You know that feeling when tiny little hands hold up a posy of dandelions— how suddenly you see them as one of Earth’s sweetest treasures. And the dainty blue blossoms of forget-me-nots that beckon you to return to a place of wonderment where fairies surely dance through the forest and among the flowers…

I’ve often recognized how my children have awakened a part of my inner child that had been put to rest somewhere along the path to growing up. Surely it has been one my greatest privileges in life to be led by the small hands of wondering hearts back into the realm curiosity and astonishment. I dearly hope we may always treasure this gift of seeing together.

Because of this gift, that earnest invitation of my dearest daughters, I have remembered what it is to love this earth and to be astonished by the beauty in every season. Which brings me to a story I’d like to share. A story that serves as a reminder how the little moments of each day; the tender moments, the ordinary moments, the thrilling moments, the predictable moments, and the surprising moments, all added together, reveal the unrivaled beauty of everyday life.

Chapter I

In the spring of 2021, our little Emma was but a tiny new spring bud herself. She would often spend her dreaming hours in a woven basket alongside her sisters and I as we tended to the garden. Just as they had done in the years past, Jane and Lucy would delight at every opportunity to bring me a little dandelion posy, and they would lay dainty stems of forget-me-nots and chamomile alongside their sleeping baby sister. Captivated by the sweetness of these days, I began to sing a little melody that fluttered in my heart. I scribbled down the words “I love you dandelion yellow and forget me not blue” on handmade piece of paper and tucked it into our garden journal.

Chapter II

The following spring I came across that journal and the scribbled note tucked inside. I remembered the melody and began to sing it again. Emma, who has loved music since birth, smiled as though she remembered it well and her sisters were curious to hear more. I told them it was just a little melody I wrote down last spring, but it didn't have any other words yet. They all three delighted in the little tune and urged me to add more words.

It was as if their very suggestion opened my eyes wider to our little world than they had ever been before. I began to take deeper of notice all the flowers around our gardens that we took pleasure in as they blossomed and withered through the season. Each day I’d scribble down a few more notes and piece together a new line or two. Then I’d share my progress with girls and we’d all sing it together, etching the beauty of spring into our own melodic memory.

Chapter III

During this time it become known to us that this would be our last spring in the garden. We had been living in our tiny home for three years alongside my husband’s parents (Grandma and Grandpa) on their property, and the time for them to move on to their next endeavor was nearing. The house was to be sold after the harvest.

Though I felt a deep ache for how much we would all miss this place, I also wanted to celebrate the joys that found us here. This would always be the place we had scattered our first seeds and experienced the unparalleled joy of growing with our garden.

Chapter IV

When spring came to an end and the the lines were all written and the melody had been engrained in our hearts, I wanted to give this song a permanent place in this world. I wanted it to be something we could always listen to, a sort of key, so to speak, to our secret garden.

I hold the deepest gratitude toward my dear friend Lauren, who so thoughtfully provided us with the gift of her ethereal voice and writing the music to our song.

The surreality of listening together, for the first time, to the words we had woven from our experiences, a musical memoir of our enchanting little world, is an experience I can scarcely find words for. By the days end the song had been played at least a hundred times and the melody carried the girls off to dreams with the comfort of knowing that even when things change, we will always have the key to our garden.

Chapter V

Change did come. In November of 2022, we left the garden and our tiny home in the center of it. We packed our boxes and bags of seeds which we had saved from as many of our flowers as we could. We found a little farmhouse down in the valley with a 25’x25’ garden plot that excited us with the possibilities to come! I began to diagram some ideas for this little plot, imagining how I could incorporate each and every flower we had brought along with us, as well as our food we love to grow, and with any luck, a pumpkin patch too. I wanted us to create something as lovely as we had done before, and though I knew it would be different, I was sure it could be wonderful.

Just before it would have been time to begin preparing the ground for our new garden, another change was presented to us. Our family wondered if maybe rather than selling their property, we might like to come back and tend to it while renting the home after they moved in the June.

