Were I a molecule, I’d make my home Within the vast halls of a solid stone, Pass through magnetic fields, ascend my throne And rule the echoes, permanent, alone,
And if I were a particle of light, I’d sear my burrow through the velvet night, With perfect elegance, prismatic might, And skewer darkness. Such would be my right,
But I am merely human. Sinew. Skin. Too large to hide—instead I’m hid within. A little righteousness. A little sin. One little word that flutters out and in.
I was thrilled when my newly planted peas came up within a few days. That was one benefit of the Hot Week, when it was over 100 degrees for many days in a row. The seeds were bedded in a temporarily partly shady place behind the zinnias and parsley, so the earth stayed moist.
They are petite and very cute, growing close together next to the tall trellis where I planned to train them upward… until after they were up I read online, and then confirmed it by checking the packet, that Sugar Ann snap peas are a Bush Type of plant, and typically grow only 1-2 feet tall. I have grown peas for more than half my life, so why would I have read the description and instructions?? The packet had been a kind gift a few months ago from Hearth and Field; my thought process on rediscovering them in my box of seeds went quickly from “Oh, goody!” to “Must plant these right away!” and I did that very efficiently.
Chartwell Sweet Peas
Efficiency is not one of the guiding principles of Hearth and Field, however, and I should have embarked on my pea project more in the spirit and manner of the vision expressed on the website of that journal:
Welcome to Hearth & Field!
We are the only journal you’ll find
that makes the internet move
at the pace and rhythm of real life.
Hearth and Field also quotes G.K. Chesterton at the top of that home page, saying,
“The simplification of anything is always sensational.”
I don’t have time to think more about how that second quote relates to my peas. [Update: I originally put something here about WinstonChurchill’s Chartwell peas, which I attributed to Chesterton, which is very embarrassing, and there is no way to fix it, so I removed it. Thank you to my blessed reader Amy who noticed.]
In Real Life, “Haste makes waste,” right? But that motto doesn’t convey quite everything about how I will need to spend an extra hour today that I was not planning on. I will transplant those little starts to the middle of the planter box, so as to free up the trellis for planting Green Beauty snow peas from Baker Creek, because it would be a waste of my beautiful trellis to do otherwise. This is how “the pace and rhythm of real life” works in real life!
