Tag Archives: chamomile

Weeks and weeks of homebody bliss.

feasts, home, my garden, wildflowers, , , , , , , ,

I’ve been home from my travels more than two weeks already, and before any more trips loom on the horizon, I have eight more weeks of homebody bliss remaining. It’s still high summer, when the days –or at least, the afternoons — are of the warm sort that energize and call me to the garden. This is the greatest good fortune. Glory to God, that I have a garden. Glory to God!

Stinking Chamomile

Other things besides the garden have helped to fill my days, and are filling my calendar into the near future. When I am home, I can be a host, and have guests! My house is happy when extra people are enjoying its spaces, and feeling the breezes blow through. That’s happened twice already in the last two weeks, and I’m expecting it to happen more.

When guests come in the summertime, they can stroll about the garden and pick a plum, and younger guests can play in the playhouse. The last one who did that made a soup entirely of tarragon and fountain water, and then dumped it into the fountain. Speaking of the fountain, when I am home I can keep it running, and keep it clean. It’s not very cheery to have a fountain turned off.

Lesser Goldfinch – internet photo

The birds are enjoying the summer. I hadn’t noticed the goldfinches much in the last couple of years, but this week they have been frolicking around the fountain; they seem to have plenty of time to play, probably because they’re not burning so many calories to keep warm. Today the house finches came along to drink and bathe as well. And one goldfinch made a side trip to the arbor, to perch on a long wisteria runner that was reaching out horizontally. He made short and quick jumps down toward the tip, which dropped a couple of inches in elevation with each jump, pecking at the buds, or maybe at insects, until he was at some critical point, after which I suppose he’d have found himself upside down if he’d held on — so he flew away.

Spanish Clover

It was a wet spring here, and the early summer was cool, but now everything not in watered gardens is crisping up. I took my friend to one of my favorite parks for an easy hike, but it was so dry that the trail in many places had deep and wide cracks that made walking difficult, even in my boots. I guess I’d never been there at this time of year before? It did smell good out there, I must admit, and amid the crackling grasses we saw lots of wildflowers — first, masses of Yellow Star-Thistle, Centaurea solstitialis, an invasive plant that is in bloom now.

Yellow Star-Thistle

Star-Thistle is one of the many invasives that one can learn about on the website of the California Invasive Plants Council website, which I only just discovered. I think I’ll like to return there. The website of Yosemite National Park also features articles about such plants locally, and one of them tells about the great lengths different agencies go to, to control what is in California considered a weed. A Wikipedia article is unclear about whether the star-thistle is considered noxious in six or in 23 of the U.S. states where it is present. Are you my U.S. readers familiar with it? Evidently the purple star thistle is essentially the same thing, except for the color.

Star Thistle

The pennyroyal that amazed me at Tomales Bay also grew along the path in less spectacular displays; and Spanish Clover, and Stinking Chamomile (Anthemis cotula), photo above. That chamomile was new to me; Gwen sniffed it and said that indeed it did not smell good.

Domesticated and not-stinky chamomile is growing in my planter box, just one specimen that sprouted from the old seeds I threw in there before I went to Greece. I should plant it every year, it is so cheery.

Last week we celebrated the Procession of the Cross, and the festal cross stayed in the middle of the temple until the Forefeast of Transfiguration. Now we will celebrate Transfiguration for about a week until the Leavetaking of Transfiguration which is the day before we celebrate Dormition (Assumption) of the Theotokos in the middle of the month. I love the way the calendar anchors me to the church, and reveals the abundance of saints and events who fill the year with the glory of God.

Before the service, before all the fruit had arrived.

As usual we brought baskets of fruit, and after Liturgy processed through the vineyard singing. It wasn’t as prickly as the trail I walked on last week, but it required careful stepping around grape prunings and blackberry brambles.

I pruned the lavender this week, and set it aside to take to a friend so she can add it to the straw in her chicken coop, to sweeten up the atmosphere:

A different friend came for lunch, and we were able to eat outside on the patio, after a leisurely tour of the garden. It was just warm enough to thoroughly relax, but not to wilt. I added snips of my parsley and tarragon to the salad we made together. I could have put a few calendula petals in as well, but I didn’t think of that.

This has been a pretty unfocused ramble, I’m afraid, so rambling that I don’t know how to sign off. So, let’s just pretend we were talking together next to my planter boxes, and looking at the zinnias, and then I went into the house and didn’t come back.

But I will return eventually!

