I admit it: at the beginning of this “new normal” I found a lot to enjoy. I had five people I particularly like sheltered in this castle, spring was coming on, no commute, meals got better because we were being creative, game night with adult children, and lots of amazing online content being generated by talented people stuck at home. Those were amazing days as the news items kept blowing us out of the water and we had a sense of being survivors. It was all so hygge: warm family life inside while a storm raged out there.

But I am so done with that topic and this is the last you will hear on the subject. I won’t even mention the name. Moving on.

If I were teaching I would only see my garden in the golden hour, home after a long day with a tired brain. I would be doing garden work on the weekends. Only then would I be able to sit quietly on a bench in the embrace of the cedar. But when I am not conducting video classes or prepping I have been able to putter in the garden every day (when it is not snowing *eyeroll*).

I have created a garden park! And I like to think it is a visual expression of my soul. Paths for journey, benches for meditation, profuse blossoms for joyous celebration, but also quite a bit of wild unpredictability.

Every year I expand it. There are four seating areas. I have three benches out in the sun and rain, and one under a shelter so I can even sit out there in the damp. (I have to walk through a roof drip line to get there, but pish–it is nothing.)

For Mother’s Day my men expanded a tiny stone patio I have with two huge flat rocks, so I can have a fire pit out there.

I imagine I’ll cook on it some evenings but mostly it is a gathering spot in the dusk for us to sit together and bide a wee. Robbo and I are going to pick one out on Friday. He laughs about an unnecessary luxury since we have a burn pile/cooking pit down in the back field, but wait till he enjoys that snapping fire pushing back the chill night air, sparks flying lazily into the twilight to meet the stars. Not to mention venison stew. Apple crisp in a Dutch oven. Garlic rolls.

Can you guess who made this little path?

Chipmunks! Straight to the door where I scatter sunflower seed. I have many happy chipmunk families. I enjoy their busy lives played out before me. I have a feeling I’ll be paying for it in garden damage.

This garden becomes a place for me to get perspective on all the challenges coming through my computer screens. It pulls me outside where pushy spring winds caress my face. And more than all the others, it provides ephemeral beauty that seems to come straight from heaven’s fields, a taste of home.