Happy May Day!

When I was in third grade I remember May day. We put on a play welcoming spring and made a maypole out in the playground. We strung ribbons or colored string on the flagpole and then would do a dance where the we would weave them round and round and then unwind them. Can't remember the whole thing, but that was a high light of the year. It meant that school would be out soon and summer vacation.


We also made little May baskets with paper flowers we made in class and then take them home to our parents, maybe hang them on the door and then pretend to find them. It was a tradition to say that spring was here.

Valley

Valleys are the low point between two high points. There have been valleys of despair in my life and mountains of very high points.


Valleys can be the prettiest part of the journey. When you come over a hill and see the gently sloping sides that go down to the valley where the green grass is thick and beautiful, you know you are at the end of the journey.


In the valleys are where the grass is thickest and the flowers the most beautiful. The stream splits the valley and the trees grow well near the water.


We sometimes feel like the valley is the low point, rather than a beautiful ending to a journey.


In stories of pioneers, they feel a sweet, sweet relief when they have climbed the mountain, and the valley is there to greet them with shade, grass and water.


It usually is not the end of the journey, but the pause that refreshes so that they may carry on to the end.


And so this should also be a pause, before we get to the end of the journey of the alphabet and our April challenge.

Suummertime

     I live in the Missouri Ozarks in southwest Missouri. When it is hot and muggy it is hot and muggy. We have been promised rain for the month of June and it has not materialized, much. A dampening here and there, but not much else.

    It is again hot and muggy this mornin'.

    We have planted tomatoes and cucumbers and they are doing pretty well. We fight with the critters to keep them growing. Deer love our tomatoes and flowers, and the bunnies like our cucumbers. We have tried fencing them, but you must fence to the ground and to the sky, and then not close to the fence.
We are now going to try red pepper. The problem with that of course, is that the rain, when it comes, will wash it away. Ah, the problems of the gentleman farmer!

    We have discovered that the deer won't eat, or haven't yet, hens and chicks, the plant. I have an old cast iron boiler in my front yard that we fill with flowers each spring, and usually the deer go, " SALAD BUFFET" and clean it out. We have now had the hens and chicks in there for over a year and they have left it alone.

   If I have flowers and weeds in the same bed, why don't the deer the weeds? They very deftly go around them and eat my irises or tulips. They love tulips. The rabbits love yarrow. I have tried both several times. We will try tulips again this fall. If we string fishing line around and over our flowers that seems to keep the deer away. However, you have to do it early in the season, and as we take it down each year, we sometimes miss the early part of the year. Therefore, losing some plants to the ever vigilant deer.

    We love flowers and the animals, so guess we will just have to live with each other the best way we can.