Category Archives: nature

Jamie and a jay.

birds, my garden, nature, ,

Hailstorm, thunder and lightning, only two days ago. Oooh, my tender plum blossoms!

The next day, I cleaned the bird feeders of seed that had sprouted or turned to nut butter. This morning they are both full again with two types of seed, and a blue jay came to eat black oil sunflower seeds. I hadn’t seen a jay in months.

Here is a little house finch I watched through the window for a full ten minutes last week, as he sat alone on the feeder, not eating, while his chapel perch swung gently in the breeze, in and out of the dappled sunlight.

Maybe he was debating about whether he was hungry enough to bother with the inferior food behind him. Did he see me through the window, was he pleading with me to freshen the offerings?

I wonder if he was the same fellow who flew right to the screen door yesterday and clung to the rail, seemingly trying to peer in and locate the human he held responsible for the mess of the tray feeder especially. Well, today everyone is jubilant, doves, juncos, finches, the whole bunch of my friends.

Pippin and family are here to celebrate Jamie’s birthday which was earlier this week. He is the boy who waited to be born until his mother had been able to participate fully in saying good-bye to his Grandpa Glad. It was the day after my husband’s funeral that he came into the world, and I had let you all know about those events with this post, “Death and Life in Springtime.” So, Jamie is four years old! We have lots of good things planned for the weekend, about which I might share afterward, including a visit to Grandpa’s grave.

“They say” we will have a few sunny days now before more rain comes. When I shopped for the bird seed yesterday I bought a couple more plants which I will set out as soon as possible. Here’s a picture of all the new things, with a couple of old things:

bacopa and calendula

And below, the ginger-scented geranium I bought at the big farm festival last summer:

It’s been hanging out in the greenhouse all winter. When it began to bloom I wanted to have it in the house where I can see it all the time and get a whiff now and then.

Happy Spring to all my dear readers and friends!

Trying to befriend borage.

nature, other gardens, , ,

Everyone I have ever talked to about borage tells me how it self-sows enthusiastically. The several plants I’ve set into my garden in the last few years all died without reproducing, almost without blooming. So today when I stopped by a favorite garden center I bought  one more plant… I might beg some from friends again, too, but I wanted to get on with trying.

I bought pansies and poppies and kale and pak choi… last night my friend Sophia gave me seeds and gardening gloves, so I’ll have plenty to do when the rain lets up.

On my way out to the car I noticed a large area near the lot that was planted with borage, and I walked over that way to admire. Of course, this borage was acting normally; it had spread hither and yon and bees were  busy drinking from the underside of the flowers as from umbrellas. I got my first bee picture of 2019 — at least, most of a bee. 🙂

I didn’t make my exit, though, until I’d also explored as far as the two rows of apples on the other side of the lot. This part of the county resembles the fields and vineyards I’m used to, in that yellow flowers are brilliant right now, between rows of trees or grapes, or along roadsides. But instead of the usual mustard, here there was sourgrass (oxalis) blooming for miles and miles.

I knew it was a tiny apple orchard through which I was picking my way, through the mud and dripping grasses (in my church clothes), because — squish! I looked down to see that I had stepped on an apple and broken through its tenderized skin to the thoroughly rotten insides.

The next time I show you a photo of borage,
I hope it will be of a robust plant in my own garden!

Olive Trees

nature, trees

I drove over the hills yesterday to be with friends for the afternoon. It was the most glorious day for it; the pastures were green as green, with sheep or black cows grazing, or just full of mustard at its peak of brightness. Little yellow-green leaves decorated some of the oaks, and in the middle of a mixed forest of oak and bay I came upon this venerable and silent grove of olives.

In the depths of your being.

my garden, nature, quotes, , , ,

During Lent our women’s book club at church is reading Wounded by Love: The Life and Wisdom of Saint Porphyrios. Merely reading the words of this 20th-century saint as he tells about his life is “wounding” me with his own love, which of course flows from God Himself through that human life that received much grace.

Yesterday was sunny and the biting winds had calmed. When I went out to cut some asparagus and then to look more closely at the plum blossoms, the orange chair invited me to sit down; immediately the ergonomics of the Adirondack design and the enclosed spot between the rosemary and the fava beans began to apply a balm to my body and soul, and before my face started to burn I went back to the house to get my book and sun hat.

This is what the view was like, from my cozy corner:

Did you notice that black chair by the rosemary above? I actually got too hot after a while and moved to that one. Then I was closer to the tray bird feeder and I took this picture; it was almost as hard for me to see the birds as they are to see in this shot, everything was so sunny bright.

I alternated between being lost in the saint’s tale of his youth in Greece, and being conscious of the deliciousness of my situation and how it seemed to be the perfect lenten activity and food for the soul that had been given to me. Truly, if it were not Lent I no doubt would be busy about more “useful” work. But here I was, enjoying the first days of springtime, watching the bees — the first sighted this year — working the rosemary.

And then, what was that –?  on my hat, making a rustling noise and scratching feeling through the weave. I raised my hand, and a bird flew off into the redwood tree. I could see his profile up there, smaller than a dove but larger than a finch… and then he was right back down to the feeder, and he was a sparrow. Did he land on me because he didn’t recognize me as a human, or because he did recognize me as the lady who fills the feeders?

In the front garden the pale yellow California poppies have sprouted all over the place, and one bloom opened. This picture of plum flowers shows my bedroom window up above.

As my bones warmed from the solar heat, my heart soaked up joy from Father Porphyrios. There is so much I want to share with you about him, but for now I’ll just offer this quote from the second part of the book, which collects some of his teachings. Then I need to get out of this cold corner of my house and into the sunshine again.

“Man seeks joy and happiness in heaven. He seeks what is eternal far from everyone and everything. He seeks to find joy in God. God is a mystery. He is silence. He is infinite. He is everything. Everyone possesses this inclination of the soul for heaven. All people seek something heavenly. All beings turn towards Him, albeit unconsciously.

“Turn your mind towards Him continually. Learn to love prayer, familiar converse with the Lord. What counts above all is love, passionate love for the Lord, for Christ the Bridegroom. Become worthy of Christ’s love. In order not to live in darkness, turn on the switch of prayer so that divine light may flood your soul. Christ will appear in the depths of your being. There, in the deepest and most inward part, is the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is within you [Luke 17:21].”

–St. Porphyrios

[I’m sorry to give you the same quote that I see I posted before, when there are so many other good ones! Well, they will come, God willing.]