Summer Inspiration From Our Farm in the Shenandoah Valley

Summer days on the farm sail by like clouds in the blue. Each morning brings a fresh look to our familiar  scenery. The sights that greet us have comforting continuity and yet are ever-changing.  No two days in the country are identical.

Breaking dawn and soon after is the best time of day. Nightly slumber renews the garden, beading every leaf and blossom with dew. Cows amble in the sparkling meadow, and the pond swims with waterfowl... It's the garden of Eden time.

(Lilies with the barn in back.)

Pastoral beauty and flowery nooks beckon and I get out my camera phone. Suspicious geese flee the crazy lady unless I sneak up on them. Fussy bunch. Summer sounds create a symphony while I dart around picture-taking. Birds sing, roosters crow, cows bawl, geese fuss... The cooing of mourning doves is a continual background note, and we have an insane mockingbird who runs through every tune he knows. Repeatedly. The trill of meadowlarks is heavenly. Finches and robins have the happiest song. Red-winged blackbirds sound their classic wetland call at the pond. Ducks converse amiably, unlike the squawky geese.. There is much life here.

I love the music of the garden. Bees hum, crickets chirp, fairies sing...

(Phlox and more phlox)

(Zinnias and cosmos from seed I saved and sowed in May, also pictured below)

(Wild Bee balm and coreopsis tinctoria)

Hazy, hot, and humid stretches of summer do not inspire me. Pics are dulled when the air hangs like a warm wet blanket. My spirits soar in the 'Reaching to heaven blue sky days' and these are the best for image taking. But I also love the mist. Mist lends itself well to mystery. You can hardly say mystery without it.

(Cow in the meadow with the hills beyond it)

Magic returns again in the long summer evenings. We're blessed with a spectacular view of sunsets over the meadow, the pond, and hills with the Allegheny Mountains rolling beyond them. Once again, the geese may enter into these images. It depends on how sneaky I am and how fast they are. The host of lightning bugs blinking in the garden and meadows are impossible to capture on film. Cicadas serenade us from the trees. Earthy farm smells are not for everyone but you have to love the scenery.

(Our pond at dusk)

(Our barn at sunset with sunflowers)

(Phlox at dusk)

I've captured glimpses of midsummer in 'The Shire' as I term our little patch of earth and hope you enjoy my sharing.

(The geese heading toward the meadow-away from me)

(The geese watching the sunset)

(Cows in pasture beneath the setting sun)

'The summer night is like a perfection of thought.' ~Wallace Stevens
'In summer, the song sings itself.' ~William Carlos Williams
'Each fairy breath of summer, as it blows with loveliness, inspires the blushing rose.' ~Author Unknown

(Cone flowers)

'Love is to the heart what the summer is to the farmer’s year — it brings to harvest all the loveliest flowers of the soul.' ~Author Unknown
'Then followed that beautiful season... Summer....
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.'
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

'To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie –
True Poems flee –'
~Emily Dickinson, c.1879

'I drifted into a summer-nap under the hot shade of July, serenaded by a cicada lullaby, to drowsy-warm dreams of distant thunder.' ~Terri Guillemets

'One of the most delightful things about a garden is the anticipation it provides.' ~W.E. Johns, The Passing Show

(Gaillardia)

***In addition to the farm and garden, I'm an author. I write historical, time travel, and paranormal romance. Also young adult. Plus nonfiction about gardening and country life. For more on my books, visit my Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/default/e/B002BLLAJ6/

The Restoration of Our Farm Pond

To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment. ~Jane Austen

Our pond, originally dug in the early 1950’s, has given people and wildlife much happiness through the years. But over time it had filled with silt and could no longer support fish. The herons were lucky to nab a minnow. As the soil level raised, weeds appeared. Eventually, they would have taken over. Since my grandson, Ian, badly wanted to fish, and all of us wanted to see the pond saved and not disappear entirely, we had no choice other than to start over. This meant eradicating what we had, a tough move that elicited groans from me.

October before last we undertook the draining of our much-loved waterhole. Storms and muskrats had already punched holes in the dam that should have been made of clay but was of softer loam; it didn’t require enormous effort for son Cory to make a much bigger gap in it. We sadly watched the water diminish. Disgruntled geese waded in the dwindling puddle until that, too, was gone. Months followed with no sight or sound of pond life, no photographs of sunsets reflected on its surface…no ice skating for two winters…

Drought settled in. During the long dry spell, our one comfort was the thought that the sooner the muddy bottom dried up, the sooner we would be able to bring in the big equipment and get to work. 

Eventually, that day finally came and stretched into weeks, then months. Late this past fall and winter, the pond was dug and reshaped, and the new dam packed with clay. Rows of soil from the bottom lined our meadow like trenches in World War One. Cory and 'team pond restore' laid the overflow pipe, built a deck, and did all the work in readiness for a break in the weather. 

We waited and waited. Our pond was like a dry crater on the moon, and just as uninhabitable. I despaired of it ever being full. We got some much-needed moisture in March and April, about the time forest fires were breaking out, but the bulk of the rains have only recently come. Some rain fell in torrents, with the biggest storm hitting yesterday. At long last, our pond is brimming. Great is our excitement

(Grandson kayaking)

Daughter Elise, the grandkids, and I have planted a lot of trees and bushes on the banks. Our goal is to bring back the wildlife. Birdsong resounds from the meadow and surrounding trees during tranquil walks around the pond. It’s incredibly peaceful there. We are planning further plantings, but for now, we’re savoring the fruits of our labor. It's a magical realm.

