Since last Monday, Brenda and I have been hosts to Wendy, my daughter and her two girls, Olivia and Anna Belle.
Yesterday, we drove to the Pecan Tree Pasture for a picnic at 11:00 a.m. to beat the heat of late-spring June. We had ham sandwiches, potato chips, cookies, white wine and Crystal Lite.
I had shredded the grass underneath the pecan tree with the Case DX-55 several days ago and we spread two tarps and several Mexican blankets on the tarps to provide a buffer from bugs and sticky grass. We stayed in the shade for over an hour and even reclined and rested on the blankets, looking up into the tree. I dozed slightly.
Looking Up from the Picnic (June 2010, Photo by B. Matthews)
Making this picnic a bit more eventful (or painful, depending on your taste), I sang two songs, “O Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie” and “Ghost Riders In the Sky,” songs I knew almost all the words. I also quoted some poetry, improvised of course, in honor of the shade of the pecan tree and the slight breeze that cooled us. Not a good piece of poetry, but my heart was in it.
Comments from the family:
Brenda: “It’s pretty hot here. I forgot the Love Dip.”
Wendy: “Isn’t this so nice under the sacred pecan tree….We will always remember this.”
Brenda: “If it was Sunday, we wouldn’t hear as much traffic on the highway.”
Olivia: “There’s a bug!…Where are the pecans?”
Anna Belle: “Goo, goo, burble, burgle, chkk.”
Picnic Snooze (June 2010, Photo by W. Needham)
Sage to Meadow ~ Jack Matthews 