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| Happy Independence Day! |
First things first….happy Independence Day! I love the 4th of July. Thanksgiving and Independence Day are the two “every American” celebrations of the year, because everyone – and I mean everyone – living in America can celebrate both. I also love fireworks, and growing up in the New York City area meant one thing: Macy’s Fireworks! It’s been ages since I stood along the rail near the water, gazing out towards Liberty Island to watch the fireworks, but I’ll never forget the times my older siblings took us into Manhattan for the fireworks. When I was really small, my dad would drive us to Mitchell Field (now the Cradle of Aviation Museum and a business park on Long Island) to watch the fireworks. We would sit on the hood of his old 1962 Ford and wave punks around, those sticks that you lit to light REAL fireworks. We were never allowed to have real fireworks, not even sparklers, and firecrackers scared the life out of me. But the next day I would walk down the street and look at the spent wrappers in the gutter searching for one, just one, that hadn’t burned. I don’t know why I did that since I was always too scared to light them myself! It’s funny what we do as kids…some of it made sense at the time, but now as an adult, I scratch my head and think, “Why in the world did I ever do that….?”
It’s been raining 40 days and 40 nights here, or at least feels like it. My question of the day is, “Can you really get too much rain?” I think that as long as the garden has good drainage, you should be fine. We usually struggle here in south central Virginia with the opposite: drought. By July, the temperatures typically soar into the 90s and 100s, and the earth is parched. In a typical year, by July the grass is so brown and dry it crackles underfoot when you walk across it. This year, the lawn looks as green as an Irish field. Lush is the word to describe the garden: lush greenery, flowers growing tall, vegetables growing strong.
With this growth comes a few other things, too. Mushrooms. If you see mushrooms dotting the garden or lawn, don’t panic. They don’t do any harm, and they actually do some good. Mushrooms grow from spores, but some also grow from underground networks. These complicated fungi only fruit (grow) when the conditions are right. Fairy rings, or circles of mushrooms, are the result, and supposedly, very lucky! We have some here:
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| Fairy Ring growing in our field |
The rain brings with it unexpected blessings. The resevoirs and wells will be full, as will the ponds and streams. Wildflowers are blooming with abandon along the roadsides – perfect to nourish wildlife. Yesterday we surprised a flock of goldfinches who alighted on tall weeds blooming by the roadside. They took off in a beautiful cloud of yellow feathers arcing to the sky.
Who needs sunlight when nature provides a burst of gold like that?
