearly miracle. If our own hopes and longings are a recurring theme, how much more so is God’s everlasting “Yes!” to our eternal “Why”?

The ‘Yes’ is Jesus, of course: Jesus in a manger; Jesus on a cross; Jesus coming again with power and great glory.

Jesus coming in familiarity and great particularity to our present need and thrilling us with a hope that defies reason.

The sandhill cranes were not late, any more than the God Who made them is late with the delivery on His promise. I’m so glad that they mingled themselves with my expectation this year and that Advent is the season they exulted over with their jubilant song.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Celestial fowles in the air,
Sing with your notes upon the height,
In firthes and in forests fair
Be mirthful now at all your might;
For passed is your dully night;
Aurora has the cloudes pierced,
The sun is risen with gladsome light,
Et nobis puer natus est.

Rorate coeli desuper, William Dunbar 1460-1520

Angels and shepherds, birds o' the sky, Come where the Son of God doth lie; Christ on earth with man doth dwell, join in the shout "Noel, Noel." ~ Charles L. Hutchins 1916

The brightest, most blessed season of the year. My heart has been leaning into it for weeks, friends. But the miracle of the first dawning of Advent never ceases to catch me off guard–can it really have come again? The earliest tasks of the season always bear with them a certain tender awe. And always the sweetest amazement that He actually came…

Caspian lends his aid to the Advent Wreath

"...to do Him honor Who's our King, and Lord of all this reveling..."

Puck's already sporting his Christmas best

the Advent Wreath on Sunday afternoon, all anticipation

We fetched home our Christmas tree on Friday, after a jolly search (and I was so overcome with the rightness of the one we found I hugged it on the spot). I’m very particular about Christmas trees–and even more so once we get them home. We have as many traditions for the preparation as for the actual decorating. But as my tree has to last and be lovely from the first Sunday in Advent right on through to the last waning moments of 12th Night, I can’t be too lavish with my care. For one, we never carry our tree on the top of our car–think of all that wind rushing over it and drying it out! (But I’ll spare you the details of the homeward journey, involving a tree trunk on the console of the Explorer and an eighty-pound dog in my lap! ) As soon as we get it home it receives a fresh cut and an instant immersion in what Philip calls my ‘tree brew’: a recipe that has miraculously guaranteed a fresh and fragrant tree throughout the duration of the season. It originally came from the Fermilab website and even though it’s a little extra trouble I absolutely swear by it. Here is the recipe, if anyone is interested:

Two cups Karo syrup
Two ounces liquid chlorine bleach
Two pinches Epsom salts
One-half teaspoon Borax
One teaspoon chelated iron
Hot water to fill two-gallon bucket

Fill a two-gallon bucket with hot water to within one inch of the top and add the remaining ingredients. Stir thoroughly, dissolving ingredients. Set aside.

With a saw, cut an inch off the bottom of the trunk of your recently purchased tree. Try to make a level cut.

Immediately stand the trunk of the tree in the solution and leave for 24 hours.

Keep the remaining solution. Place your tree in a tree stand that contains a well for liquid.

When the tree is in its final resting place, use a plastic cup to pour solution from the bucket into the tree well. Fill the well.

Every day without exception, “top up” the well of the tree with the solution from the two-gallon bucket.

(Note 1: We cover the well of our tree stand with a screen of hardware cloth, just to keep any curious kitties from sampling the brew–I can’t think it would be good for them.)

(Note 2: While this recipe is indicated as a ‘fire-retardant’ on the Fermilab website, I am making no such claim-I am sharing it as a preservative and fragrance-enhancer only.)

~~

And so, welcome to Advent, dear ones. My prayer for you all is that it may be the sweetest and the holiest you have ever known.

p.s. Here is a fabulous Christmas piece that I thought you would all enjoy. It’s written by our dear and talented friend (and husband of my darling writing partner), Luke Boggs, for The Sunday Paper last year. Enjoy!

A Passion for the Season

p.p.s. I just want to take this opportunity to make sure that you all know how very much the mere fact of your being here and reading these words means to me. And the words that you share in return absolutely overwhelm me. I assure you, though I may not be able to reply as extensively as I would like to, I read and cherish every single comment and kindness you have sent my way. I am humbled by your grace and your graciousness and I am inspired to press on by the way that you put me in courage with your words. And I do not exaggerate in the least when I say that you are the best part of this chronicled experience online.

Thank you, friends…

animals who act like it's Spring

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.

~George Eliot

lettuces in the cold frame

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

~John Keats, Ode to Autumn

apple-picking

Every leaf speaks bliss to me,
Fluttering from the autumn tree.

~Emily Bronte

October mornings

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof; there thou mayest rest
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,
And all the daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.

~William Blake, To Autumn

blue clouds of mist flowers

All-cheering Plenty, with her flowing horn,
Led yellow Autumn, wreath’d with nodding corn.

~Robert Burns, Brigs of Ayr

the barnyard raj

I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house. So I spend almost all the daylight hours in the open air.

