Starting in 2005, my sister Sally took over a small farm in northern Maryland, part of an inheritance from our parents. Sally had never farmed full-time before. Her lifelong interest in gardening was scant preparation for this late-middle-age career transition from more sedentary work. Especially the first few years, Sally struggled. She wanted to run the farm as a biodynamic one, paying special attention to the cycles of seasons, sun, and moon. Gradually, she got an acre or two into biodynamic production. She rented the rest of the land to nearby more conventional farmers. She built up a cadre of part-time volunteers. Her work was more than full-time, with scant occasions for the travel she had enjoyed earlier in her varied careers. Her internet access was spotty at best, so we kept in touch through phone calls and letters.
For a biodynamic farmer, “cross-quarter days” are especially important in deciding harvest and planting schedules: Halloween (Samhain), Groundhog Day (Imbolc), May Day (Beltane), and mid-summer, around August 1 (Lammas).
This November, I’m posting six years’ worth of cross-quarter day letters, through multiple changes in government, a global pandemic, and major changes in our respective personal circumstances. Please read along…
Tuesday, August 1, 2023 (Lammas/Midsummer); from Jinny in San Diego, CA to Sally in Taneytown, MD
Dear Sal,
We had a chance to celebrate Kenley’s first birthday in person, initially gathering with son Scott, Morgan and Kenley at a vacation rental at Indiana Dunes National Park. The park is unlike any park I’d seen before—a thin strip of undisturbed beach along the shores of Lake Michigan, bookended by steel mills and industrial complexes. Husband Jim and I got here a day before Scott and crew, so we had a chance to explore the area from our “beach house” a block from the shore. I’m reveling in the non-desert tree canopy in this part of the country. The area is full of both conifers and deciduous trees, for a mix of year-round shade and sun. Even some dunes are tree-covered.
Along the western part of the beach there’s signage about “Diana of the Dunes,” a feisty young woman who spent the decade between 1915 and 1925 living a simple life in a refurbished fisherman’s shanty. Diana was a prime advocate for keeping the dunes area from being commercially developed. The current mix of parkland and summer cottages probably owes a good bit to her efforts. I think you’d have liked her, if the after-the-fact publicity is to be believed.
It turned out that walking on the dunes was impractical for our newly ambulatory granddaughter. The various trails were not exactly stroller-friendly, either, so we spent much of our long weekend indoors at the rental. Then we packed up vehicles—Scott’s relatively new minivan, our rental car—for the drive back to Scott and Morgan’s house.
This trip had a much larger driving component than our prior trip last December. Although the pandemic has been officially deemed over, many of us, particularly those of us of a certain age, are still less inclined to maximize our air travel than we were pre-pandemic. (The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention declared an end to our “public health emergency” as of May 11, 2023, but it’s unclear exactly what that may mean in terms of policy changes.)
We had more chances to bond with Kenley and to “play in the dirt” at Scott and Morgan’s place in the couple of days we spent with them. There’s a large plant nursery complex about 10 miles from their place. It had just opened for spring season, so we got a couple of flats of spring flowers and some mulch. For most of a beautiful spring afternoon, the adults planted and mulched while Kenley mainly watched or napped.
Before heading back to California, we had a brief visit with brother Bruce and Wendy at their new-to-them condo near Great Smoky Mountains National Park. For the next few years, they plan to “time-share” between the family place on Lawyers Hill and the condo in Sevierville while they declutter and decide whether to sell an Elkridge house that is overly large for retired empty-nesters. It’s not clear whether either of their grown sons might be interested in the Maryland house—for now, both live much further north.
We also did a brief side excursion to Berea, Kentucky, home of a small “work/study” college that I’ve always found intriguing. The surrounding town is filled with artisans and craftspeople, many of whom are Berea graduates. You’d have fit right in. One final stop, at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, let me explore a small research archive dedicated to 1943 Randolph-Macon Woman’s College graduate, journalist, and activist Anne McCarty Braden. I’d earlier read some 1990’s testimonials about the civil rights work of this woman who’d attended Randy-Mac a generation before me. I was gratified that her legacy lives on.
Husband Jim spent a couple of weeks the early part of the summer on a Grand Canyon raft trip with son Jason and his family, along with Kelly’s parents. I’d begged off, having decided that one dunking in the Colorado River when sons Jason and Scott were in their early teens was enough for me. I also thought that my aging hiking muscles might not up to the more strenuous treks. I tended the home fires instead, watering Jason and Kelly’s plants and taking care of grand-dog Ginger.
All the rafters got home safely. Jim had a chance to get to know Ada and Parker better. Jason and Kelly mentioned after the fact that Jim was not up for the more strenuous hikes, either. What Jim mainly remembers, along with lots of pleasant interactions with others on the trip, is how hot the weather seemed. A few days ago, he gave a slide presentation of his trip to interested members of Tierrasanta Village.
My plot at the giving garden is producing tomatoes, as is the raised bed in our back yard. I try to get most of my gardening done early in the morning, sometimes even before the sun comes up. I find that more often than not these days, I’m ready for a nap after lunch, especially if the weather is hot. As time goes on, I feel somewhat more connected to the community here, if still somewhat nostalgic for my prior life “back east.” Recently I came across the following quote about “Lammas” on the internet. It seems apt for today.
(From Rebecca Douglas in the UK): “Lammas is a turning point when we begin to feel, in our bodies and in our bones, that the light is changing. That we are no longer in the full force of summer’s outward fire, but entering something more reflective, more spacious, more real.”
Please take good care. Keep cool! Lots of virtual hugs!
Love, Jin
