Leeks and Pollinators

my garden, nature, , , , ,

gl pollinator iphone 3049

I love to have a day like today, when I stayed home and worked, mostly in the garden. I planted seeds in the greenhouse on Wednesday, and today I wanted to sow others directly into the planting boxes. But I hadn’t realized how little space is currently unused by other plants. So I decided to take out a few leeks to make room for carrots. gl IMG_3034

 

I haven’t been sure about those leeks, if they are growing properly, or are a complete loss. Maybe they didn’t get enough water and are spongy as well as spindly? So I pulled up a few of the largest, and discovered that they are perfectly fine. This was comforting; my fennel had indeed been almost a complete loss, because I let it go too long. And one doesn’t want to have that experience often, of using a chunk of precious space for several months with not much to show for it.

(So I made some Leek Confit this evening.)

gl P1050374 leeks

At one point in my back-and-forth around the garden, I stopped raking pine needles or preparing seed beds and just watched all of the insects that are incredibly busy feeding off the flowers. It’s  become the pollinator garden that I planned for, and there are many kinds of bees, wasps, flies, moths and butterflies to be seen working.

These two seemed to be taking a break from their job, to play tag on a zinnia.
After I took several pictures of them they escaped from my spying and continued their game on the underside of the flower.
gl pollinators on zinnias

I also noticed a hummingbird at the Bachelor’s Buttons, when he made the branches shake, but he didn’t hang around very long after that. gl IMG_3042

The arugula seeds came up in only three days, in the warm and humid greenhouse, and in four days the hollyhocks began to emerge! This is a newborn hollyhock for you.

gl P1050378 hollyhock

gl P1050366 calendula

While I was doing my work in the back, the landscapers were doing theirs out front.

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gl P1050371 drain

 

 

I was quite pleased to see how they made use of the clods of adobe clay to make a sort of wall by the drain that slopes down the grade and will carry off any extra water from heavy rains.

A lovely and restful day. Only my feet hurt. So I wrote this blog post instead of taking an evening walk.

Good night!

 

 

gl P1050323 rudbeckia

What can be lacking to them?

church, music, other gardens, quotes, , , , , , , ,

I became very gl IMG_2996 lily origfamiliar with these lily plants today, without finding out what their name is. I was at church helping to spruce up the large property. These might have waited to be cut back except that their irrigation lines are going to be re-done. So I bent over each of two or three dozen clumps, grabbed the leaves in my fist as though they were a hank of hair, and snip-snip-snipped, and on to the next.

All the while, I could not keep from humming the tune commonly used to sing St. Patrick’s Breastplate.  A few days ago I thought to memorize the words, and as I’ve never been part of a church that sang it I listened on YouTube and wrote the words on 3×5 cards, and sang along quite a bit one afternoon and evening.

Since then I have only managed to look at my cards enough to memorize the first stanza (below), but those lines have filled my heart to overflowing, as the melody plays night and day in my mind, never without those powerful reminders of the fullness of our faith, and the presence of Christ himself in my song.

St Patrick’s Breastplate

I bind unto myself today
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same
The Three in One and One in Three.
I bind this day to me forever
By power of faith, Christ’s incarnation;
His baptism in the Jordan river,
His death on Cross for my salvation;
His bursting from the spicèd tomb,
His riding up the heavenly way,
His coming at the day of doom
I bind unto myself today.

gl IMG_2993 church

So, I’ve been humming along with my Companion, as I wash the dishes or take a shower, or dig weeds. I glanced up this afternoon to see a side of the church that I don’t often look at, framed with olive branches and roses, and I had to scrunch down close to the dirt to get a strangely angled picture that takes it all in.

gl IMG_3005 weed

I didn’t have too many weeds to dig – I took this one’s picture because we have them all over the county this year, and I want to see if I can find it in Weeds of the West to learn its name.

