For loving days: another farm wedding!

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the bouquet I carried in our daughter's wedding, dried in l'atelier;

with my stick woman

I love a wedding, with its organza and lace, armfuls of flowers, pretty white chairs, music, sacred ceremony, and dancing, though part of me would like to avoid expensive wedding balls, if they are built on prestige and poppycock. As for Valentine's Day, I have always felt that love is for every day, and a box of chocolates, though tasty, lacks a bit by way of imagination.

But ain't love grand? Mais bien sûr! Our son is just engaged to be married to a woman he is in love with, and so are we. They will be married here on our hobby farm in August, three years to the month after his sister was married to her love here on the farm. (I posted about their wedding here.) Once again we get to mix satin and straw, quilts and lace with Queen Anne's lace, golden sunflowers and golden rings. There will be games, Mason jars with lemonade and beer, blackberries and golden raspberries, family and friends, torches and bonfires, music and laughter, kisses and tears. These are our children, grown and happy. And won't James be bouncy in his seven-month baby fat watching Unkie Pete wed his bride and new auntie? Or will he be crawling after a damselfly dressed up in gorgeously iridescent tulle wings?

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seven

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Seven is the number of wholeness and completion. This week we complete seven whole years living on this little farm. I've filled pages at this blog with farm joys since our second winter here. Today I'm planting wee memory haiku in the soil, like crocus bulbs. I was going to plant seven, but an eighth nudged its way in. Let's say the eighth is for the year ahead.

1shopping for a country house

here’s the driveway, stop!

tree embrace. seduced.

you’re ours, they whisper

2winter modesty

nothing but lace above

white sheet below

bare arms, chilly

3Pleiades orgy

cold night, hot tub

lucky man

one woman, and her seven sisters

4laundry joy

sun and wind call:
to Lake Michigan!
she replies, I'm coming!
as she hoists her sails

5how do you do?

let me introduce myself

come outside

I'm nature

6pendulous

heavily they fall

bounce in the grass

soften

7farm wedding

August rain
waters plum vows
100 people become one

8pharoah’s dichotemy

seven years

abundant leanness, or lean abundance

wet sky, dry sky

does it matter?

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Note: Image of the Pleiades found here.-

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The Wedding Plum

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Photo by Bella Pictures

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One year ago on August 1, right here in the orchard under a cathedral tent where apple and pear trees circled us, we witnessed the marriage of a woman and a man. They, Lesley and Brian, with their grandpas and Lesley's dad, planted a Wedding Plum tree, not a tradition I've heard of specifically with plums, but when we decided to plant a tree in the orchard as a symbol of a new life together, Don asked what fruit it should be. "A plum, it has to be a plum," I said. During Lesley and Brian's ceremony, Nature contributed its perfect gift: a warm, tender rain that watered the Wedding Plum.

In the spring, it blossomed.

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Today, one year later, there is ONE plum on the Wedding Plum tree, one solitary singular sole unique significant plum. I find this to be a very plum plum (remember Hana feeding a plum to the English Patient, scraping the fruit from the skin with her teeth and feeding it to him as if he was a baby bird?). The bride and groom will be here in a few days from NYC, and they will have to decide what to do with this dandy plum -- maybe eat it like a bride and groom going after the same piece of wedding cake, slobber slobber. There was no unity candle at the wedding, remember those? There was a unity plum tree.

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August 1, 2009 was among the happiest days of my life. To see our precious daughter joined with a man who is perfect for her, to gain a new son whom we adore, to be surrounded with family and friends, to have planned and prepared for this celebration right here where we live and have it turn out better than we could have hoped (so much love, you could feel the energy, like a beautiful veil), even with "dreaded" rain that turned out to be a surprising gift, was just stupendous! (Here's my original post of the wedding.)

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 Don, me, Lesley, Brian & Peter
Photo by Bella Pictures

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These silly Japanese beetles heard that it was Wedding Plum Day, and so they . . . . um . . . . celebrated. First they made some wedding lace in the plum tree leaves. Then they had a wedding . . . type . . . unifying embrace. Isn't that charming? (Personally, I think they should hide behind their lacy leaf veil.)

