A buck moon and a box full of wishes

Friend, how have you been? Lately, I have mostly been astonished, and also sometimes agitated for reasons I cannot quite explain. Perhaps it’s the heat, or the rapidly unfurling summer, or the fact that my baby just finished primary school and I have a lot of feelings about that.

Let’s begin with astonishment though, because that is a precious thing.

Take today, for example. Just yesterday two deer chased each other through the morning mist and right past the kitchen window in a scene which felt like Christmas in motion. Today I opened the kitchen door and from the field beyond the garden heard the deep grunting of a buck. It sounded like a mating call, but given that tonight’s full moon is named the Buck Moon after this season for new antlers emerging on male deer, I am guessing that it might be the deer equivalent of teething.

Let’s not skate over the full moon… The past few nights, the moon over the sea has been spectacular, and there are few clouds as I write this, so I am hoping for a bright sky tonight.

In other news we put out a whole box of apples from our tree with a sweet label encouraging people to enjoy them for free, and to our delight they all vanished within a couple of hours. One delivery man came and knocked on the door to tell us how he couldn’t wait to get home and make apple pie for his family. The children are excited to refill the box, as well as pick a few extra to make their own crumble tomorrow. Ahhh, Summer…

And then there is the exchange with local friends – besides the apples, the baling of our field in return for hay for horses, fresh tomatoes offered as gardening advice was received (apparently you can dip fennel flowers in egg whites and sugar and use them as delicate cake decorations – who knew?) and so on. I love all this about living in the countryside, and it makes me think about how, while there is so much modernisation and the climate is shifting in so many ways, there are also things that keep on rolling round, season after season.

And then there’s the buzzard who often circles our place, and yesterday glided low and slow so close I could see its feathers. Apparently there are some 1600 pairs here in Devon. I remember once hearing that the buzzard, as a spirit animal, reminds us to have patience, and wait for the right moment, as well as to zoom out and consider life from a broader perspective. This feels very pertinent to my life right now. How about you, I wonder?

Earlier this week we discovered our first ever batch of French beans on our single French bean plant, and a pheasant left a beautiful foot-long feather outside my writing hut, as if reminding me to pick up my quill and crack on. Joy, in every direction in the garden.

In the kitchen too… Not long ago our youngest daughter turned eleven, and my dad turned up with a baking book and a huge red mixing bowl which I had never seen. The birthday girl’s face lit up with recognition and joy. “It’s the bowl we used to use when we made cakes with Grandma,” she said. Watching her mix the batter for the chocolate orange birthday cake she wanted to bake, my heart folded over and over itself.

Besides this and a trip to watch her favourite football team, of all her gifts, perhaps the one she was most delighted by was the seed head popped into a tiny box. “I caught a wish for you,” I said, as she peered in, uncertain whether there was actually anything in the container.

Our focus on the house renovation this past year has meant the garden is full of seed heads. They are caught in every spider’s web, and often float into the kitchen. I don’t actually know what flower they are from (it isn’t a dandelion). I just know my grandma and my mum used to tell me that if I caught one, and made a wish as I released it, the wish would come true. Anyway, after the birthday gift it became a kind of game, and this week we have been gifting each other wishes most days. My wish is that the flowers keep releasing their seeds forever without end, so we can keep playing this game forever without end, but of course now I have told you the wish, it won’t come true (or maybe it’s because that’s just the way the world works). Perhaps next summer, when the garden blooms with a particular kind of wildflower, we will know at last where the wishes come from.

The last day of school was all kinds of things all tangled up together. A ritual very particular to their school followed by a Year Six barbecue and much reminiscing about how they have changed since Reception, how they are excited and nervous, how they will miss primary but also how ready they are, and how we humans can be many such things at once.

To borrow a phrase from Japanese philosopher Kitarо̄ Nishida, there exists a ‘continuity of discontinuity’ with the juxtaposition of my particular child and her friends transitioning from one school phase to another, never to return to that ‘littles’ phase, and the act of any child graduating from primary school to move onto secondary school, an important life stage which happens over and over again human life just as its equivalent does in in nature. Without saying so directly, it reminds us that change is the only constant.

At ‘work’ there has been joy too. Actually, more than joy, relief. I heard back from my editor of many years saying that she absolutely loves my latest book manuscript and basically has no changes whatsoever. Friend, that has NEVER happened before. I went home and told my children that the teacher gave me all ticks and they suggested we eat cake for breakfast, so of course we did. (I absolutely cannot wait to share more about this new book with you. Writing it has been the best adventure, and it feels more essential with each passing day. It’s under wraps until August so I can prepare the best pre-order gift but I hope that it’s worth the wait. It will be out in February 2027!)

So there are many things to be grateful for, and many things that are bittersweet as tends to be the case at this time of year. And then, of course there’s the hard stuff, all stirred in.

The thought of all the people affected by yesterday’s Kumamoto earthquake.

The farmers struggling with the heatwave, and the climate story beneath it.

All the other news.

That mixing-bowl-shaped reminder of my mother’s absence.

The mountain of work I have tapping on my mind after such a long while dedicated to book writing, and the constant juggle of prioritisation.

And that end-of-primary-school everything.

I know you have many things too. How do we carry it all, and keep plenty of space for the astonishment and joy? All thoughts welcome.

As I write, the tulip tree outside the window of my writing hut has just sighed, releasing a few golden leaves, as if it has been pondering such things for some time.

I think tonight I will stay up writing until the full moon rises, then take a picnic blanket, and Mr K and the children along with some snacks, and lie beneath the night sky imagining where the buzzard sleeps. The rest can wait until tomorrow.

How about you? How do you plan to make the most of the rest of summer, even while carrying all that you do? Perhaps you could share one thing that has astonished you recently. I’d love to read about it.

Beth Xx

PS I wrote a new book!

PPS If you like birds of prey you might love Xavier Rudd’s song I Am Eagle. It’s a stunning piece of campaigning.

PPPS Free astronomy apps I have been enjoying lately include Star Walk 2, Sky Tonight and SkyView Lite. No affiliation.

***

Photos by Holly Bobbins. Hut by Blackdown.