The vitality of insects and my heart.

friends, my garden, quotes, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

We can only be said to be alive in those moments
when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.
-Thornton Wilder

I’m home from my travels, and have been wandering about the garden to see what has changed in the last three weeks. My housemate Susan watered all the pots through a heat wave, Alejandro staked sunflowers and trimmed perennials, and my neighbor Gary trained the pumpkin vines to the trellis.

Mylitta Crescent

When I departed in late May, the bumblebees were the dominant buzzers among the flowers, but once the lavender and the germander opened, the honeybees returned. They are very alive, diligently about their business, and not ignoring the salvia, either. This gray bee likes the echinacea blooms that are just now available for nectar refreshment.

Hyssop, chamomile, basil and parsley are making a jungle of buds and blooms in the vegetable box out back. I’ve been waiting for the hyssop to do something for two years, while it took up a large space in that planter. It is famous as a bee plant. When I see bees acting like this one below, it makes me want to grow hyssop again… but not in the planter next time:

This Hyssopus officinalis is not the anise hyssop that I grew in my previous landscape, which “is neither anise (Pimpinella anisum) nor hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis),” but Agastache foeniculum. But they are both members of the mint family, and bees appear equally devoted to them.

The insects focus intently on what gifts they are given from the Creator, and I have been bowled-over conscious of my own treasures, during my travels. The grandchildren in Colorado, and their parents trying to keep up, impressed me with their youthful vitality, compared with Grandma, who liked to sit on the deck, play Bananagrams, take leisurely walks… and never once jumped on the trampoline with them.

While in Idaho I was acutely aware of what treasures my friends Rosemary and Jacob are. Being with them is like swimming in a refreshing, nectar-rich pool of friendship.

We worked to identify various plants on their property, and found dewberries, thimbleberries, and wineberries; wild roses are everywhere, and white spirea. Along the country road where we walked, these Baker Mariposa Lilies dotted the foliage on the forest floor. Every one was dotted itself with one or more insects as conscious as an insect can be of its sweet treasure.

I think Jacob and Rosemary would agree with me that it is the Lord who has given us this prized possession that we hold as a threesome, love that is an overflow of the Holy Trinity, from whom all life emanates.

My friends are my estate. Forgive me then the avarice to hoard them. They tell me those who were poor early have different views of gold. I don’t know how that is. God is not so wary as we, else He would give us no friends lest we forget Him.  –Emily Dickinson

I realize now that my aliveness is of a different sort from bees and children. My heart was continuing to sing and dance with thankfulness while my body sat quietly on airplanes for hours yesterday. So many treasures and the consciousness of them, and riches waiting for me when I arrive home… All this activity is making me sleepy like a toddler. Must be naptime!

I busy myself with weeds.

my garden, nature, , , , , , , , ,

Weeds are keeping me busy indeed — and I don’t mean with the hoe or on my hands and knees yanking them out of my garden. Now that I have inches of mulch covering the soil around the plants I do want, I have more leisure to merely study the weeds that manage to pop up.

It’s easy to get carried away with this project, and my blog material has swelled to the point of resembling the unwieldy piles of weeds I used to cart to the waste bin. I have been sorting pictures and choosing the best ones to show you, and poring over Weeds of the West. I asked my farmer friend Dick about one weed that did get away from me in the gravel utility yard, and he said he had it, too, and would find out what it was. But Pippin researched and we agreed it was sowthistle. Dick turned out to be amused that we would work so hard to find the name of something “only a weed!”

Yesterday was the Day of Rejoicing, and this year I went to all four cemeteries to sing to those waiting in their graves for the Resurrection. Two of the cemeteries have non-endowed sections where weeds are plentiful, and as we processed from one area to another I stopped to get a picture of some weeds/wildflowers (they can be the same plant!), explaining to my friend Tom who was behind me, “I am doing a sort of study of weeds….”

“Why would you do that?” he asked.

“Well, I like to learn about plants, and now in springtime weeds are bursting out everywhere… they are part of my world!”

There’s no time for philosophizing on this topic at the moment, though, because I have dozens more weeds to sort and investigate, so I thought I’d just tell you about one that I mis-identified in the past. When a friend saw my picture at the top of this post that I had elsewhere labeled “chamomile” she questioned, “Are you sure it isn’t Tripleurospermum maritimum?” Well, hmm… no…. But I have since learned that it isn’t either of those things, but a relation called pineappleweed, or Matricaria matricarioides (or Matricaria discoidea). On its blooms “ray flowers are lacking,” as Weeds of the West puts it. It has other common names: wild chamomile — so I wasn’t totally wrong — and disc mayweed.