~Nathaniel Hawthorne

a new baby (her name is Hetty)

Desperately trying to keep–to fully live–these fleeing hours and days of the year’s tender flourish, mostly by heeding Hawthorne’s advice above. Counting up what I love, what makes my heart glad and makes each day’s beauty so lucid and real.  Opening my eyes to see, not merely look. Catching at the gossamer strands of the poignant season as they fly and weaving my praise in a pattern of wordless joy…

God bless you all in autumn’s gilding as His touch sets the world aflame…

I felt like the villain in a Gothic novel.

I had stormed the castle gates, hooded and veiled, and thrown the guards into confusion with a diversion of smoke. Right to the very heart of the fortress I plied, past those who fain would shield their queen to the death, into the sacred quarters of the monarch herself. Sweeping the sentry aside (albeit gently), I took the lady captive and spirited her away before her subjects half-knew what was happening.

It was then that the rush of peril abated somewhat and the high adventure of the thing started to break down. All I can say is that it was a good thing my husband was working at home that day.

“Philip!” I shrieked, running towards the house, gloved hands cupped carefully over the prisoner. “What do I do now?”

It had seemed so easy in theory. The books had all made the process of re-queening a hive so simple and straightforward. And, as I realized now to my supremely wounded sensibilities, utterly, utterly heartless.

We put her in a jar and set her on the counter. And we looked at her. So very beautiful with dainty wings all out of proportion to the long amber body and one small white spot where the apiary had marked her for the benefit of novice beekeepers. We knew what we were supposed to do. What the books would tell us we had to do for the sake of the whole hive and the new queen that was waiting in a box in the dining room to assume her throne. But there was just no way that either one of us could do it. Nothing so senseless as that.

“I could take her in the car when I go out later and release her,” Philip said.

“It has to be a good three miles away,” I replied, my eyes still bent on the bee, struggling against her invisible walls. “To be safe.”

Last summer we had weathered a fiasco of virgin queens in a failing colony that rivaled any of the treacheries of the Stuarts and the Tudors. We captured one swarm only to have a rash of micro-swarms break out later in the day all over the yard as various bees swore their allegiance to the newly-hatched queen of their choice. We couldn’t risk that again, or the very real danger of the bees taking matters into their own hands and doing away with the new queen in the presence of the old one.

And while the nearly-empty brood frames confirmed our fears that “Mary Mac” just wasn’t laying, her former service to the colony demanded—in our minds , at least—a nobler end than an unceremonious squashing. More of a riding off into the sunset. Or perhaps a wild colony of queenless bees…

At any rate, foolish or otherwise, we took her for a ride and let her go. Offered the choice between wise-and-cold-blooded and foolish-but-merciful, I’m going to stick with the latter any day.

The next day we returned to the pillaged hive and placed a small box with a screened top on the floor between two of the frames. Then we closed it all back up again with a prayer that the bees would accept the new queen as their only hope of making it through the winter. Today I went back in with a pounding heart. I removed the super and peered down into the hive body. The little box was covered with bees but their attitude was unclear down in the dimness between the brood frames. I lifted it out into the sunlight and held it up close to my veiled face. There didn’t seem to be any hostility there—the bees were strolling over the surface of the queen cage with apparent indifference to my impertinent proximity. I took off a glove—carefully, hoping no one would notice—and gently pried the screen from the cage, tapping it as I did against a frame of brood that I had laid across the top of the open hive. Out she came, gasping, no doubt, from her long confinement, and instantly the bees were upon her.

I held my breath and prayed out loud. This was the moment of truth. Either they would receive her as their new monarch, or they would instantly fall upon her as a usurper, ‘balling’ her and putting an end to matters within moments.

Were their movements gestures of acceptance? Were they cleaning and preening her—or attacking her? Being the greenhorn that I am, I had absolutely no idea. I picked up the discarded cage, making ready to put her back in should things turn ugly.

But then something incredibly beautiful started to happen. As the new queen stumbled over the bees and brood of the frame, the workers all fanned out around her in an unmistakable dance of welcome. They circled her like the weavings of an ancient rondeau and fluttered their small wings in welcome. I seriously could not believe my eyes.

And I find it hard, so very hard to believe that someone could not believe in a God of order and beauty and breathless creativity after looking into a beehive.

I do not so much rejoice that God hath made me to be a Queen, as to be a Queen over so thankful a people. ~ Elizabeth I

What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance. ~Jane Austen

Note: I wrote this piece two summers ago, and while circumstances don’t find me quite as artistically drained as I was then, it’s still a good word to myself in a historically thirsty time of year. This August was plenished  in an unprecedented way by the creative immersion of Hutchmoot, the first-ever in-the-flesh Rabbit Room assemblage, and the wells are brimming with inspiration. But today I am just right heartily tired…

It happens every summer. Just about the time my squash plants begin to wither up and die, succumbing at last to the insidious squash vine borers that I’ve been fighting since early June, something begins to wither inside of me. I pull out my little sleeveless smocked-yoke dress which is the coolest thing I own, I crank the air conditioning down to an unlawful 74, and, thumbing my nose at the mosquitoes outside, I officially enter survival mode. And there I remain, digging in my heels as it were, until that magical day when I turn the calendar page to September and everything begins to freshen up inside of me again. (Don’t ask me why this is; September in Georgia can be hotter than August. But September is always the beginning of everything, you know, even things that go along the same way, day in and day out…)

