Bicycle Trail

I used to ride my bike a lot when I lived in Miami - to the pharmacy drive-through, around the neighborhood with friends, to the Post Office (back in the olden days, before Click-N-Ship), and to buy barbeque sandwiches and watermelon soda from the guy who worked a bbq stand from his pickup truck. In the summer, it was way too hot to ride during the day, so we'd go in the evenings, when it was a cool 85 degrees or so. If we wanted to ride on a trail, there was a flat, baking-hot loop of concrete that went through Shark Valley in the Everglades National Park - if you wanted the off-road experience, I guess you could try riding over one of the many alligators that sun themselves along the path.

During Michigan summers, it's rarely too hot for me to ride my bike, and there's definitely a shorter season for it, but there are some really pretty trails, with trees, rivers, and hills. We leave the truck at one of the parks, ride the trail around into the downtown area, get ice cream or visit with friends, then ride through town back to the park. I would say it's perfect if the summer in Michigan lasted longer and I weren't wearing an undershirt, long-sleeved shirt, and cardigan as I type this. In July.

June in Michigan has been unseasonably cold and it's not really felt much like summer. Also, we've had too much rain and now most of the peonies are lying on the grass like drunken debutantes.

A Peony from Our Garden

This is a peony that my son picked. When I told him that he hurt the flower, he asked it, "Are you alright?" Then said to me, "He's alright, Mama." Then when I put it in water, he said again, "See, he's alright." Can't argue with that logic.

A Day At the Farm

My son and I spent the afternoon at a farm. It's the childhood home of my best friend from elementary school; she and I fell in love over My Little Ponies in third grade at Catholic School. In the barn, there is the sweetest little black calf named Henry, who was abandoned by his mother and is being fed by bottle. We were able to give him his 1:00 feeding, and my son was thrilled! Hands-down the cutest thing I've seen in a long time - my happy little boy feeding a fuzzy baby cow a bottle of milk.

In the pasture, there's a pond where we used to swim with the horses on hot days when we were young. The kids splashed and caught tadpoles and filled their boots with water, while the dogs dove after a rubber ball. There is also a box full of kittens tucked into the hay in the barn and a foal that we watched nurse from his mother. Later, while I watched him climb on a tractor, play in the sandbox, and savor a grape popsicle, I knew I would be dragging a reluctant toddler to the car when it was time to leave. Just a very simple, storybook kind of day. :)

Oakdale Farm.

Looking out my bedroom window tonight, I'm enormously grateful that we chose to live here. The wind is blowing through the branches, rippling the water in our ponds and my son's new inflatable pool, and I can feel the breeze on my bare feet through the gaps between the wide pine plank flooring. Our barn looks romantic through the wavy glass of the window, charming with the slight sag in the center of the roof and the sign that reads, "Oakdale Farm.", as though the name is by itself a complete sentence. For me, I suppose it is. :)

I walk down the stairs with every third step creaking my descent, and see my son still playing in the backyard, driving his small cars in the dirt where I filled in a hole that his puppy dug so deep that I had to use dried leaves and grass clippings to help fill it in. My husband asks if he should bring him inside, it's way past his bedtime, and I look at my boy, so happy in the waning light, with the fifty-year-old white hydrangea swaying behind him and the almost-hatched peonies near his face, and I say, no, let him play.