Rabbit, Rabbit

With a May Day posy for everyone and muguets de bois especially for Vagabonde, Therese, and Miss Yves.

 

A Busy May Day

What a beautiful May Day it was! 

REMINDER: Get wet in the first rain of May for good health all year. (It's my family tradition and I interpret it loosely--get some rain on your hand and you're good.)

Josie and I made a start on Friday of moving stuff out of the greenhouse. There was a lot of potting soil on the floor and she helped by using a little trowel to scrape it up and put it in the bed. "This is the best day ever!" she said. She loves to help. And she loves being outside.

We lined up geraniums on the steps and did a bit of watering.

Yesterday I pulled weeds. It's particularly satisfying when I know the chickens (who are confined to the chicken yard for their own safety) will enjoy the greenery and reward us with deep orange yolks in their eggs.

The daffodils are all gone now but the iris are about to pop!

And the columbines! The original was a gift from my friend Candace many years ago and they have endured and spread--looking something like the flight of doves their name implies. (Columba is Latin for dove)

 

May Day

Late Tuesday afternoon was so beautiful and such a perfect temperature that John and I took a chilled bottle of white wine down to the pond to enjoy the wisteria's last shout.

It was around five and the light had that luminescent 'Golden Hour' quality.

Though the blossoms were fading, the wisteria's fragrance was strong, enveloping us in a sweet cloud.

The long shadows of a golden afternoon.

As I typed the title of the post, I thought of how MAYDAY is a recognized cry of distress (from the French m'aidez - help me.) And I thought, not for the first time, how this pandemic could be seen as a cry for help from the earth--as mankind's pollution is increasingly shut down, the earth begins to recover.

And how nice it would be if we learn something from this timeout--the importance of the unseen workers we all depend on, the inequalities inherent in our political system, what things in our lives are necessary and what is excess . . . and the simple fact that we're all in this together. 

May Day!

At one time it was the custom to hang baskets filled with flowers on friends' doors on the morning of May 1. (There's a link HERE to a NPR story about this.)

Please consider this my virtual May basket to you! (And remember to get wet in the first rain of May to ensure good health for the year.)

Happy May Day, to You All and especially to Vagabonde

Vagabonde -- whose wonderful blog RECOLLECTIONS OF A VAGABONDE is always full of beautiful pictures and fascinating history, commented yesterday on my post about getting wet in the first rain of May to ensure good health for the year:   

"My tradition, French that is, is that you need to get, find, be offered .. whatever - at least one sprig of muguet – called here lily of the valley. You can even send a postcard to someone with lily of the valley on it. I don’t know about health, but it is supposed to give you love and happiness for the whole year. "

So I offer to you all, a tiny bouquet of lilies of the valley, that you may have love and happiness, along with the good health that first rain should bring.

(It was raining yesterday afternoon when I went out to pick the muguet and I couldn't resist the rain drops on the iris.)

I wish I could send along the heavenly fragrance of the muguet as well . . .