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Ready to dance

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One summer you're madly sprucing up the farm for your daughter's wedding. You think you're not going to get everything done, even though your husband is a teacher with summers off and is devoting every hour of sunlight to wedding preparation. And not just him. You can still see Nancy on her knees scraping and painting the porch, Bootsie in her farmy bib shorts staining four Adirondack chairs Don built, Jennifer meditatively pulling weeds around the veggies and flowers and painting your studio roof, Peter shoveling dirt bare chested or bending over his Macbook creating the dance music play list, Don planting, grooming, tango-ing with sunflowers to get them to bloom, and promenading to and fro orchestrating all the activity according to Lesley's creative direction from a distance in NYC. You -- you do laundry, lend a hand here and there, throw pasta with tomatoes and basil onto white plates alfresco like a swing dancer throws a jitterbug. It takes months of love and help, last minute flourishes and light-hanging by Don's sisters and brothers, and in the end - twist and shout! - the occasion is beyond wonderful.

Comes fall. Maple leaves dervish around the barns. Then winter, and snow fills up the bowl of the meadow. You watch red and brown cardinals ornamenting the big spruce from your red chair. Then spring, and velvet lilacs welcome you home from work with their French blue waltz in the driveway. Now, with summer almost completely open, a perfect dress for a wedding appears ON SALE for $39 (it was $150), and yet there are . . . . . no wedding invitations in your country mailbox. You could wear the dress Farm Day August 7, but it would be over the top more than just a tad. You and Don could groove up your farm life a little bit in the Great Hall of the Wharton Center listening to Joe Lovano for a couple hours, and go dancing after. Wait a minute, is there any place to go dancing around here?

The dress is a wall flower, waiting to be asked.

On the other hand, there is no wedding to plan -- Woohoo!

Oh dear, there is no wedding to plan. Boohoo.

But no worries, you can come on over to my place, 'cause
. . . . everybody gonna dance tonight . . .





Lorenzo of The Alchemist's Pillow - an excellent blog with art, music, beautiful poetry and humor - pointed a nice finger at RUMI DAYS. Go see who dances on his shoulders.

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remnants of the day

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I'm not very good at putting things away. Going on three months after Lesley & Brian's wedding, there is still evidence of it out in plain view. Peter's wedding shoes in which he stood as Man of Honor for his sister are on the living room floor, and Lesley's cleaned and boxed gown sits in the treadmill room. Peter has no need or room for these shoes on the ship, and Lesley & Brian already have more books, pots & pans and clothes than they can accommodate in their small NY apartment. Where would they store this big box, on top of the TV?



We ourselves have too much stuff. Don and I grumble about it now and then.

But let me veer from that thought. Let's look at the stuff. I want to express gratitude for the ones who make it. I look at Peter's beautiful shoes, or Lesley's dreamy gown made by Mika in NY, and when I stop and think of the skill and dexterity it took to make them, I have to pause.

Once when I ventured to Chicago alone for a few hours at the Art Institute, I took lunch in the little garden restaurant. When you eat alone you have to occupy yourself somehow. I had a journal and pen, and before I requested my food, while I ate it, and afterward, I sat and jotted down all the professions involved within my small sphere at that table. There was my waiter, Dan, and the cook, Charlie. A farmer named Joe raised the vegetables and the chicken was probably grown in one of those big factories. Elsa at a pasta company poured ingredients into a big vat to mix the dough. There was the dishwasher Sammy who might have burned his hand with the steamy sprayer. Sarah ran the machine that manufactured the linens after a farmer named Michael grew the flax (read here if you think that's an easy job). Todd designed and laid out the menu and another few people printed and laminated it. Who made the plastic for the lamination? Ellen designed the plates and glasses, and Leiton mixed the ingredients and molded them in just the right process. Lisa in brown delivered the big boxes of heavy dishes to the restaurant at the end of a long day of deliveries, at about 6:30pm. And of course there were many other designers, planners and makers - just around my restaurant table.

