Tag Archives: germander

Messiness and happiness in the balance.

bread, homemaking, my garden, , , , , ,

Why am I so happy, suddenly? It’s 4:00 in the afternoon, my kitchen and family room are incredibly messy, it should be depressing. I took a video just now, scanning the room, with dishes sitting in tepid dishwater and empty plastic bags on the counter, bills and book mailers on the smaller table along with the contents of my traveling backpack that I’d dumped there several days ago.

On the big dining table are stacks of papers and magazines and mail waiting to be further sorted, a spray bottle of Mrs. Meyers, and bins from my Big Purge&Sort project; on the sideboard, two handbags in disarray — because I can’t decide which one I’m using from day to day when I do go out; an open planner, more mail and various papers, and stacks of books growing taller every day. Empty cardboard boxes on the floor, and the usual aprons and dishtowels wadded on the counter or slung over backs of chairs…

You know why this isn’t getting me down? It’s the second day in a row that I haven’t had any outside commitments or workers in the house, and I think I am rested from my latest expeditions. I thought I was rested by Tuesday, and today I was bright awake early, but then strangely, fell asleep mid-morning.

I didn’t tell you about my trip home from the East Coast, that involved a twice-delayed flight, the last shuttle bus of the night (2:00 a.m.) not showing up, and me finally taking an Uber all the way from the airport, a one-hour ride. There was so much interesting along that journey, like the red Tesla that brought me home, but I have been too weary to write about it. I got into bed at 5 in the morning. I had written in that planner ahead of time that I should “Stay Home!” all this week, but I’d forgotten about our parish feast day… Anyway, now I have had two good days of solitude, and tomorrow is another one, God willing.

I’ve accomplished so many things in these homey days, slowly and steadily as my wits come around again. When I returned from D.C. there were two large zucchinis waiting to be picked, and three perfect ones, and some rubbery celery in the fridge. This afternoon I cooked up one of the big fruits with the celery. I made appointments (for next week), ordered birthday presents, bought a new lamp online, and took time to read while sitting in my morning room.

And I baked bread! My effort from a few weeks ago was a failure — let’s not talk about that — so I tried a new thing today, and it worked pretty well. I have a small loaf that is just the right size for me, and it didn’t crack on the side very much…

The crack is not big enough that the slice of bread falls apart, and the crumb is nice and  “custardy.” With a little more experimenting, I’m hopeful of developing a recipe that will work with my style of homemaking and cooking, and be somewhat reliable. If it can be sourdough, all the better. And if anyone has a theory about the crack, please let me know. Becoming a professional baker, or adopting a systematic, precise and scientific baking personality — that is not going to happen.

It’s 90 degrees today, which is good for my mood, and for bread baking. If it’s colder than 80, the house stays cold, and I behave like a lizard in winter. If it’s 95 or 100 I have to shut the windows to keep the house cool. But today, I can fully enjoy the summer and have the outdoors coming in — through the screens, of course! I never will get over how my grandma in Berkeley summers would have the windows wide open with no screens, and no flies. I can remember how her sheer curtains would float gently in the breeze that blew up the hill from San Francisco Bay….

The front garden is burgeoning, everything bigger than ever, with an added flower growing out from under the germander hedge. It’s not like anything else growing on the property, or the neighbors’ properties, unless you compare it to the Golden Marguerite that can be seen behind it. The Seek app even said it was a Golden Marguerite, but if it is, its petals are albinos.

All in all, I think the balance between tidiness and messiness tipped a tiny bit toward the tidy in the last hours, in spite of added bread dough and starter mess. I promise I will clean the kitchen now and not leave any dishwater in the sink when I go to bed. That will contribute to keeping happiness in ascendance, too. Thank you for sharing my happy day with me.

I find the oomph in flowers and prose.

bees, creativity, my garden, , , , , , , , , , , ,

My first sewing teacher used to tell me that she found sewing relaxing. I have never become skilled enough that I ever found that to be true for me. Even when I generally derived great satisfaction from sewing darling doll clothes, my neck would get stiff doing the tiny hand stitches at the end. It would never occur to me to pick up a needle and thread for fun or sustenance, during the days of preparation for a big expedition.

My usual way is to endanger my overall health by snacking and forgoing exercise as I become more anxious about setting off, so I was surprised at myself for taking several walks this week. This morning I even walked the whole two miles of what was formerly my daily routine. I saw a family of quail, and some old favorite plants, but it was too early for the bees.

And now here I am working on yet another blog post, after reading and thinking and perusing this and that… one might think it a pretty inefficient use of my limited time, because I am up against looming deadlines. But, I am finding that these activities are as necessary to my overall well-being as the walking is to my legs and back — sometimes I think they are more so.

Evidently there is something about engaging in creative activity that is calming, and clears the mind. The preparations for a big social event also constitute a creative work, but that one is not my favorite, and requires a lot of extra oomph, plus a type of thinking that is a stretch for me. So I sustain myself with words and flowers. 

