June 21, 2026
“Are You My Mother?” photo by LKV Walsh
(aka a Scots Pine nursing a Mountain Ash and a Maple)
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Hibernia…the ancient name for Ireland…means the land of winter. I was duly warned, and so I’m not sure why I am surprised. I moved to this land expecting to grow food as part of how I settled in and sure I could because I had done so quite well in Seattle. “The Pacific Northwest,” I told myself and everyone else, “is wet and rainy – just like Ireland!” Now I know.
It is not.
Ireland is Ireland. And come the June Solstice, the sun is in and out from behind the clouds from about 4:15 AM to well after 10:30 PM. It just isn’t warm. I had anticipated the rain, but I had not a clue about the cool days and cold nights.* That means I did a very poor job of planning for how quickly or well the plants could outgrow the slugs I try not to poison and the bugs I try not to kill. Eight beautiful bean plant starts went into garden beds a few weeks ago and became six leafless stalks in a night. My tomato plants are still less than an inch tall. And the squashes I assumed would be my offering to neighbors all summer long still don’t have their third leaves. I could dream it all and start it all and plant it all in, but I could not anticipate what it would all actually need to be able to grow. It turns out that in Ireland, plants need glass covers. So now every 2 quart mason jar I sent by boat from America is in the garden. Because it isn’t that things won’t grow in Ireland. It is just that plants need protection from all that can overwhelm tender things when the growth is slow. And I am forever humbled by how long it is taking me to learn that lesson in the garden and far beyond.
Years of my trying to walk toward greater love and understanding don’t seem enough to keep me knowing that new things need and deserve protection, for they can only grow slowly when conditions prove to be a challenge. I keep showing up to the new stuff in my life expecting it to be like all the last stuff I showed up for in my life. I keep expecting that it will require the same muscles or tools or tries. It not only does not work that way, perhaps it also can’t. For there wouldn’t be any learning in everything being the same, and greater love and understanding only come through learning. And learning, it seems, only comes with messing things up and nearly losing everything. And then putting all your mason jars on what remains so that the slugs are thwarted and the temperatures at night are moderated just a bit. Because the problem is not the place we find ourselves in, but rather, the problem is in not honoring the place that it actually is….a place where things must grow at a different pace because it is THIS place. Amen.
*To be fair, this week is supposed to be an exception and right across Europe.
To Walk with Saints and Scholars 
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