We went for a wonder walk at dusk
The best gift my mother gave me is the habit of being astonished by the natural world. It's easy to forget to, but yesterday evening the happy pompoms in the chive bed caught my eye as I was heading to tuck the kiddo in early. It's finally not dark at bedtime again!
We had to prod our now tween out the door to the gardens, something they used to beg to do every night before bed just to stay up a little later, but sometimes starting is the hardest part of doing.
First we visited the Columbine, its happy flowers going this way and that, creating a frenzy of colors that look like little space ships or jelly fish. And those happy chive flowers lead us over to the white Calla lilies just popping in the oranges and pinks of the sunset sky. We lost count of the number of little hard green plums on the tree and enjoyed smelling the last few rootbeer scented iris' blooming. We made notes in the ombre of the Creeping Jenny as it heads into where the sun shines all day and checked for baby parsley seedlings that should already be greeting us. We talked about the lettuce almost ready to feed us and how small the marigolds are now compared to November.
And then real magic happened. The kind of thing that will immortalize my mother to me deeper than any trauma or recipe... While we ceremoniously enjoyed the first half dozen peas we found surrounded by happy delicate flowers promising a huge harvest, my kiddo noticed a wonder.
We have a narrow but deep water feature with showy roses on either side, and a very clever spider has figured out how to build a web almost horizontally above the water to catch bugs as they pause for a drink!
It was too dark to grasp the brilliance of this design with the naked eye, but with the help of a phone light we watched as mosquitoes foolishly entrapped themselves and our clever friend rushed to efficiently process it's feasts.
The little solar pump we used to keep the water moving to prevent mosquitoes had given up it's ghost last fall and we discovered dragonflies had made a home in our little pond so we had not yet found a solution to that puzzle. It looks like a spider friend with above average intelligence was all we needed!
Getting settled down for sleep was harder for my tween after that dopamine boost, but if finding astonishment can become their habit through the harder years of development, then maybe... Just maybe... they will live a happily simple life.