The seed pods of the lilies were intriguing to me, with their shiny black and bumpy contents, about to pop out on to the ground. I brought a few home, wondering how hard it would be to get them to sprout…. gl IMG_3001 seeds

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So many people were helping out, pruning olives and wisteria, laying irrigation lines, trimming roses. We seemed to be finished by noon, except: the head gardener wanted four more big rosebushes on the other side of the property to be cut back. I had time, so I did them as the last thing. I had to stand in the middle, surrounded by floribundas, and toss the clippings over their heads into a bin outside of the thicket. This was oddly the best time of the whole day, maybe because I knew it was my last task, or maybe because they were such pure and lovely flowers.

Before I got in my car I took pictures of the Japanese Windflowers (or Japanese Anemones), of which we have two colors at church. I am excited to have some in my own new garden at home, but mine haven’t opened quite yet.

gl IMG_3013 windflower

I had planned to post the quote below tonight, and then the flowers and seeds and St. Patrick crowded in, but I think everything goes together pretty well.

How mistaken are those people who seek happiness outside of themselves, in foreign lands and journeys, in riches and glory, in great possessions and pleasures, in diversions and vain things which have a bitter end! It is the same thing to construct the tower of happiness outside of ourselves as it is to build a house in a place that is consistently shaken by earthquakes.

Happiness is found within ourselves, and blessed is the man who has understood this. Happiness is a pure heart, for such a heart becomes the throne of God. Thus says Christ of those who have pure hearts, “I will visit in them, and walk in them, and I will be a God to them, and they will be my people.” (2 Corinthians 6:16) What can be lacking to them? Nothing, nothing at all! For they have the greatest good in their hearts: God Himself!

~Saint Nektarios of Aegina

My pink and minty view.

my garden, nature,

I’ve been taking evening walks, and have been loving the way the light catches different aspects of the plants from what I see in the morning, even the very early morning. It’s been a wonderful week, with lots of time for me to catch up on a hundred different things, but in an unhurried way. More on all that, and the creekside views, to come.

Tonight I just want to show you a view that I have out my kitchen window for much of the day. The pink-orange hummingbird mint in the sun, me in the shade, I see it across the garden as a delicate curtain, with other flower heads also floating off to the side. I need to remember not to plant anything that will block it out of my sight when I’m standing at that counter. The picture was taken this evening.

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Ah, Grief…

grief, poetry, quotes,

I shared the poem below several years ago when my angle on grief was different. But I think of the metaphor often these days, because the grief I know is a thing in itself, a changeable being that has to be reckoned with.

Last week I saw its resemblance to an illness of the body, which in fact it is in part. A malaise or pain that comes and goes, and when it goes you forget that the underlying problem still exists. Then you get ambushed. Here the metaphor of the poem doesn’t sync with my own; maybe if I become more hospitable to my grief it will become the sort of companion the poet is hoping for, not a thing waiting in ambush, but a faithful-friend kind of creature that can even “warn off intruders.”

I think this is christ good shepherd lghappening. I see that not only am I on the path to acceptance, of the loss of my husband and of my new life, but that one stage of the journey is the acceptance of the grief process itself, and of its demands. A canine in the corner aptly describes something I would not naturally welcome.

Yesterday was rich and full of encouragement — several times because of my pangs of grief — including this meaningful note from Mrs. Bread after Little Goldfinch revived and flew away: “We all need quiet to regain our senses.” She knew I was having that healing kind of day. My dog (see poem) seemed to rest relatively content in his corner. As I wrote in the original posting:

May all our hurts bring us to Him, and may we experience the comfort St. Paul writes about in II Corinthians:

Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.

TALKING TO GRIEF

Ah, Grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
I should trust you.

I should coax you
into the house and give you
your own corner,
a worn mat to lie on,
your own water dish.

You think I don’t know you’ve been living
under my porch.
You long for your real place to be readied
before winter comes. You need
your name,
your collar and tag. You need
the right to warn off intruders,
to consider
my house as your own
and me your person
and yourself
my own dog.

~ Denise Levertov