Happily Life Abounds in Our Busy June Garden

Sometimes it seems there are so many things going on in the world of humans which make me sad I need help remembering what makes me happy.

One thing which almost without fail brings a smile to my heart is our little south facing front garden. Watching the comings and goings of wildlife to our yard is another. Seeing our children engaged in their passions is another.

This past week was an interesting one in our household. Our two rabbits had unplanned tooth trims each on Monday following a routine exam. This increased the household stress level quite a bit as they have to be closely monitored during their post anesthetic recovery. One of the bunnies, (both rescues from the local animal shelter for our eldest's sixteenth b-day three years ago) a male Angora named Winter, weathered the proceedings quite well. The other, a female mini Rex named Melody had more trimmed and a week of struggling with eating ensued.

This meant lots of interventions, from the usual (crushed digestive supplements mixed in apple sauce) to the extreme (sub-cutaneous IV fluids at the vet) along with hand feedings every few hours, twice daily pain meds and so on.

You get the picture.

Our oldest does almost all of the bunny care. They are her little beloveds but she herself is still struggling with her own illness and during weeks such as this one we all must share out the care as much as possible. And really, she is a totally phenomenally, loving and giving human and they are the two sweetest little bunnies who perhaps have ever lived so we all chip in and slowly things come around.

On Tuesday of this week past our middle child was off to prom with a friend he played music with for some ECMA showcases in May. It was a busy week getting our son, only in grade ten himself, ready for a high school prom. We borrowed a suit coat and dress shirt from his uncle and he chose a black bow tie from a store closing down in town as well as black cotton pants he can wear again. He looked dazzlingly handsome and old beyond his years.

After some pics his big sister took by the Maple tree they spent many a childhood hour in, he, his oldest sister and I were off to drive him in to meet his date. On our way across the Hillsborough Bridge he shouted out that there was a porpoise in the river. And sure enough his sister and I both got a good look at a large, white body swooping up above the surface of the water and back down again a couple of times. They concluded that it must have been a Beluga based on the size (approx 12 feet long), the absence of a dorsal fin and the light colour. They decided to look it up in one of their books upon their return home.

Sure enough their observations were correct and they sent the sighting off to Dan McAskill, a naturalist friend. Interestingly, it was only the 3rd confirmed historical sighting of a Beluga in the Hillsborough River. A news story was run on CBC a few days later after further sightings of the whale occurred.

Our youngest daughter was teacher training at her dance studio and missed out on all the pre-prom whale excitement. But she managed to get in later for the prom walk through and to see her brother and his date looking so lovely together. And now she is off to rehearsals (again) for one of the summertime musical theatre shows she is in at the Guild.

In the midst of all this busyness, our garden isn’t planted yet. We were waiting for the full moon in June (the 17th) but then the week got away on us with sleepless bunny nights etc and then a two day rain and wind storm and here we are still unplanted and I am under the weather now myself. Perhaps today we will get our plants in and tomorrow our seeds. The beds are composted and largely ready to go. (We will have to reign in some of the ground ivy which the bees are absolutely loving and try to transplant some of the yarrow to a different location in the garden.)

Despite our late (not yet) planting, we have a lot of little garden friends, three chipmunks in the general vicinity of our yard, a decent sized garter snake which likes to sun on our walkway, squirrels, a chickadee family nesting in a nest box for the second time this spring and vigilantly watching those chipmunks. Although we lost a garden friend just this afternoon, the lovely, common white tail dragonfly I had been admiring all this week was torn apart by an eager Song Sparrow, to our shock and sorrow and the bird's delight.

Our bird sightings this spring were plentiful and so enjoyable while we had the feeders and stump filled with black oil sunflower seeds. We also had nightly visitors (skunks, raccoons, foxes) most of the spring. But the safe season for seed for finches is past until cool weather next fall.

Our kale which overwintered bolted and now towers above me in the most splendid array of yellow flowers imaginable, the little heads of which look like broccoli (they are cousins after all) and are so delicious when steamed before they open to flowers.

The chives and alium are in full purple bloom, the sunflowers are up six or eight inches, there are two varieties of mint that appeared and are thriving on our inattention as well as calendula aplenty from last season. (Calendula is like that--mint too!)

So, strangely, wonderfully, the little garden is lovely in its continued waiting.

And speaking of cousins, the kids youngest cousin, my sweet little nephew Elias, turns two years old today. He called to invite everyone to head over for tacos and birthday cake tonight.

”Please come” he implored our oldest during their conversation.

He, like his older brother Jamieson, love our little garden, watching the baby chickadees poke their little heads out before they fledged last week on the boys mother’s birthday and always happily listening to our garden tales. Always watching, always keen, Eli nearly went out of his skin when he spotted “a chickmunk on the flower pot” as he exclaimed excitedly in our doorway last evening.

So much of life is passing our way on its way. It’s enough to make a sad girl glad, even happy, and most certainly honoured and grateful.

Thanks for reading.

Happy Summer 2019!

Jill