It is still summer in Oslo, in fact, it's been quite a warm summer from mid-June until now. My garden is thriving; we've already eaten zucchinis and cucumbers that grew quickly in the summer heat. We will have a bumper crop of tomatoes this year--both regular and cherry tomatoes. Whenever I am away from the garden for a few days, as I was now while we vacationed in Hedmark, and then come back to the garden, I am always in awe of just how much growth can occur in the space of a few days. Yesterday was the first day I was back in the garden after having been away since Monday. There were gooseberries and raspberries to pick, and the blueberries are also starting to ripen. I still have a formidable job of berry-picking ahead of me. The two gooseberry bushes alone are weighed down by the sheer numbers of berries on them. As I was picking raspberries, I was competing for each berry with the honeybees, who are now sucking the nectar out of the raspberries. They did that last year as well, but there were very few of them. This year it's as though all the worker bees descended on the raspberry patch.
Today is the last day of July, and next week it will be back to work for most of us. I will finish out the month of August and then I am free forever of the work world. But that is another story for another time. Today I want to share with you Mary Oliver's beautiful poem The Summer Day. The feelings and thoughts she describes in her poem are about where I am in life at present--willing to immerse myself in the nature around me, willing to abandon myself to the awe and wonder of it all. A garden is God's manifestation of a miracle in nature; how a pollinated flower produces a long hanging cucumber is a mystery and a miracle at the same time. I never cease to be amazed by the power and beauty of nature. I have said it before, but it's worth repeating--it is no surprise to me that paradise is described as the garden of Eden. Paradise for me would have to be a garden.
The Summer Day
