It's Mother's Day, May and time to work in the garden!

May is here! Hooray!  Tomorrow is Mother's Day...Hooray!  Happy Mother's Day to the Moms out there!

I've been so full, working on plans for my trip. I began a campaign on Indie Go Go to fund raise for my artistic pursuits,education and travel plans. I am out in the gardens working hard.  This burst of activity may explain my quiet blog.

I'm getting back into the grove of gardening and I've been putting in full days. My body is feeling it.  That tired, physically worked all day feeling.  Which is so good... so is the sunshine, the sound of bird songs, gentle winds, and rain drops.  I feel pretty lucky to work outside all day most days of the week.

I had a lovely visit to Pennsylvania a week ago.  Although Mother's Day is tomorrow, I got to see and spend good time with my mother, mother-in-law and my grandmother which was all a real treat. I also got to spend time with my dad and father-in-law and my aunt and grandfather.  My plans for my ancestral, folk art trip this summer has inspired interesting conversations about family.  I looked at pictures with my Grandmother Stella who was born in Poland and moved to America at thirteen. She returned to Poland in 1985 on a trip and she shared images of places and relatives I will meet and see when over there. Images of great-great grandmothers and great-great-aunts who are no longer with us were in the mix of photos as well as images of cousins, as kids, that I will see when I am in Krakow.  One evening my mother pulled out old photos of her family which were nice to look through and prompted more stories and connections to be shared from mother to daughter. Stories were shared about my tug boat captain great grandfather, my English ancestry from northern England, my mothers' grandmother, grandfather, aunts, uncles and cousins who I never really knew. My husband's grandfather and mother were excited to share stories about Grandfather Morris' familial connections to Poland. 

My grandmother and I spent time in her Philadelphia row home garden. She pulled some wildflowers by their roots for me to take home and plant on my land. I remember sitting out there in lawn chairs as a kid and playing with my cousins. Grandmom Stella still loves to garden and at 86 spends time out there most warm, dry days. She likes to weed, rake and admire her flowers.  Her tulips are beautiful as well as her primrose. She keeps a statue of Mary in the garden to look over her plants. Last summer she came up to my place here in Massachusetts and loved looking at my garden.  The garlic that I harvested inspired her to plant her own garlic last fall which is now growing. She gives me a garlic report on every time we talk on the phone. All the photos were taken last week at Grandmom Stella's garden.