My first Love-in-a-Mist flower bloomed today! This was a Big Event, a project that started off with my longstanding admiration for these flowers, and a desire to grow them myself. It took years, and the donation of seeds from two friends, and then a couple more years, before I got them planted in the greenhouse in the spring. I put them in three different places in the garden, and hope that they will self-sow at least a little and keep themselves going from now on.

All the white echinacea are standing up tall and elegant, not losing their gracefulness even when the overeager asparagus fronds drape themselves on them.

When the sunflower that the bee sleepers were using began to fade, they rearranged themselves on others. The three above were seen yesterday morning, but last night and today, no bees at all were bedded down in the open — only this small creature was nestled in a sunflower bud:

I am traveling next week, driving nearly to the bottom of the state, which I’ve never done before. My trip will involve lots of visiting with friends and family, a wedding, and a mountain cabin. I hope to tell you about some of the bloggy details as they emerge, but once I’ve torn myself away from my desktop and my garden, there’s no telling what might happen!

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 slake my thirst with gardens.

my garden, other gardens, quotes, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Way back in October, I think, was the last time a certain one of my favorite plant nurseries was open — until Saturday, when I drove over for the reopening. The retail aspect is a small part of a larger sustainable agriculture/ecological/educational project, and is only open on weekends in the warmer months. Over the years I’ve bought lots of annual vegetables there, but lately they focus on perennial edibles and and medicinal plants.

It’s a beautiful drive, out into the more rural areas of my county. I remembered to wear my sun hat to keep my scalp from burning, but when I got into the nursery area itself there was netting all over above, which probably made it unnecessary. Passionflowers bloomed like stars up there.

For an hour I got a huge rush of excitement and energy, as I saw more and more species of perennial salvias and echinacea species that I could take home and add to my pollinator garden. Echinacea Purpurea, Pallida, and Paradoxa. Salvia hians (Kashmir Sage), Salvia forsskaolii, Clary Sage and Dune Sage. The forsskaolii, or Indigo Woodland Sage, I used to have in my “old” garden, but it didn’t survive the transition. None of the new plants is in bloom yet so I’ll show them later after they are revealed in their fullness.

There was one plant that I had no desire to bring home for my garden, though they say it is grown worldwide as an ornamental. That is the Porcupine Tomato:

Solanum pyracanthos

This flowering tree grows near the entrance/checkout. Does anyone know what it is?

In my own garden, June seems to have arrived early, and so suddenly… I guess that’s because I’ve been sitting around moping and confused; I know I am way behind in planting the second planter box. But the rest of the garden just went on doing its thing, and is ready to comfort me now that I desperately need it. When there is a lull in the strange high winds we’ve been having, I can sit out there and silently bake, in the company of other creations and creatures. For a few moments at a time I revel in just being.

The showy milkweed is over five feet high already, and in the back yard it’s a favorite of the bees, along with the lavender and the echium. Oh, speaking of echium, I saw my type at the nursery; I must have bought it there several years ago. It is not the Pride of Madeira-echium candicans that is more typical here. As recently as last week, though, I thought it was just an oddly growing form of it. If it were Pride of Madeira it would have blocked the path by now; good thing it’s more vertical!

See the bee on the left, against the sky?
Pretending to be real trees.
In a spring storm two branches broke off.
Back before spring had fully sprung.

At the nursery my kind was called Tower of Jewels, and just now I found a helpful site that explains all the different forms. Mine is also called Tree Echium, echium pininana. I never noticed before how the echium flowers resemble borage and my newer plant, bugloss. Well, they are all in the borage family.

echium Tower of Jewels
bugloss

I took a slow-motion video of the bees out front on the germander (teucrium). In real time they seem very excited, almost frantic, in their buzzing from flower to flower, but when I watched the video it showed their true selves as purring bee-copters taking all the time in the world, that is, the whole day and their whole short lives, to do their work.

I’m needing to take long breaks from talking this week, mostly my own, which seems like more and more idle talk. No one talks in my garden. Even the tropical birds have been moved to their new home far enough away that I can’t hear them; now I can hear the native singers’ quieter tunes and gentle chirps.

I think I was looking for a quote on a different topic this morning when I ran across this beloved one (a beloved quote? really? Yes.) from G.K. Chesterton:

Women have a thirst for order and beauty as for something physical;
there is a strange female power of hating ugliness and waste
as good men can only hate sin and bad men virtue.

Forget for a moment the reductionist nature of these ideas — most short quotes, in order to be pithy, have to focus on one or two ideas and lay aside the complexities of the subject. Just think about what we are thirsty for… (You men also thirst, naturally.) I realized just this morning — by bathing in the the sunshine and the lavender scent, the breeze and the humming — and this afternoon, by speaking briefly about it with a wise person, that the very concrete realness, the materiality of my garden satisfies something. Maybe my garden has to do double-duty right now because of the recent lack of human touching.

How it helps me pray… I don’t need to figure out that mystery. I just want to enter in.

On Passover afternoon, ten days ago now, we had Kneeling Vespers of Pentecost. Almost everyone took part at home, but I live close to the church and I drove over in hopes that there would be few enough of us that I could participate indoors. My hope was realized! I’m sharing this picture because of the golden sunshine. May God fill us with His light!