July

The garden offers gifts.

Shredded zucchini: delicious.  Squash sauteed in butter and garlic: divine.

I love how high the basil grows, from my chest to my toes.
The sage spills over itself and the cucumbers creep up the fence.

Growing makes me happy.

 

Lovely Memories

We culminated our week with a birthday party.

The centerpiece was a team-made cake representing the whole week’s work:

with our lemon curd between the layers

made with eggs we collected from hens we fed,

iced with home-made icing,

with butter that we churned by hand

in antique churns using local cream,

and flavored with zest we grated

from lemons we hand-squeezed into lemonade.

We drizzled home-churned vanilla ice cream

with home-made blackberry sauce,

from blackberries we picked in the meadow

while picking a bouquet

– because blackberries are her favorite.

Then we decorated the birthday girl’s cake with 11 of our own

hand dipped beeswax (and other wax) candles,

made especially for her cake that morning.

Wow!  What a celebration ceremony!