I still don’t see myself as a gardener. I garden.   Certainly, the farmers market has increased my role as a gardener — I appreciate the harvest. I love the food and I’m willing to work for it.  But, I’ve never dreamed of being a gardener.  I still chuckle when people ask me for gardening advice at the farmer’s market.  Don’t ask me. Ask my husband, he’s the gardener. The garden would not exist without my husband. He will tell you he loves to garden. I am merely his apprentice. His migrant worker.  In fact, my husband loves gardening so much he carved a golf course out of the woods around our house — I think, just so he could be a grounds keeper.

And he has been very busy preparing for the annual solstice golf party at the Eden of Garden (our home sweet homestead).  The gardens were in fine shape. Highly admired by all the attendees.

The game is “goofy golf”, it is played with a whiffle golf ball, and there are 9 holes marked by red flags. You don’t actually putt the ball into a hold, you need only get the ball within a club’s length of the flag pole. People tend to think its fun to play once a year, so friends come from near and far, mostly far, for a weekend of solstice fun. It is our big social gathering of the season.

Just like the parties/celebrations held by Ma and Pa in “Little House in the Big Woods”, people come from so far away they make a weekend of it.  Bring your tent. Everyone comes together and breaks bread.  The best potluck yet, everything from authentic Mexican to spicy Thai, to good ol’ potato salad. Goofy golf with an actual engraved plaque. Music. Guitars, washtub base and drum played around the campfire. People take turns stepping up to the base. It is fun. Sauna. First women. Then men. Then tequila. Then howling at the moon and the milky way as clear as you will ever see it.

Happy Solstice.