Thus ends my yearly love affair with summer. In May I am up to my ears in roses and in June I am giddy over the long hours of daylight and the fireflies and all the pretty clothes the season affords, but by this time in the year I am done. My forays into the garden are furtive, covert affairs, wherein I delight in outwitting the bugs that are laying in wait for me. And my poor garden itself, alas! is under a dictum of ‘survival of the fittest’ which means, quite plainly, ‘those that don’t require water will survive’, a condition which will remain in effect until Labor Day when all those bedraggled things will get pulled up and replaced with cool season crops. Ah, the very thought is like a tonic!

All of the ‘barn babies’ seem to be of the same frame of mind. The goats and the sheep venture into the pasture in the early morning and the early evening, and much of the rest of the time, if you chanced to stop by, you’d likely find them hanging out with the dogs and the cats and the chickens in the cool shelter of the barn. (I wish you could have seen the gay procession out to pasture this morning: Puck and Pansy leading the way with long Nubian ears flying as they pranced, fleecy white lambs ambling daintily along the track they’ve already worn on their perfect little black hooves, the two Pyrs, Juno and Diana watchful on either side and black kittens scampering behind. I think if I’d let the chickens out of their run they’d have fallen in line, as well!)

Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it. -- Russel Baker

Caspian thinks that Dog Days mean that spoiled little indoor doggies get to just flop around on the cool wooden floors all day and have occasional ice cream treats (any of you dog lovers heard of Frosty Paws?) and popsicles (don’t tell him they are only ice cubes) and that a day’s work can be summed up in giving the mad rooster a quick run for his money around the yard. Yes, even daily walks have fallen by the wayside, and won’t be resumed till…you guessed it: September.

But as much as I anticipate this yearly doldrums—as much as I even look forward to it in a way as a fallow pause between the bright industry of the spring and the jam-packed poignancy of the autumn—I am always surprised by one aspect of it. I make such high writing goals for these languid months, calculating on the long, quiet afternoons and self-imposed borders within which words will spring up like obedient little flowers in a well-watered garden. The trouble is, and I’ve seen it perhaps more this year than others, the garden isn’t well-watered at all. In fact, it’s quite miserably parched. It makes my vegetable plot outside look like a verdant pleasure ground. The wells of creativity that I’ve been counting on are dry from little rain and choked with the debris of rushing about and hurry and frantic ‘doing’. For, much as we would all like to convince ourselves otherwise, inspiration is not an effortless flash that seizes us in a frenzy of output: words or music upon paper, brush and oil upon canvas, a delicate arrangement of hues in a garden. It is the result of quiet commitment to a passion that life would be colorless without, a daily and disciplined reckoning with what is important to us and what God has put within us.

I stand corrected before Him this summer as I’ve sat hour after hour before a blank computer screen. Replenishing is a slow and often painful process and it absolutely cannot be forced, a concept so utterly foreign in this ‘hurry up and do it yesterday’ culture of ours. We don’t like to have to wait for anything, whether it’s a meal or a line in the grocery store or a word beneath our itching fingers, poised on a breath above a keyboard. But the fact of the matter is that writing, as any other creative expression, is a process that requires nurturing outside of that time seated at our desks. There is a gentle reproof for artists in the words: Neglect not the gift that is in thee…

And we are all artists, of course. Every single one of us has our unique abilities and our unique way of looking at life, which are gifts of the Almighty and not to be disdained. This life is where we see God, and we see Him in two ways: In the merciful and mighty acts of His own creation, whether it be a violet and crimson sunset or a bird’s wing painted to perfection or the tender miracle of incarnate Love which He pours into our hearts and upon our circumstances. And we see Him revealed in the creative acts of His people. We all have to give an account of what we do with our talents. Or if talent sounds too pretentious, our affinities, which are really just divine endowments often muffled under a blanket of reticence or timidity or fear of making a fool of ourselves. I don’t call myself a writer because I think I am a good writer but because I absolutely must write. Because the created longs to lift a tribute to the Creator.

But when you’re walking through the mud and mire of writer’s block—or any other artistic mire—it never hurts to know that there are others out there that have experienced the same thing and that it’s a normal part of the creative journey we’re all on. And if it helps anyone else to hear of some of the means I’ve discovered of coping and hopefully growing through these arid seasons, then I’d be only too happy to share them in a later post.

But for now I have a frittata to put in the oven—you see, I did dash out and gather some vegetables and herbs from the garden, and the hens provided the rest—and then it’s down to the barn to tuck the animals all into their stalls for the night. It’s my favorite time of the day, the sun going down at last in a softened haze of pale gold and the breath of relief in the (somewhat) cooling air a promise of the regeneration to come.

For it will always come. We have our Father’s word on it:

I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs…      ~Isaiah 41:18

originally published on YLCF