Poppies will make them sleep

June is almost over. We have planted the garden and already harvested peas, spinach, radishes, beets, and swiss chard. The corn is already well more than knee-high and the potatoes, both Kennebec and Yukon gold, are thigh-high and flowering. The strawberries are gone, the chipmunks got the last of them, and I am now re-working the bed for next year. I've given away 45 strawberry plants to neighbors and have probably 30 more yet to give away! It's remarkable.

The raspberries beckon. They are chest high and covered with small, light brown berries that, watched every day as I do, will never ripen into the miraculous red, luscious color that I envision.

But, oh, the poppies . . . . They are in bloom now in the front garden, surrounding the white bird house I put up last year. We have a pair of wrens that are nesting in the house at the moment. We had chickadees earlier, but they are long gone. The male wren built two nests in the house and sat on the roof top and sang until I thought his throat was going to burst before he got a girl to move in with him. Apparently she is happy with his construction and I see them both taking turns going in and out. Likely she has laid the eggs by now, but I know the babies are not hatched yet because when they are, the parents will begin the frantic, taking-turns race to feed them. In between carrying in hundreds and hundreds of little garden larvae, they carry out small white sacs, the size of a medium pearl, which are the baby birds' poop. They keep a tidy nest and I appreciate that. Plus they eat like there's no tomorrow.

But back to the poppies. Here is a picture.

They are amazing, dancing, frilly ladies. Revlon should do a whole lipstick and nail polish line based on these colors. They are everything from pale pink and pale lavender to melon, coral, and deepest, darkest red. They only last a day or two, but they left my spirits in the morning when I walk out, coffee cup in hand, to see which ones are in bloom that day. I think perhaps this may be the year I get arrested for growing them.

61-YEAR-OLD GRANDMOTHER ARRESTED FOR GROWING OPIUM POPPIES IN HER FRONT YARD!

Technically in a no-man's zone of neither legal nor illegal to grow, opium poppy seeds are getting harder to come by. Most seed companies no longer sell them in the US. It is odd that they are the source of life-saving pain-killer drugs, as well as illegal street drugs that ruin life after life.

But I digress. There is always work to be done at the farm. Don has arm-wrestled the pool from a murky green mess into a clear, blue circle. The lawn needs mowing. There are always weeds to pull in the garden. The rototiller must be taken apart for the 5th time and reassembled in an attempt to use it just a few more times before it dies altogether. The house probably needs cleaning. And yet, and yet . . . with all that work to be done, I still find myself having vast, uncharted periods of boredom. I woke this morning at 3:30 from a troubling dream about my son. "Oh, Mom, for heaven's sake!" I can hear him say. But Moms are great worriers. I haven't heard from my daughter in a week. And even that is amazing since she works 90-100 hours a week and barely has time to even turn around, much less call her mother. I miss my children and my grand-children. How did I wind up in the middle of Michigan with a child on the East Coast and a child on the West Coast?

I have asked my husband for one more baby and one more adventure. The baby I already have. Cricket is snoozing on the couch nearby as I write. But the adventure . . . ah, the adventure is yet to come.