A grand Farewell To Wildflowers

Looking out the windows of The Night Club, I see the outside world all around me. The parched earth and it’s browning grass that earlier this year were so over saturated with rain… For what felt like the last two years the rain fell and never seemed to stopped… Eventually the cloudy skies and the outdoor mood wore on our own internal mood here in New England. But now, the ground is dry. The sun shines, and the sky is a beautiful shade of blue.

The autumn leaves, in a plethora of unbelievably bright beautiful colors have danced with the wind from high up down to the ground that they now cover like a blanket. Protecting the earth from the coming cold. The air smells crisp and bright. It smells of the end of harvest… It’s odd, I feel like it should smell like mud but it doesn’t… Not this year, even though what should be our usual mud season is well underway. Climate Change has stolen the last few of our winters, this year it has come for mud season also.

The now naked skeletal trees reach up to the sky. Tonight perhaps they will choose to try to touch the glowing moon. For now they seem satisfied to simply stand out against the cerulean backdrop above them. The first little bit of chill has opted to begin entering the air, the trees must feel it in their nakedness. The small wood stove is lit now most evenings and a cozy warmth permeates the interior of the old fashioned farmhouse. The fire’s crackles selecting to speak out audibly in the dim glow of low lights that help us relax after the intense shining from the day star during the hours of light. I wish there were a way to invite in the living trees of our woods to enjoy the cozy with us. They look cold. Like the wildflowers, they allow themselves to be dependent on the earth outdoors. I miss the colors they espouse in autumn when the sun shines through their leaves it looks like the trees drip with bright jewels… But the earth is set on having the blanket the trees offer, even more than I need the beauty of a New England autumn. We all need our cozy here over the winter months.

I am sick today, pneumonia. So for the first time in ages I have some time and fortunately this blog has been further fixed making it worth while to begin to try harder to bring it back to life. Kind of odd when pneumonia acts for this blog as the Necronomicon, acts for a corpse… If you don’t get the reference you need to read more. Anyway, I am writing this as it often feels, a bit late. On a small farm sometimes you get to things when you get to things.

Not long ago now, the last of the wildflowers that gift this farm it’s name passed. When spring decides to return they will spring back to life. But until then we say a sorrowful farewell to the beauty that lights this place up. In the evening just after dark the wildflowers can be seen playing with the lightning bugs as they whiz around the edge of the woods blinking on and off like toddlers making decisions with a light switch. During big summer thunder storms our flowers are beautiful lit up by lightning flashes. They stand fearless as the thunder rolls offering it’s hand picked response. In the sunshine, the wildflowers seem to smile making us feel a warm and happy vibe. They lighten the mood and add some color to our green space.

I view the wildflowers as siblings to myself, native children of the great region of New England, like myself. Sister savage daughters standing together to withstand mother New England’s climate and seasons.

Everywhere has a climate and season, all around us our neighboring regions too have chosen to change the season. People, much like nature make choices. Some of them historically have been beautiful and good. Like when flowers choose to bloom. Some dark and terrible, for example choosing to abuse and mistreat Others, in hopes of bringing down the price of eggs, have been cruel and ugly. Some things are priceless like the cerulean blue of the sky and the light the sun gives. Human decency that has now been defaulted on is one of those priceless things. It breaks my heart each year when the flowers wither and fall back into the earth. This year my heart breaks doubly watching human beings decide the cost of compassion is a nickel too high. I miss the flowers like family when they are gone. Much as I imagine in the coming days many will miss their families, tossed out like rubbish into the compost pile.

Unfortunately the flowers can’t come with me inside to hibernate as New Englanders do over the winter months. They need the outdoors and they are dependent on the seasons even more so than I am… As many people depend on a society they have chosen to systematically dismantle. In a few months we will have a joyous reunion the flowers and I, spring will come. Until then, I will visit with my old friend wood stove fire, and dream of sunshine and time spent with my pretty siblings the wildflowers. I will dream of a time now past when I had faith in the choices of those people in the regions surrounding me. A part of me loves the winter cozy, hunkering down, isolating myself from the darkness and cold as well as from the cold hearts that have just made themselves known.

Winter allows me time to reflect on who I want to be as a person I hope others take this terrible time to do the same. And so we say a grand hello to evening fires, we say hello to being like the wood stove fire a warm light when all light around us has been put out by cold people selling the priceless and replacing it with cruelty. We say a sad farewell to the wildflowers that have passed and will return in the spring. This is all we can do.

Thank you for reading
I hope in this troubling time you  are finding safe harbor
Somewhere warm and cozy, somewhere safe
from the coldness of human beings embracing hate and bigotry
to save a nickle on the cost of eggs.
As a farmer with eleven years of experience,
I must say, the policies voted for will raise the price of eggs not lower them.
Voting for hate and bigotry is expensive on so very many levels….
Human decency, and our greater human family are priceless like the wildflowers….
It is tragic so many have chosen to forget that.
May we all be safe and may this time period pass without too much horror and upheaval.
Amanda of Wildflower Farm