Our children, my parents, brother and sisters, nieces and nephews, their partners and other relatives have all returned to their homes around Maryland and in Connecticut, Colorado and Florida, and our house is quiet again. Norm and I both have something here that we never had in upstate New York: our extended families.

When relatives visit from out of state, it becomes family reunion time. In the past week and a half, we have hosted or attended multiple picnics and backyard campfires, restaurant meals and banquets and a farewell breakfast. Today our house is empty but for me and the cat, and I am catching up on the laundry.

Perfect Weather for Cutting Lavender

This morning was just slightly breezy, cloudy and cool, but dry, perfect for cutting lavender, so that is what I did. The tiny plants that I had set out beneath the front windows of the living room seven years ago are now three feet high and just as wide across, luring the bumblebees from the nearby coneflowers with their sweet sharp scent.

I snipped the long stalks with their just-opening florets and bundled them with cotton twine for hanging to dry from the Shaker pegs above the dry sink in the dining room as I did back in Hamilton.

Many years ago, Norm and I used to grow and dry herbs to sell at the Hamilton Farmer's Market and at local craft fairs. I would sit at our oak dining room table, stripping the lavender buds from their stems into a huge bowl and tying them into calico sachets with ribbon.

We would cut bushel baskets full of Silver King Artemisia, which I coiled into bases for dried herb and flower wreaths. I mixed up potpourris and teas with rose petals and mint. We no longer need to grow large quantities for sale to customers, but I will put small vases of dried lavender stalks in the bedrooms upstairs, because the scent of lavender is known to be a natural sleep aid.

Nature's Ahead of Schedule this Spring

Everything is growing ahead of its usual schedule this spring and the garden is full and lush. The lettuce, spinach and radishes have finished their season and their rows have been replanted with green beans and beets.

The spring onions are nearly mature, and the tall stalks are beginning to drop sideways to the ground as the bulbs develop their papery skins and ready themselves for removal from the earth. When the necks are pinched and dry and the stalks have shriveled, we will pull them out and spread them on newspapers to finish curing on the table on the front porch, out of the sun and rain, before we trim their tops and store them in mesh bags hanging from hooks along the cellar stairs, where it is dry and cool but not too cold in the winter.

At one time, we would harvest nearly three bushels of yellow and red onions each year. I used to run short of bags, so I would braid the leathery stalks of the onions and tie them into a loop for the nail.

Bringing the Raspberries South

Norm has already proudly presented me with several quarts of big, rosy red raspberries. We always eat the first few out of hand, then we put them on our breakfast cereal, sprinkle them over vanilla yogurt and chocolate ice cream, then I bake them into coffee cakes and pies and finally, when production finally exceeds our ability to consume, I will freeze them and turn them into jelly. These raspberries are my husband's pride. He was given a dozen small rooted canes over thirty years ago by a Hamilton friend, and subsequently divided and nurtured them into a major source of fruit for our small family.

When we sold our house and eight acres, we gave a hand-drawn map of the many fruit tree and berry bush locations to the new homeowners and Norm dug a dozen small rooted canes from the periphery of his prized red raspberry patch to bring along south.

We have done what gardeners have always done. We brought our garden with us to our new home. And as gardeners have always done, we have sent roots and cuttings on to new homes in places far away.