I have not done any of these things. I've cooked, but not for a whole restaurant. I could probably design a menu. But I would have no clue how to pour the ink into a machine to print it. Have you noticed how we notice mistakes and flaws (Just look at that splotch of ink there!), but rarely do we notice, let alone appreciate, a job well done in the normal realm of daily life?

To make a pair of shoes?! That is an art that has always fascinated me. What a collection of tools a shoemaker must have to craft those gorgeous seams and shape the heel! Look at this shoemaking book illustrating how to "last the back" with pincers, nails, and patience. Or better yet, watch this 3 minute video of a guy making a shoe by hand. See how important his own bare feet are:





I could probably have sewn Lesley's wedding gown, but would she have wanted to wear it? Poor thing. She would have, to please her mother. In the last photo, taken by the wedding photographer Mihaela Avasiloaie, Lesley's gown which was made by Mika, thank goodness, waits for her to put it on behind the spinning wheel that was passed down on my mother's side. Someone made that old piece of technology with their hands - carving, sanding, waxing and assembling so it works (still works). What women spun wool on this wheel? Lesley dreams of raising her own sheep, shearing them and spinning wool for knitted garments she designs. Imagine the satisfaction in the completion of that circle. She won't be doing that in NYC. Some stuff has to be spread out.

Last photo by Mihaela Avasiloaie

pride and joy

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Peter has been home several months between the band's cruise ship gigs, bringing us humor, music, wittiness and creativity. He was his sister's Man of Honor and our man of help for the August wedding here on the farm. This baby o' mine leaves again in a few days for a third and maybe final three month gig. Last week the ship's official videographer Stephen graced the farm with boyish Vancouver sophistication (that's him on the left), and we ate a burger in our local tavern while they caught us up on their just completed documentary road trip to Chicago and Nashville. This will likely be Peter's last extended stay at home, since he hopes to move on to NY or London after the Hawaii tour, and I have the same melancholy I did in 2006 when he moved out after college and I wrote the prose poem below. There is pride and joy watching our daughter and son pursue their lives. And there is longing to remain with them always. Such is life as we accomplish just what we set out to do: help them on their way.

A Son Moves Out

Guitar picks sprout from the necks of multiple guitars lined up like timbers on the family room floor. The limbs of his body stiffen with the weight of a duffle bag and amplifier that seem to want to keep him planted here - oddly, since it's the music that's pulling him away.

A stump on the couch, I look out the door he opens, at willow fronds hooking and tossing their ochre against the snow field like fishing lines. A gust rolls through the house. I hold on to the couch. The fabric pleat flies up horizontally, the arm covers blow off. I dig my toes into the cushions.

Rooted, I stay. Like a twig, he goes.

Here is a 4 1/2-minute video of Bonnie Raitt singing my favorite of one of Peter's heroes, Stevie Ray Vaughan in a terrific version of Vaughan's "Pride and Joy."

the wedding

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We planned and rehearsed.














It took a lot of coordinating.




Some things didn't go according to plan. For instance, Don planted a thousand sunflowers, some for the ceremony site, some behind the barn for cutting for the reception tables. These by the ceremony bloomed. The hundreds behind the barn did not. What would we do for the reception tables? All those empty canning jars, bottles and vases we'd collected.





The morning of the wedding Don welcomed the fellow with the straw bales for a farm wagon our good neighbor Bill loaned us. I watched Don climb high up to help the power line stay clear. I pictured him breaking a leg.


We set up table and chair groupings around the yard with the chairs we collected through Freecycle. Remember when we were going to collect enough chairs for all the guests? We didn't get that far. You can see rental chairs set up for the ceremony there in front of the tent. We used old doors we found in the barn on straw bales for tables.






















Flowers from the florist waited in my studio.





Lesley's paper lanterns floated and tossed in the wind that started picking up on Saturday. Clouds accumulated, the sky darkened. The wedding was at 6, and by 5:30 we had phone calls from folks driving in through a torrential downpour. We women were in the house getting dolled up, and Lesley and I tried not to stress about rain.










By the time guests arrived, a soft rain had begun to fall. The chairs had been moved from the original ceremony site into the tent around tables. Most guests never knew it was meant to be outside.

