This spring, my outdoor rhythm has been somehow, off…  Usually well before now we have a nice pattern going of things we do outdoors and things we do indoors and times of day for each….with the vast majority of the time falling in the ‘outdoor’ category.  But this year something didn’t seem right, we didn’t just fall into our regular groove.  Then one day it occurred to me that it wasn’t comfortable.  There were things to do and stuff to keep us busy, plenty to look at and explore… and sun on sun on sun.  So much sun!  Eight years in the woods and I’m not used to it.  Don’t get me wrong, I like it and the plants love it.  But every time we were out doing our things I would start to feel a bit parched.  And baked.  And oppressed.  And after a time it would drive me back inside.  And make me hesitant to go back out again.  But I never really thought about why.

When I finally thought about it, I realized that the solution was so very simple…make a place to sit in the shade.  DUH.  I found two chairs that a former tenant had left behind, drug them under a big old tree and it was as easy as that.

I potted up some shade tolerant flowers to make it more pleasant.  Just like that our outdoor life started to work again.  My favorite part is when we all take our handwork out to this very spot in the afternoon.