Catch-A-Bug Jar

Its a Sunday, not always my favorite day of the week, sad to say. Sunday mornings are ALWAYS hectic. Sometimes I loathe the rush to get barn chores done in time to hurriedly clean up, struggle with obstinate hair, and search my pathetic wardrobe for something to wear. Then the mad dash to church---a trip of only a few miles, thankfully. Sit…..stand…..sing……speak in unison......listen……for an hour. (Singing is my favorite.) Yack with fellow churchgoers for a few minutes, then race home again so Husband can feed and tend to the cows who forever need tending to, and Ma (me) can cook dinner. (Around here, the noon meal is known as “dinner”.) Then its time for us humans to eat, followed by clean-up of the kitchen.

FINALLY, then……the best moment of the day: collapse in a comfortable place to read a book or take a nap…..or blog. Today, that place is on an old couch next to a wide-open north window through which the most amazingly refreshing breeze is blowing. Mugginess has fled, as the weather has taken a sudden---and, VERY welcome---turn for the better. Early this morning, the house was still full of heavy, humid air left over from last night, but now that is only a memory. Hooray!

The red “catch-a-bug” jar in the photos was a Christmas gift from my son and daughter-in-law. It was purchased at a shop in Galena, Illinois, and is a clever garden ornament and the perfect gift for a canning jar collector.

Try to ignore the messy, weedy aspects of the flower garden. I need to pull that pesky sorrel which keeps creeping into every empty spot in our landscaping. The sundial is guarded by a stack of three caramel-colored chert stones we found out in the field. They weren’t found together, but their colors matched, so we put them together for display. The bottom stone is large and very heavy, of course, requiring my husband’s assistance to put it in place.

I enjoy making stacks of stones; there’s something centering in the challenge of fitting rocks together so they balance just right and yet look interesting. The stacks add a bit of intrigue and mystery to the garden, I think, and are good conversation pieces. Sometimes I walk out to the rock piles in the fields and build random stacks here and there, just for the therapy of it.

My husband went a bit berserk landscaping our yard a few years ago after we built a new room onto the house. He put in many retaining walls and little terraces and stairways. I know I shouldn’t be complaining, but it requires alot of work to keep it all weed-free and looking nice. Before that we had NO landscaping, and, truthfully, I was very happy with that situation. Now, there are so many little flower bed areas to worry about---not to mention the huge lawn that has always been there anyway.

Mowing the lawn used to be my main groundskeeping responsibility, and it still is, for the grass certainly hasn’t gone away, but now there’s all these extra flower bed thingees that need care, too. Ack. Admittedly, many of you might be envious, and that’s fine, but to me its mostly a big hassle. My dear, hard-working husband was so proud of himself for designing and doing all that landscaping, while I was hovering in the background, trying to keep my frowns hidden. “Yes, honey, its beautiful…..you are so very kind to do this.” Cough, cough. I enjoy just letting things grow, and am appreciative of perennials that don’t require much care. Obviously, I’m guilty of laziness in the groundskeeping department. Good thing we live way out in the country where hardly anyone ever sees our yard.

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I hope the weather is taking a turn for the better in your area, too, on this last Sunday of June. Can you believe it…..the 4th of July and midsummer are almost here! The summer season goes way too fast, that’s for sure.

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