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EXCERPT - Lavender and
Love
 The
straight lines of dome-shaped plants, purple and fragrant, marched one by one
down the undulating field, past the patches of green herbs and
multicolored
flowers, toward the farm’s old picture-perfect cottage. To her
the
rows of hedges looked like a knitted blanket with rows of one knit and one
purl.
The
cottage was several hundred years old with black wooden struts tic-tac-
toeing the white-mortared walls.
A new thatched roof, a foot thick, glowed
golden and caressed the diamond-paned windows. The thatcher’s
design
of cross-hatching and borders—his signature—around the roof top
reminded
Angela of her mother’s gold engraved bracelet. Curtains at the open
windows
billowed in the summer breeze like sails. Looking toward the hazy
horizon,
she could just make out the white dots which were sheep grazing in
the
fields of the neighboring farm.
She
gazed at the workers bent over in the field.
“Why
don’t you get an automatic picker, Dad?” Angela called to her
father
behind her as she walked gingerly between the rows of lavender
bushes.
“Picking by hand is old fashioned now. That big lavender farm in the
next
county uses machines.”
“’Cause
a machine costs a fortune and I only have three acres of
lavender—don’t
earn enough to warrant it. I make more money on the flowers
and
herbs,” her father said. He stopped to catch his breath and wiped his brow
with his crumpled handkerchief.
Angela turned around to wait for him to catch
up.
The fields were
humming. Humming from the bees as they industriously
sipped the nectar from the sea of purple blossoms. A low hum
came
from the workers chatting as they bent over the bushes, and with curved
knives clutched in their quick
hands, cut stems and stuffed handfuls into
burlap
bags.
She loved the
smell of lavender. It was woven like a ribbon through her
childhood
as it had been part of the life of others throughout the centuries.
Her
mother, as did many old-fashioned countrywomen, still aired her bed linens
over lavender bushes to soak in the fragrance.
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