"I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in." ~John Muir (1838–1914)

"Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright." ~Henry David Thoreau

"I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes. "~e.e. cummings

"The poetry of the earth is never dead." ~John Keats

"After all, I don’t see why I am always asking for private, individual, selfish miracles when every year there are miracles like white dogwood." ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

(Goose flapping his wings behind newly planted tree)

 (Grandson Owen kayaking)

(Red Wing Blackbird)

(Cory is building benches for the dock)

For more on me, follow my Amazon Author Page at: https://www.amazon.com/Beth-Trissel/e/B002BLLAJ6/

April in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia

(In front of our farm-house)

You are likely to find me out in the garden, because the garden is where life is. Everything is green, growing, flowering, or with the promise of blooms and fruit to come.  The garden is a vibrant place, and yet, deeply peaceful, too, and ever-changing. No two days in the garden are the same.  Each day holds new discoveries. Spring is a giddy time, with so much to do at once.

Many things grow in the garden that were never sown there. ~Thomas Fuller 1732 (This is very true)

While much of the country is still buried under winter, those of us fortunate enough to dwell in the Shenandoah Valley, or 'The Shire' as I call it,  are blessed with spring loveliness. Not that the weather doesn't waffle here, because it has and does, dipping back into frigid temps after luring everything into bloom. But most plants are hardy enough to withstand this whimsy. We are well accustomed to the annual dance. I cover my gullible lilies and pray for the blossoming trees.

A new project has opened up in my gardening world with the redoing of our farm pond--digging out years of accumulating silt--and the expansion of the surrounding fence.  This gives us much more room to grow our dreams, safe from munching cows, and a lot of tree planting has ensued. Yesterday, daughter Elise and I planted thirty additional trees and bushes on the pond banks, after a long planting session this past Saturday with the enthusiastic help of my three oldest grandsons. While we labored, we were surrounded by birdsong from meadowlarks, red-winged black birds, the song sparrow, killdeer, cardinals... It's hard work, but the pond will be glorious. Our aim is to plant for the birds, water fowl, fish, pollinators, and people. I'm envisioning magic.

(One end of our Pond)

(Elise, Me, and my three grandsons after a long tree planting day)

As for my writing, admittedly it has sagged as planting and gardening take priority, but I have a new story idea buzzing around in my head. Outside time gives me the opportunity to ponder my emerging plot. How can I not be inspired while enveloped in all this spring beauty?

(Virginia Bluebells in front of our house)

"Science has never drummed up quite as effective a tranquilizing agent as a sunny spring day." ~W. Earl Hall

"April is a promise that May is bound to keep." ~Hal Borland

"The naked earth is warm with Spring,
And with green grass and bursting trees
Leans to the sun’s kiss glorying,
And quivers in the sunny breeze."
~Julian Grenfell

"In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours." ~Mark Twain

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day.
~Robert Frost

Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems. ~Rainer Maria Rilke

"It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want — oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!" ~Mark Twain

***Images by daughter Elise Trissel

Chronicling Spring in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia

I am a gardener, animal lover, author... Fortunately, I haven't had to choose a single focus and incorporate my loves into my writing. Among my greatest passions is the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in general, and our farm in particular. The meadows are covered in a wash of green and looking far more hopeful than the brown hue we've lived with since November A blanket of snow is pretty but we haven't had much snowfall this year. Thank heavens the rain has returned after months of drought.

Our drained and dug out farm pond is finally beginning to fill back up again. It was a dry crater all fall and winter like something on the moon. The barnyard geese were suspicious at first, but now go for swims. We are watching for the migrating waterfowl and birds who were once regular visitors here. Sadly, our place was off their radar last spring. Having an alive pond again is exciting. We're consulting experts about what to do regarding fish, and I'm toying with getting ducks. The original pond had filled with silt over the decades and had to be redone. It's located in a marshy spot in the meadow fed by wet water springs and is the head waters of Cooks Creek, which ultimately feeds into the Chesapeake Bay. Fencing keeps the cows out. We have planted some trees and shrubs around it and will plant more.

(Geese enjoying the new grass. Ruins of an old barn visible back behind our farm)

I'm in my 'giddy about the earth awakening mode', or was, until the wind storm hit. My spirits are a little battered, and the crocus are kind of sad after the roaring bluster. But I trust the blossoms will revive and new ones will open when this gale finishes with us and sweeps away. March really roared in this year. Inclement weather is a trial to gardeners everywhere. We hopeful souls go on. We must. I'm chronicling spring as it unfolds in my bit of earth.

Early crocus and snowdrops below.

I saved a lot of seeds last year, ordered many others, and started some early varieties of flowers, herbs, and vegetables in my little greenhouse. One late February day was so balmy, it felt like May. I planted my early salad greens in the garden during the warm spell. Then the lion returned, and the seeds will slumber until the warmth comes back.

"Who loves a garden still his Eden keeps;
Perennial pleasures plants, and wholesome harvest reaps."
~A. Bronson Alcott, "The Garden," Tablets, 1868

"It was such a pleasure to sink one's hands into the warm earth, to feel at one's fingertips the possibilities of the new season." ~Kate Morton, The Forgotten Garden

(Miniature iris return faithfully each year)

(Yellow crocus)

***For more on me follow my Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Beth-Trissel/e/B002BLLAJ6/