Tom Johnson’s repair of this table leg is a joy to watch.
A garden is a gathering of spirits, of old friends and new, of allies and companions. They are great, thronging crowds of voices whispering, cajoling, and summoning you to the life you summon for them. And when you leave a garden, they come with you, long trains of spirits singing and laughing as you lead them across the earth to their new home.
The exact dates of the Dog Days can vary from source to source, and because they are traditionally tied to the dawn rising of Sirius, they have changed over time. However, most sources agree that the Dog Days occur in mid-to-late summer.
Here at the Old Farmer’s Almanac, we consider the Dog Days to be the 40 days beginning July 3 and ending August 11. These days occur soon after the summer solstice in late June, which also tends to be the beginning of the worst of summer’s heat.
Darcy brought me two prayer cards from the Pisa Cathedral. One is for “Madonna di sotto gli organi” (Madonna under the organs–referring to the location of the painting), which mentions the painting’s escape from the cathedral fire in 1595. The other is for St. Ranieri, patron saint of Pisa.
Translation of the prayer on the back of the Madonna card, via Google Translate:
Virgin Mary,
Mother of God and of every man, who watches over Pisa and protects her, look at us who confidently turn to your maternal intercession.
In your image, which escaped the devastation of fire and is venerated with love by the people of Pisa, you show us Christ your Son as the path that leads to the Father, as the light that shines in the darkness, as the brother and savior of those who seek truth and life. You who trusted God teach us to rely on his will and his providence: in our difficulties, give us strength; in our anguish, increase hope in us; in our sorrows, communicate your joy to us.
May your help and your affection as a Mother support us on the path of the Gospel, because enlightened by Christ, light of the world, we bear witness to it to those we meet on our path and together we give glory to God who lives and reigns forever and ever.
Amen.
Darcy is home and we’re all very thankful. The Abels are not a traveling people. Rachel and I already knew this about ourselves but Darcy is discovering it also. She had some good moments but it was mostly a stressful experience for her, for various reasons.
Now having contributed–perhaps unwisely–to election talk, I return to ignoring politics and focusing my attention on what is mine to do: long-distance parenting for the next three days, accounting at the end of the fiscal year, furniture restoration, and enjoying our Limestone Festival.
This, from over a year ago, still pretty much summarizes my outlook on the election. We’re living out the ending of a world; the characters are merely playing their part.
Sad coal mining song from Kathy Mattea. Of course it’s sad. There aren’t any happy coal mining songs.
Good morning.
This morning I read the chapter “A Mother’s Work” in Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass. In it, she reflects on the process of cleaning up a pond so that her daughters can swim in it. Best chapter of the book so far.
So it is my grandchildren who will swim in this pond, and others whom the years will bring. The circle of care grows larger and caregiving for my little pond spills over to caregiving for other waters. The outlet from my pond runs downhill to my good neighbor’s pond. What I do here matters. Everybody lives downstream. My pond drains to the brook, to the creek, to a great and needful lake. The water net connects us all. I have shed tears into that flow when I thought that motherhood would end. But the pond has shown me that being a good mother doesn’t end with creating a home where just my children can flourish. A good mother grows into a richly eutrophic old woman, knowing that her work doesn’t end until she creates a home where all of life’s beings can flourish. There are grandchildren to nurture, and frog children, nestlings, goslings, seedlings, and spores, and I still want to be a good mother.