Thursday, March 29, 2018

New is good.....new gardens from the old.

 "It is such a pleasure to sink one's hands into the warm earth, to feel at one's fingertips the possibilities of the new season..." 
                                  -Kate Morton (The Forgotten Garden)
 New is good. This year I decided to get the garden razed.
 Some things. Like in the greenhouse. Will stay.
 Other things. Green or not so green. Will be purged.
 New choices. New things.
 Pots . More pots. Garden beds turned over .
 New canvas of dirt to plant in.
 "Novels and gardens, she says, I like to move from plot to plot." 
                                                            -Bill Richardson
 Wherever I could I kept the Native Cranesbill. The bees love the Cranesbill.
 But every pot. Every trough. Every bed is getting raked and dug up.
 First new perennial to be planted: Larkspur. Loves the sun.
 And of course, Spencer-from-the hill, will always be a welcome perennial.
 "Each of us is like seed. Planted by the Good Gardener....so we might grow into something majestic..."  -Seth Adam Smith (Rip Van Winkle and the Pumpkin Lantern)
 Even the birds have a makeover. Two massive bird feeders on which they hang. 
 And the cranesbill still flourishes after all the digging.
 You can tell how overgrown the beds were by the dark wet marks on the cement. That's how far the weeds and overgrown plants travelled.
 And Larkspur finds a home at last. One down . A bunch more to plant.
 And Smokey in the last days of March  before Easter 2017. New  is good.
Photographs 2018

Saturday, March 24, 2018

Little Things......

 "If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry,more immortal....that is your success." -Thoreau
 LITTLE THINGS by Orrick Johns (1887-1946) (excerpts)
 There's nothing very beautiful ....
 About the rush of faces in the town by day.
But a light tan cow in a pale green mead
 That is very beautiful, beautiful indeed.
 And the soft March wind, and the low March mist
 are better than kisses in a dark street kissed.
 The fragrance of the forest when it wakes at dawn......
 The fragrance of a trim green village lawn,
 The hearing of the murmur of the rain at play...

 These things are beautiful, beautiful as day!
 And I shan't stand waiting for love or scorn
 When the feast is laid for a day new-born........
 Oh, better let the little things I loved when little , return when the heart finds the great things brittle;
 And better is a temple made of bark , than a tall stone temple that may stand too long.....
 "Little Things" from 1000 Beautiful Things, 1942
Photographs 2018

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

I Can Hear the Birds....

 "She turned to the sunlight and shook her yellow head. And whispered to her neighbour: 'Winter is dead!'. "  
                                  -A.A. Milne (When We Were Very Young)
 I remember a Spring long ago, when I was about 12,  my mother made me a daffodil yellow cape, with a hairband of white daisies, finished with spit and polished  shiny shoes. I thought I was so fashionable. I stood outside under our ancient willow tree. I posed.Over and over. My mother snapped the camera. I could hear the birds. Long and loud and loud and long.....
 Easter was not far off. Everything was new.Fresh. Clean. And the birds sang.
 It came with sweet winds and cherry blossoms. The willow tree in our yard was frothy with long leaves on  massive tendrils. It looked like a fairy nymph waving its fingers in the breeze to those singing birds. My mother  had me take her picture amongst the willow branches. 
 A few years before, my father  died on an early spring day in March. I heard the birds then as well. My mother did not dwell on that time, in years to come. It was not her way.But I remember her standing outside, as the years passed by. She listened to them in the morning when they were the most joyful. In her bare feet. On the walkway she would stand. Her eyes closed. A cup of coffee in her hand.
 The birds sang Loud and long, and long and loud. 
 And many years afterwards, when my mother died, on  the same day in March that my father died, I stood outside and heard the birds again. I had not noticed them for a long time. I had forgotten. Then I heard them. All fresh and new......
 "I glanced out the window at the signs of spring. The sky was almost blue, the trees were almost budding,the sun was almost bright...." -Millard Kaufmann (Bowl of Cherries)
 It took me back to each year before, when  my mother would spring clean. That meant washing the wool rug with soap and water,  in the front room on hands and knees. It meant walls and baseboards and polishing floors. 
 She also liked to clean out the fireplace. With the old horsehair brush. Soot would fly.While  she did her cleaning,  my mother would get me to practise  violin. So she could listen. I would play every piece I knew and then start again. Then it would be piano after that. Scales. Arpeggios. ....Anything, so I wouldn't have to spring clean. 
My mother would open the front door. "I can hear the birds," she would say.
  My mother would never say how much she liked listening to me play.  It was not her way.  She wiped windows squeaky clean. I  played. The birds sang. In a way, we were  all jamming together....
 When I grew up and moved to California to finish my Masters, those Spring Cleaning days were no more. Except for one March when I had to do my degree recital. My mother unexpectedly mailed me a parcel.....
 It was a rose satin gown she designed for me to wear for the concert.  Told me she wasn't spring cleaning that year. Told me she expected pictures.  I wore that rose satin gown . Pictures were taken. Photos sent to my mother . She didn't say much on the phone later. It wasn't her way to be gushy. She was gone about a year later.......
 And I kept that beautiful rose satin dress for years afterwards....
 Every Spring I can still hear the birds .......
They speak to me. I hear them long  and loud, and loud and long.... 
 "Something in the air this morning made me feel like flying..."
                                                                           -Eileen Granfors