Inner and Outer Space

The cypress near our garden. This is a mystifying new landscape for me.

Despite our continual busyness, Nathanael and I have been enjoying our thesis-free time immensely.  
We have already put much more work into our garden, but even that time has felt more relaxed, both because there are no obligations awaiting us at home, and because the drive between home and the garden ins much shorter.

Our garden a few weeks ago, when we were just beginning to plant

Nathanael is building a few rows of woven bamboo trellis to train our beans, melons, cucumbers and gourds upon, and they are such pretty structures. (I don't have pictures of those because he finished building them in the dark, but you will see them soon!)

It is really relaxing to work in the garden a few evenings each week, and it also feels productive.  The landscape surrounding our garden is beautiful, and gives us more pieces of Louisiana to appreciate, like the majestic cypress or the ever intriguing horsetail plants

One of the plants with highest silica, those ridges are good for scouring and buffing.

Each of these segments "pops" out and will click back into place...though it won't grow after that.

While moving some wood we uncovered some mysterious looking creatures that we have yet to look up.

They look like a cross between a stick bug and a crawfish.

Though I don't plan on eating one.

Seriously, if these came from another planet, how would we even know...why are we not as intrigued by their presence here as we would be elsewhere. Who knows, they may be trying to communicate.

In the evenings after gardening we have occasionally have a cup of Mexican hot chocolate (Abuelita), while Nathanael reads C.S. Lewis' space trillogy to me.  We are on the first book, Out of the Silent Planet.  I have never read (or listened) to them before, but so far I am intrigued and my imagination is getting some good exercise.  Additionally, C.S. Lewis' carefully crafted English makes listening (or reading) feel as though you are discovering the truest form of written communication, and when you are reading all of it aloud your mouth feels privileged to have such fine things to say.

So Lucy,
   I have selected this song for you this week because I have been thinking about exploring and about outer space, and actually a lot of people have been thinking about outer space this week.  And though we now know that none of the planets in our solar system have any (conspicuous) unearthly creatures and giant purple forests, the lands and spaces we will never personally visit will always drive our creative minds, whether those far away places be the in depths of the ocean, in the corners of the solar system or on other earthly continents.  Or actually, living right here in a state where didn't grow up has shown me creatures and forests to which I previously gave no thought, so I am beginning to realize that I don't need to travel far to be surprised.  For this song of the week, I have chosen Mercury from Gustav Holst's the Planets.  I think we all end up listening to the same ten or twelve classical music pieces all of the time (thanks pandora), while missing out on so many exciting and imaginative compositions. So please enjoy, while thinking of planets (and earthly spaces) undiscovered.

Note: Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis is a story about a trip to the planet we know as Mars (while the silent planet is earth), but I was more in the mood for Gustav Holst's Mercury. So, different planet.