POT(S)

"It is spring again. The earth is like a child who knows poems by heart...." -Rainer Maria Wilke

  Waiting.Like Mini here on the bench.  On a cold grey spring day.  My oodles of perennial pots  lie dormant with  their dirt. It's all very exciting ( By the way, the cats you see, are NOT mine. They are the neighbours' cats who hang out here, on  a daily basis. ) They have neat personalities. They feel comfortable here. Winter. Spring. Fall. Summer. So cute.

Petawawa , 1989. Everyone on our block at the base had a garden of some sort.  Families used to gather in the warm evenings , on the street, in front of our MQ's ( married quarters) and share stories from the day. We also passed around plants and flowers to share in the  dirt  we dug up ourselves, ringed with rocks from the Ottawa river.   It was a wonderful time. Children ran around  us, while we laughed and talked  till the sun was set. Till the next evening, then we'd do it all again. Was a great time. It never happened anywhere else but there.

I didn't have a garden at each posting. But in 1994 , in Fredericton. I clawed up more grass again. Shoved in as many annuals as I could. They grew up wild. Until the garden guys mowed them all down one day. 

All I have left of that year is the 30 year old rhubarb. I dug it out of an elderly lady's yard in Fredericton. A lovely old house with a white picket fence that faced the water.   I had met her at the garden centre, where she was chain smoking at the perennials. She said she was drowning in rhubarb and I could have some ,if I brought my own shovel. She drank lemonade( well, she said it was lemonade) . There is a piece of this plant in every yard of every house we have lived in across country. This is the last of it. It has travelled 4277 Km, in those years. LOVES to live in a large pot. So that's where it is now. In the dirt. With the worms. 

In 1996 , St. Albert, I decided to chew  up more grass. Carved a strip , stuffed in more flowers.  Unfortunately, before they were mowed over, again, it snowed on May long weekend. Everything died. And then it was mowed over. 

White Rock, B.C. 2005 was my rock era. Rocks and flagstones.  And a wheelbarrow of dirt , with stuff piled into it. It worked. Sort of. Nothing got mowed over at least. But  then we moved to the Island.....

84 POTS and counting.........

....and counting. Adding about 15 more perennial pots this April,,..as soon as the last frost has passed. I think I've lost count.

NO POTS on the hill. Decided to go for blueberry bushes instead to fill up space. No potatoes, or sunflowers, or sweet peas, centaurea, veggies,  squash,  watermelon, etc.etc. 

"Spring shows what God can do to a drab and dreary world.."

                                                -Virgil A. Kraft

And Sweet Simon overseeing it all . Will be adding a pumpkin plant or two. Just for fun. 

POTS everywhere.......

Perennials only. No annuals need apply.

                                              "Winter is dead......"- A.A. Milne

Old sinks, old buckets, dollar store give aways, pots that were three for one deals.....

Pots you can move around. They only need weeding about once a year.  Easy easy gardening. They take care of themselves.  And no one can mow them over.....

You can rearrange pots to your heart's content.  Or count them......endlessly....

In the meantime, Spencer the Cat Plant will be on duty........waiting for the day we plant  Catnip...

 "And come the sweet days of summer. There will be a joyful noise...." -R. Raphe

Photographs 2023

29 years of Canadian Thanksgiving

 "I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual." - Henry David Thoreau

 Campbell River, B.C.  2012

1989 Kingston

 Edmonton, Alberta, 1996

2017 Full Moon

1996, St. Albert, Alberta Us 4 

"On Thanksgiving I will stop to give thanks that my family is safe and healthy, especially because I realize that, following the tragedies of this year, it is all too real a possibility that they might not have been." - Bobby Jindal

1991, Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia

1996 Ft. Edmonton . Threshing

1990, Camp Roads, CFB Petawawa, Ontario

2017 Stellar Jays C. River, B.C.

2012 Estuary trail.

2004. Coast Mtns from White Rock, B.C.

2013 Discovery Passage

 "Over and over I marvel at the blessings of my life: Each year has grown better than the last."  - Lawrence Welk

1990. Camp Trails. CFB Petawawa, Ontario.

1994 Fredericton, New Brunswick. Superstar rehearsals

1997 St. Albert, Alberta. Us 4 

 "Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days of the year because it reminds us to give thanks and to count our blessings. Suddenly, so many things become so little when we realize how blessed and lucky we are." - Joyce Giraud

2017 Coast Mtns, Quadra Island.

2017 Grape Harvest about a gazillion grapes

1989 Ottawa River. Fishing point.

 "Gratitude is the inward feeling of kindness received. Thankfulness is the natural impulse to express that feeling. Thanksgiving is the following of that impulse. "  -Henry Van Dyke

                                2015 Campbell River Thanksgiving Sunset looking south.

                                         Us four 2016-2017    Campbell River Thanksgiving.