Yesterday Bracken and I headed outside during a break in the rain and harvested the first St. John’s Wort flowers of the season (Bracken had picked a flower here and there prior and showed us the first ones blooming last week, but this was our first basket full.) It’s an activity that Bracken has been doing with me since he was just a wee thing. We brought our rain covered flowers inside and spread them out on screens, which Bracken really liked helping with this year. Then I set the screens across a drying rack near the woodstove. (The dried flowers will be used in our favorite Magical Healing Salve as well as available in the shop for those who like to make their own salves or healing oils.) Later, as I looked out the window at the pouring rain, I thought how nice it was to see those bright bursts of yellow color on a rainy day. Especially having that vibrant yellow in our living room while it was so dark outside. Today we went out and harvested again. The sun poked through the clouds a few times, but the sky quickly turned overcast again. It didn’t start pouring again, though, until we came back inside. The garden has been getting a good watering. Each year we harvest the flowers around the edge of the patch (that are easier to reach) and leave the flowers in the middle for the bees. Lately when we pick flowers in the yard we say: “pick some flowers and leave some for the bees.” We especially follow that with the St. John’s Wort flowers because the bees love them so much, we see them buzzing around them when we go to harvest, even when it’s rainy. Our neighbor raises honeybees and we think his bees have been visiting our garden because we’ve been seeing honeybees around here all the time.

Bracken is always getting out candles and asking me to light them. Yesterday we lit a candle and sang Happy Father’s Day to Jeff to the tune of Happy Birthday. Then Bracken started singing Happy Father’s Day to “mama and baby too.” It made me smile and reminded me of Mother’s Day. Bracken and I got Jeff a jasmine plant because his beloved jasmine died when it got so cold this past winter. Then I realized I got him a star jasmine, the one he had before was a night blooming jasmine. I’ll get him a night blooming jasmine plant for another occasion and then we can enjoy the scent during the day and at night too.

Yesterday I also cast on a yellow knitting project. Yes, yellow and rainy days go well together.