While we were grateful for for the little yellow farmhouse as a welcome respite from living tiny during the winter months, I’ll admit that we were all longing for that old familiar feeling of “HOME”.

Home, a word which had come to mean so much more to us than a house. It was our gardens, and the playhouse, and Gnome Hollow, and the swings, and the Woodland Cottage, and the Old Crooked Tree, and Fisherman’s Island, and the Little Theater Under the Linden Tree. It was the wild plums and grapes and blackberries. The leaning apple tree where the girls first learned to climb, and the pear tree that grows fruit all the way to the sky. It was a place that in its origination, had been beautifully cared for, but somewhere along the way it had been forgotten and neglected, and finally, with a great deal of love and the pattering footprints of childhood the land began to awaken and reveal it’s many marvels. This was the HOME to which we would return.

Chapter VI

The next four months were spent commuting to our garden by day and the little yellow farmhouse by night. It was a tiresome time, but as we began to pull back the covering of weeds and spent foliage from the year before, we began to hear the melody of our song echoing all around us. Dandelions danced around the lawn (much to Grandpa’s dismay), as the birds chirped merrily while building their tiny nests. In just the same way that I felt my view had been widened by the suggestion of my daughters to write more words to our song, I was seeing each gift of this new spring with a deeper gratitude than I had ever looked upon it before.

It was indeed a gift to be here. It was a gift to observe another unfolding of spring. And it was a gift to be granted the privilege to be stewards of this land once more.

Chapter VII

We arrived HOME on June 13th, 2023. The flowers welcomed us with smiling little faces popping up from the gardens, and we were thrilled to be back in the place where our footsteps had covered every inch of the land a thousand times over. But the place was now changed. Grandpa was no longer around working outside, and Grandma was not to be found baking in the kitchen. There was an unfamiliar quietness about it, not for lack of volume I assure you, but for lack of presence.

There was a heaviness that lingered in those early days back home, but as we began to move about in our old familiar rhythm, caring for the chickens and kitties and gardens, it became clear that our song had taken on deeper roots. For it had begun in this place during a time when we were all together, and it had grown here, just as we all have, and those roots will continue to grow in us with each new spring. As we continue to grow and change continues to be inevitable, the more tenderly we shall look back at the very beginning—when a dandelion posy stirred up a couple of lines that were scribbled on a piece of handmade paper. A Song of Spring.

Chapter VIII

I knew that so long as the words to our song stayed with me, so would the memories of these early years together in our garden. But for my girls, I wanted to give them a way to look in from their mothers view, that they may always be reminded of their radiant impression on this world (and me).

I began taking a filmmaking course in April of 2023 with the hope and goal of documenting this film for for our family. Just as soon as I had my camera set up, I started collecting little video clips on our visits to the garden, and continued to do so until the day the Spring gave way to Summer just after we settled in.

Upon hours and hours of watching these little clips come together to create a short film that gave life to the lyrics, I was once again transported into a holy state of gratitude. For as much as I find true joy in the garden, there is nothing on this earth as will ever compare with the GIFT of having the extraordinary privilege of loving these children, being loved in return, and sharing this life with one another.

Who would have known that a little note scribbled down on a piece of paper would come to mean so very much.

To Be Continued… Chapter IX: Our Summer Song

A final note in support of the small shops we are deeply grateful to partner with and/or show our support to; a list and links for your convenience.

*Many of the girls wardrobe staples are handmade, from The Simple Folk, Chasing Windmills, Little Cotton Clothes, and Luralu— who is very generously offering readers of Ivy & Tweed a 20% discount using the code IVYANDTWEEDBLOG

*Favorite garden tools and homewares from Helen Milan

*Rain Pants from Fairechild

*Life in Motion Filmmaking course—If it hadn’t been for this course, I could not have created this film in the same capacity I was able to accomplish. I give my highest recommendations for anyone considering learning to make films using their camera.