Reading about Tripleurospermum maritimum is also interesting, but a bit confusing. I love that in Iceland and Scandinavia it is called Baldr’s eyelashes — or is it Baldr’s Brow? —  after the son of Odin:

“The second son of Odin is Baldr, and good things are to be said of him. He is best, and all praise him; he is so fair of feature, and so bright, that light shines from him. A certain herb is so white that it is likened to Baldr’s brow; of all grasses it is whitest, and by it thou mayest judge his fairness, both in hair and in body. He is the wisest of the Æsir, and the fairest-spoken and most gracious; and that quality attends him, that none may gainsay his judgments. He dwells in the place called Breidablik, which is in heaven; in that place may nothing unclean be.”

But is T.m. actually the same thing as Tripleurospermum  inodorum? And should it or they be called Matricaria perforata? Controversy surrounds this plant!  Are Icelanders looking at the same plant as the Swedes when they think of Baldr, or is theirs scentless mayweed? Is the plant — or if there are two, is one of them — truly scentless, or is it bad-smelling? This is not even a weed in my own world and look where it’s taken me!

But dear pineapple weed is fair, too, and has been part of my life for a long time. It likes to grow in places where people have packed the ground down by walking on it, and if on my everyday walk I cut the corner sharply enough turning on to the creek path, I will walk on it. I read that the leaves have a pleasant scent when crushed, so today I stopped and rubbed some between my finger and thumb, and yes, it caused a faint pineappley event, but not worth stomping on the furry greenery to accomplish.

Before I was certain of its identity I tried just to pick off a stem in the rain and a clump came up. So I brought it home and divided it into four which I planted in a pot. It will be interesting to see if it can be happy with no one walking on its territory.

Wouldn’t it be sweet, even scent-wise, if pineappleweed could invade sowthistle’s domain? It wouldn’t be the first time I have cultivated a weed in my garden. If I find the time, I might tell you about that. For now, I’ll be interested to hear if a few of my readers have any kind of chamomile or mayweed growing wild in your worlds, and I will get back to my own.

 

Historic and overcast with sun.

bees, family, nature, other gardens, , , , , , , , ,

Of course, every day is historic. Today grandson Brodie ate with a fork for the first time! And lest I forget, it’s the day of the Total Solar Eclipse 2017. My view was as at right.

Last week I was in Monterey, California, where the sky is also commonly white in the mornings. I’m guessing that today Soldier’s family couldn’t see the natural and rare wonder above the overcast there, either.

bee balm

 

 

But as is also typical, during my brief visit the sun would come out within a few hours of the start of day, and we enjoyed many lovely walks in the neighborhood, and outings a little farther afield.

 

 

 

 

Earthbound Farm in Carmel Valley has paths to wander through various gardens with a teepee, a fort, a store and café, berry patches…

It is the perfect place to examine snails, red peppers growing, tiny leaves or flowers. Below is a weed I’ve often wanted to get a good picture of – it helps to have a boy’s finger for comparing size:

Laddie especially loved the aromatherapy chamomile labyrinth. I think he might have walked that path for an hour if we had not moved on.

artichoke in bloom

In the Alphabet Garden we saw a plant, or at least a place where a plant had grown, for every letter, including Echinacea and Bean.

On our walks in the neighborhood we saw familiar flowers and plants that Liam and I have noticed many times now, as well as some new ones. I haven’t had time to research most of them, like this:

But I did learn Sea Lavender, what Liam described as having a rattle-like sound to the flower heads. Only the white parts are the true flowers, what I assume this bee is sipping at:

Flowers love to grow on California’s coast! Here are several more I don’t know – if any of my readers knows them, please share.

Below, a tall bush in Soldier and Joy’s back yard:

Awfully fancy, this one:
Joy and I drove down to the Monterey Bay Recreational Trail and walked with three boys, two bikes, a double stroller and a baby pack. We looked for a long time into the water next to the boat docks and I saw my first jellyfish and skate not in an aquarium, plus lots of hermit crabs scuttling in and out of rock crevices.  It was beautiful down there.

I have been to visit Monterey twice this summer, to offer a little adult company to Joy while Soldier is working on the east coast. So we chatted and talked and talked some more, which may have been the cause of the boys being even more rambunctious than usual. I was amazed at how when it involves three boys ages 5, 3, and 1, every activity, even something as soothing as Grandma reading to them, devolves into roughhousing.

I don’t have a good picture of that. Just imagine a tangle of six arms, six legs, giggling faces and tousled hair, all somehow hanging on to my lap, with an open storybook underneath it all. It was a multi-sensory experience that will go down in my history book as a sunny day.