For the Love of Lavender

July 8, 2021

Dear KidsOutAndAbout readers:

The hottest trend in North America this summer is a cool shade of purple.

I'm not sure how we as a people decided we were nuts for lavender, but this summer it's all the rage to visit a lavender farm. It's appropriate for the times, too: Lavender is one tough little perennial; it does fine in the heat, doesn't need much fertilizer, just needs the opportunity to grow without too much rain in the way. It smells great, and it's known for its calming effect. So we want lavender this year, and our farmers have responded by planting fields of the stuff for our wandering pleasure. KOAA's editors have boosted any lavender experiences within driving distance to the top section of our 101 Local Family Day Trips article—it's the most popular page on KidsOutAndAbout these days.

I take a lot of inspiration from farmers: Farmers face facts without fuss. They know that wasting energy on wishing about the weather does nothing to help lavender grow…. Just as wishing 2-year-olds didn’t have tantrums does you no good when he’s face down on the floor of the frozen food aisle. Navigating calmly around the flow of the facts that present themselves is what farming is all about, and it's what adulthood is all about, too.

“We take what comes,” a 6th-generation farmer told me recently as she was contemplating the dry spell that’s slowing the growth of her sunflower field. "And we do what we can with it. There are easier ways to make a living, but we do it for the love of it as much as for the challenge and the tradition."

Children are forces, each with their own nature. There are storms, there are droughts, there are times when the lavender is blooming. We help make opportunities for them to grow without too much rain in the way. And we weather it all, for the love of it.

—Deb