They picked up their table seating cards from the laundry line.

A few minutes after 6 it was time to go! Don and I escorted Lesley from the house to the tent in the sweet rain, under a big golf umbrella. The photographer wouldn't let my hair get wet, although with all the product on it I don't think anything could touch it, nor could it possibly frizz.





The ceremony inside was cozy and romantic under the high reach of the tent.

Lesley's dad and grandpa, and Brian's grandpa (pictured here) joined them in planting a wedding plum tree. At that moment I knew the rain was a blessing, watering the tree at the start of a new marriage. Several guests informed me that rain is considered auspicious for a wedding.

Many people expressed how special the rain was. And I agree.









When the couple were married and the ceremony ended, the rain had stopped.

It was time for appetizers, wedding portraits and running around the farm.
This wedding arbor Don built saw a lot of people walk under and get their pictures taken.

Guests sat and chatted at the seating areas. These are Brian's relatives from Texas, including his mom in brown. Lesley is so fortunate to have Julia for a mother-in-law.














My three sisters and I had our picture taken with our daughters.







These vintage windows from the farm were hung with some snapshots of Lesley and Brian.






















Lesley's brother Peter was Man of Honor, and her best friend since age 10 Michelle was Matron of Honor. If happy, fun energy made the world go 'round, these three alone would keep it in operation.

Peter was also in charge of the music at the reception and played his guitar in the ceremony. The wedding party processed to "Viva la Vida" the Coldplay song, Peter playing it on guitar.

It was fantastic connecting with old friends we don't see often, as well as family from distant places. Dennis, below, was Best Man at our wedding.









My dear friend Inge made the rounds. Here she is with my nephew Nathan who officiated the ceremony.






Twenty-five percent of the guests were children. You think they didn't love Don's birds?

I wish someone had gotten a picture of just the parking lot next door. Our neighbors let us use their field.



When the sun set and the moon rose, the tent and the farm became like a fairyland. I love this photo of my nephew Paul's.

Don and I completely missed the cutting of the cake. We were looking for crayons and paper for the kids playing in the studio. You can see that there are sunflowers on tables. At our suggestion, a few guests cut some of the ones by the original ceremony site and placed them in the glass vessels.

Lesley's cousin Todd and his wife Lisle were host and hostess. Lisle is a teacher, so they played the role of teacher and principal, it was so cute.

I wish I could dance. Well, I did dance, but that doesn't mean I can dance. Now Julia, Brian's mom above in the brown silk suit, she can dance. Peter's playlist was fabulous, and I think most of the guests danced, especially the kids. He had some special songs so Julia could show us her line dance steps. I have no idea where they got all their energy. You can see Nicholas here dancing at Peter with his grandma, my sister Ginnie, looking on.

What is a wedding?

Is it flowers? Hairdos? Lights, cake and a lovely homily? The loving, attentive guests who fly in from around the country?

Yes, those things make up a wedding. But the marriage - now that it is different matter entirely. But wow, I love how this one began.











I have to acknowledge the "it would not have been possible without them" gang:

Lesley (planning) Brian (planning)
Don (everything)
Peter (music, painting, cleaning, organizing, humor)
Nancy (envisioning, planning, scraping, painting, cleaning, sweeping, light hanging, what did I miss . . .)
Jennifer (painting, weeding, weeding and weeding)
Bootsie (scraping, painting, staining, photographing, what did I miss . . . )
Grandpa (hanging windows)
Pam (lights, etc.)
Barb (lights, etc.)
Sally (lights, etc.)
Dan (lights, etc.)
Diane (lights, etc.)
Mike (lights, hanging windows, barman, etc.)
Chadd (bar - oops)
DeeDee (taking pictures with my camera)

Special thanks to Bootsie (Ginnie), Paul and Jaclyn for sharing their photos. I did not have my camera in hand, of course. And the official photographer's images are a couple of weeks away. I tried to label each picture with their names, but I had a hard time with formatting and gave up, I apologize to the photographers. You can see their albums at the sites below.

Ginnie's wedding album is here.
Paul's wedding album is here.