When I moved to Woodbury, Vermont, in my twenties, walking along our dirt road was a novelty I enjoyed. After I had babies, I spent even more time along the road, walking with a child in a pack to put her to sleep, and then following a little girl as she learned to ride a bicycle with training wheels.

Moving here in the month of July, almost immediately I noticed all kinds of wildflowers whose names I didn’t know: yellow rattle, cinquefoil, speedwell. With a small paperback, I gradually began to learn the wild world around me. One of my younger daughter’s first words was vetch, and she said this word often, with great determination. It’s worth considering – that the naming of our world is how we begin to understand and know our world.

I left you in the morning,
And in the morning glow,
You walked a way beside me
To make me sad to go.
Do you know me in the gloaming,
Gaunt and dusty gray with roaming?…

Robert Frost, “Flower-Gathering”

West Woodbury, Vermont