All Is Well

Diary of a week

Monday, June 17

I’m out early to start the water flow to the misty sprinkler in the garden, a fine spray that arches a rainbow overall, a promise is on its way. A doe pops her head up across the pasture fence, eyeing me closely, watching every move. So attentive, so alert. That’s how I know she has a speckled baby lying quietly in the grass somewhere near, under the dappled shade of the willow trees, maybe. When he grows a little bigger, she’ll bring him out in the early morning and I’ll finally get to see him. Until then, I watch and wait.

Tuesday, June 18

One glance outside at the dawning landscape and my heart lurches in my chest. A layer of sparkling frost is covering everything. I grab my winter coat and run outside, straight for the garden. The lettuce leaves are stiff, so is the cabbage, the cauliflower - oh, I can’t spend anymore time in horror. Quickly, I run for the hoses, set sprinklers and water flowing before the sunlight hits the frost and kills everything in the garden and flowerbeds. Well into morning, when the sun is high and strong, I turn the water off, and step through the garden gate, nervous, hopeful. All is well. All is well. All is well!

Wednesday, June 19

By day’s end, it’s too hot for us. We’ve been working outside all day, Maggie Mae and I (well, one of us worked), and all we can think of is finding water to cool us off. We hop in the car and hit the gravel road, windows down, nose out, ears flapping. All the way to where we cannot drive any more. Then, we get out and hike over the lumpy way, higher and higher to the place where the creek flows down, criss-crossing the road like a three strand braid. We wade and splash in that ice-cold water, our feet go numb in seconds. Oh, June.

Thursday, June 20

His truck rumbled down the driveway, finally home after those hundreds of miles away. His girls are thrilled to see him. He stopped midway across the lawn, set down his armload of suitcase, backpack, and bag, ruffling Maggie in a big hello, then grabbing me around the waist and kissing me sound in a hello of our own. Then, he said, I brought you something. He went back to the open door of his truck, reached in, and pulled out a bouquet of wild sweet clover, and handed it to me. Those spires of yellow blooms, that sweet, sweet scent, took me back to the day, fifteen years ago, when we drove into this corner of Wyoming with a fully loaded U-Haul truck, trailer, and a mini van heavy with boys, and balls, and books, finding our new place in the foothills of these mountains, and how the last hundred miles of highway was lined with blooming sweet clover, waving us in, bringing us home.

Friday, June 21

A text dinged through on my phone, Hey, it’s Pete the cherry guy! I’m here today and tomorrow with nice rainier cherries. $20 a bag. Pete and his family have been trekking across the divide from Washington state for years, bringing cherries to all of us who live where cherries don’t grow. I remember his kids as toddlers, his youngest as a nursing babe-in-arms, selling cherries at the stand he and his wife set up in the same spot, every time, on the busy street in town. I pull in now, and walk up to the tented table spread with cherries bagged and ready to go. Pete remembers me. You made it just in time, he said, I’ll be sold out in an hour. It feels like a big win. And how is your family, I ask. They’re all well. We have a teenager now, and the youngest is seven, he says. We marvel together at how that can be. I reach for a bag of cherries, and hand over my card. I’m tempted to buy two, but other cars are pulling up and I want to leave enough to go around. I wave to Pete. He’ll be back again at intervals until late July, following the cherry harvests east.

Saturday, June 22

June 22, the day of the big cotton snow. I come home from town and it’s coming down in a heavy storm of downy white puffs. It covers everything. The lawn and porch are white. It’s drifted against the door. I open the door and it swirls inside. I go out for another load of groceries and follow the faint path I trudged minutes ago, already filling in. Maggie gets the zoomies and tears around the house, a swirling plume of cotton exhaust exploding in a wake behind her. Meanwhile, Peanut sleeps soundly on the picnic table, slowly, silently, getting buried in fluff.