Summer solstice has arrived, and with it I’ve been reflecting on the past few months. Spring is always such a magical time in nature, and one of the wonderful things about being a parent is learning to see those small, seemingly inconsequential treasures through the eyes of your children. Our spring flew by and was definitely busier than it needed to be, but we were able to have some quiet moments in nature that slowed us down and brought back childhood memories for me. Making necklaces out of snake grass, pressing flowers, planting seeds, filling our house with bouquets of wildflowers, making sun tea, identifying plants on our walks, and enjoying being outside.
I never really thought about where my love of plants came from, but looking back on my childhood, I often wandered, picking wildflowers, climbing trees, and always felt at peace in nature. As kids, we would pick vegetables, fiddle head ferns and wild chives to make salads, or we would pick snake grass and pop the segments apart to make necklaces and bracelets. One of my prized possessions as a child was a little flower press that I got for my birthday one year, and I obsessed over it. I remember carrying it with me in the yard and down the street, and then making bookmarks and cards with the flowers I’d pressed. My kids received flower presses for Christmas last year, so of course I had to buy one for myself, and we wandered through the neighbourhood looking for blooms to press. It was so much fun reliving those experiences with Rowan and Cassia.
Usually I spend my early spring preparing a huge garden, but try as I might, it was not happening this year. Every time I thought about it I felt guilty, like I should have had all my seeds started, the garden tilled, and a game plan for the growing season, but soon it was the end of May and I decided that this year we needed a break. And you know what, that’s okay! I bought herbs for my little planter outside the back door, I bought a few pots for the deck for strawberries and flowers, and I carved out a fraction of our expansive garden, hoed it by hand and decided to keep it simple. Peas, greens, tomatoes, radishes, beets, carrots, onions, one cucumber plant, one pumpkin plant, and one butternut squash plant. It gave me a chance to get out in the dirt and sun, but didn’t overwhelm me, and isn’t that what gardening should be about? It should be meditative, peaceful and satisfying. The soil also has nutrients and microbes that are beneficial to us. Honestly, as soon as I got my few plants out, I felt so much better. The garden is a little haven in our hectic and over-scheduled lives.
We used to call our kids little “dirt babies” because they were always barefoot and covered in dirt by the end of a spring or summer day, and this still rings true. They are happiest running through the yard barefoot, digging in the dirt, roaming the tall grass for grasshoppers, climbing trees, watering the garden or planting seeds. Days where we go on walks not to get somewhere in a hurry, but to pick berries, to stop and identify flowers and plants we don’t know, to watch bumblebees and butterflies, to sit and have a snack… These days are often the very best days!
We like to look up recipes for edible plants, and have made dandelion muffins, a few different kinds of herbal sun teas, lilac lemonade, mulberry and cherry tarts… Sometimes we eat wild chives from the river, and wild saskatoons and huckleberries from other trails. We discovered that you can make pine needle cough syrup and tea, using different types of needles we foraged on our walks. These are some of the most memorable days, the ones where we decide not to be busy, not to be in a hurry, and to mostly wander and decide as we go what to do. Sometimes we just soak up the sun and get our hands dirty, and feel the kind of tired that comes from being outside all day.
We’ve also been spending our mornings reading. During breakfast, I gather up a pile of books and read them to the kids, and sometimes Rowan will read to us once he’s finished eating. Some of these books are our own, but a lot are from the library and we usually have several about plants, birds, nature, mushrooms, animals, the environment… If you ever need book suggestions, let me know! Or they’ll simply grab a picture book or a “search and find” book and relax with it in the hammock with a popsicle. These are the moments when I feel most connected and at peace, the moments I treasure with my kids, and the moments where I feel content with simplicity. They are the moments that are hard to find these days, but are so vastly important. I hope my children will look back on them and think, wow, what a great life I’ve had so far.
I found this quote the other day: “I shall take my morning tea with the birds and the trees and the bumbling bees.” And that’s what I intend to do over the next few months…. Wake up early and have time to sit quietly, or to read, or to drink my tea outside as the sun comes up. I will encourage my children to always be in awe of the wonders in nature and to value those times of exploration and leisure and wildness. A friend of mine was over picking mulberries with us the other day, and she said that mulberries are best when eaten right off the tree. How true! Instead of it feeling like a chore to go and pick berries, we stood outside and talked and ate while the kids played. It was wonderful, and an important reminder to soak up pleasure without feeling the guilt of not being productive or not being on the go. We need more of that in the world today. I hope you are able to slow down a little as we go into the summer months, and that you let nature guide you. Nature isn’t in a hurry, and we can benefit so much from this lesson if we let ourselves!
