It rained. I was sick. I stayed in bed until after lunch, and my partner eventually found me sitting at the desk listlessly clicking through twitter-generated tabs. “Are you coming to plant the May pole in the compost heap? New pile of poo!” (Oh, you know how to talk dirty to a semi-pagan nascent farm girl.) So I unwrapped the blanket from my shoulders and put on a ski-jacket over the dress I was wearing over the pants. Also, the rubber boots from the Cape Breton Chic look (will set this link later. That feature seems not to be working.)
It has been raining for days, and looks to do so for days into the future. May pole dancing seems like a good idea when we are talking about it in mid-April on one of the rare warm days, but by the time May actually rolls around, it is mud season. So instead of dancing the beautiful dance of ribbon-weaving, we trudged around the edge of the property, a tiny parade of three, May pole in front, me bringing up the rear with a shovel. “Labyrinth?” he asked, as he began the walk. “Sure,” I said. “Bees?” he asked. “Better do the whole thing,” I answered. It’s sort of a pagan Pascal’s wager, along with a good walk in the woods. We neared the back of the property. “Go round the writing studio,” I requested. We also included the chickens, the mushrooms, and the garden, and ended by the new pile of composted horse manure, key to producing this year’s veggies. “Poo into food!” he said, and planted the May pole. Cycles within cycles, days within seasons, seasons within years, round and round the atoms go, food, water, waste, and back again to the foundation of the chain. Plants, animals, food for the worms, food for the plants. We admired the worms. The children climbed the pile, and rolled down. We hosed them down and bathed them, set out food for the friends and guests, made music and laughter.
And the cycles continue.