The Lupine Lady

Its lupine season.  Have you noticed? If you don't know what Lupine flowers look like, here they are:

Beautiful aren't they?  They are quite hearty and can grow wild (or in gardens) around here.  I don't think I noticed them much as a kid.  That is, until my mom read to me the children's book Miss Rumphius. 

If you've never read this award-winning book and you have kids, check it out at the library.  Beautifully written and illustrated by Barbara Cooney, the story follows Miss Rumphius who has 3 goals in life:

1. Travel the world.

2. Settle down by the sea.

And most importantly, 

#3 - Do something to make the world more beautiful.  This is how she  becomes known as "The Lupine Lady". 

The story is so lovely and so haunting (in a good way) that it has stuck with me to this day.  I love that thought. I want to do that. I want my kids to do that too. 

So with all these lupines around, I was reminded of the book and decided to check it out again. So that I could read it to my children just as my mother read it to me.  I also had a hankering to get an armload of lupines from our local U-Pick Flower Farm.  (Any excuse to visit this little piece of heaven!)

In a way, the woman who runs this flower farm is her own version of The Lupine Lady.  The world is a more beautiful place because of her. And for only $7 you can bring home a whole armful of this beauty.

And that's what I did.  And this is what was waiting on the table for my kids when they came home.

 

It was wonderful to read it to my kids and share the dream with them - to be our own versions of the Lupine Lady when we grow up and make the world more beautiful.