Happy Father's Day

 

 

I hope you have a wonderful day, Dad. No card in the world can express our love and gratitude on Father's Day, but our sister Marji, a talented writer, wrote this lovely remembrance story as a homage to you, mom and our childhood on the farm. 

Love you!

AN HOMAGE TO THE FAIRIES
AND MOM AND DAD, TOO


For a few magical years when they were little, Bunny, Suzy, and baby Davey Crockett lived with their parents on a family farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.  Their Mommy and Daddy worked constantly, with only Sundays off for church and a big family dinner at Grammy’s.  There was no time for parental hovering, or anything like ‘structured play’.   But without fail, every night while their father was in the barn milking the cows, their mother would read to them.  Before any of them could read for themselves they knew Bible stories, fables, and mythology.  They heard classical stories and fairy tales, adventures of all kinds, cowboys and pirates and clever detectives.  And after about an hour, when their father came in from the cows, they said their prayers, were tucked into bed, and left alone with their imaginations.  

There were some dangerous times and places on the farm.  The heavy tractors, farming equipment, and the huge dairy cows were constantly coming and going from the big barn.  There was a pig pen and a chicken coop, the cool milk house, the aged wooden smoke house, and the dark stone spring house.  The children knew to avoid these places, as well as the cellar bugs and the attic bats in the farmhouse.

Their realm was the swing set and the sand box next to the kitchen garden in the back yard.  They were allowed to roam in the garden and whenever they were hungry for a snack they could eat any vegetable they wanted.

In the spring they had hiding places in their “daffodil land” along the giant lilac hedge that bordered the front yard.  In summer they could take a path through the pasture and down to the creek, where they built dams of stones and sailed boats made from leaves and pieces of bark.   They could mound the fallen leaves to make autumn forts, and scoop the winter snow into castles and snowmen.

So in this environment you might understand how it was that the children came to interact with the fairies.  

These were not the ‘high elves’ of J.R.R. Tolkein, nor the malicious tricksters of the old Grimm fairy tales.  These tiny, quiet creatures were their neighbors and friends.  They too avoided the dangerous places on the farm, visited the garden, and inhabited the places where the children played.

When you look carefully, and with a child’s eyes, you really can see the difference between a swarm of fire flies – they called them lightning bugs - and the flickering of tiny lanterns on the twilight lawn.  In their world the little inconsistencies around them soon added up to evidence.  That ripe cherry tomato that Bunny knew would be perfect tomorrow did not disappear overnight by itself.  No indeed, it was carried away for tomato soup in a sling on the back of a hungry fairy!  And a good many of the green pea pods were carried off as well.  

They had much in common.  They kept each other safe.  Both the children and the fairies were respectful of the bees and afraid of the wasps.   A painful sting to a child would be a fatal blow to a fairy.  Wasp nests were quickly reported so they could be sprayed with DDT, and the fairies were grateful for this assistance.

There was a flock of geese that guarded the lane and the barn.  If anyone dared approach them they would raise a cacophony of noise, lower their heads, hold out their wings, and run towards you.  Their hissing sounds were terrifying and they would bite, too.  Nobody, child or fairy, messed with the geese.  

The fairies kept their distance from both the barn and the house cats, too. They mounted their own defenses against any rodents who dared venture into the  garden.  Sometimes a great battle would occur in there, and tracks and loose fur could be seen the following morning.

Most of their fairy friends lived in small caves under the lilac hedge, but some fairy cousins lived at the edges of the fields and along the creek, too.  They were, of course, very shy, but could be glimpsed from time to time, just “out of the corner of your eye”.  And as you know, you need only recognize something once, and then the reality of it stays with you.   When they left the farm and moved to Colorado it was not difficult for them to see where the woodland fairies lived in the mountains.  

We’re told that the ancient peoples acknowledged spirits in their environment; and their shamans were closely attuned to nature.  Folklore is full of references to protective creatures.  Even today, when so much of our natural world is obscured, there are still magical places in nature, from the most spectacular parks to the smallest corner gardens.   
 
Now that they’re adults their appreciation of the natural world is just part of their character, their need for contact with the outdoors is subconscious.   Each has a home of their own with yard and garden, and each space is well groomed:  lawns mowed, planting beds weeded, and shrubbery trimmed – except …   

Sue’s blog spot frequently features photos of her flower garden.  In her ‘Welcome June’ post she writes, “The garden is green and purple right now, very soothing to the eye with only the alliums and Japanese iris blooming.  Soon it will be a chaos of bright, clashing primary colors.  The roses and other annuals were planted hodgepodge over many years, without a thought to color coordination.  We like it that way.”

Dave’s back yard is bordered by a huge laurel hedge, and the sides filled with lilac bushes that he says “grow relentlessly”.

No one calls her Bunny anymore, and her yard is manicured by a professional landscape service.  Except for the two back corners where no pruning is allowed;  those spaces are for the birds and the lizards.

You’d have to know their history to understand why they still have it – but they do.  Somewhere deep in their hearts there is always a need for something wild and beautiful and magical.  An homage to the fairies.