Tag Archives: rosemary

In my happy places.

bees, church, my garden, saints, , , , , , ,

First there was the mega mega gardening week, when I dug chicken manure into 23 little holes and dropped in starts of four different leafy greens; I wrestled with juniper roots to reclaim space; and put back into the ground eleven iris rhizomes of the dozens I’d lifted a month before — and hours upon hours of other such work. It was thoroughly happy-making.

The yard worker had brought in and spread 1.5 yards of soil during my last absence, so that I would be ready to plant when I got home. This neighbor cat thinks its for her potty purposes:

Rosemary and Pomegranate

It must have been extra grace and strength God bestowed on me for the week, because every day I was at it again; the nights gave sound sleep, and that surely helped. I moved heuchera that were languishing in deep shade, to be near my umbrella table corner, where they will likely do better in partial shade.

In that area where I like to sit with guests it’s been hard to find flowers that do well, but since I’ve realized that the increased shadiness of the back garden is the problem, I hope to improve the situation by using more appropriate species. I set out pansies along there, too, for the winter, and in the spring I plan to add Japanese anemones. The goal is to have something blooming most of the year.

Salvia
Abelia with comfrey.
Nodding Violet

Propagation is a joy! I finally dug out at least some of the comfrey that has been shooting up from under the abelia, and put three pieces in nursery pots; if they grow I will stick them against a fence somewhere. I know they do fine in deep shade; when I first brought a start from my former garden in 1990 it grew for years under the osmanthus. But since the osmanthus is gone the comfrey has planted itself in undesirable places nearby.

A friend told me that her Christmas cactus and aloe vera had died, and I happened to have a small Christmas cactus that I had propagated a year or two ago to give her. Also I have three aloe vera plants in pots and they all have babies right now, so I potted one up for her.  When I trimmed the apple mint and rose geranium and nodding violet I stuck a few stems in water, where they are likely to send out roots.

Aloe Vera offering her child.

It’s been fun visiting nurseries at this time of year, though I do have pangs of (I hope false) guilt that I am tempting myself to plant gluttony. I always forget about Iceland poppies until I see them in the nurseries… and let’s see, what else did I find that I wasn’t expecting? English daisies. They do well in part-shade, also. At the moment I haven’t figured out where to put those daisies.

Above is one of my work tables, showing another of my finds at the nursery: stock. I put three plants in a pot to have ready when the asters stop blooming: then I can remove their pot and put this one by the front door.

The gardening spree hasn’t ended, and probably won’t for another few weeks. In the meantime the garden as a whole is a paradise to walk around in, and just look at. In the middle of the afternoon when the sun is shining, the bees are busy still, but they get up late and go to bed early now. The multitude of plants that don’t need attention of any kind at the moment appear especially lovely; they are contented in their slowing down. The atmosphere is quieter and less bright, more meditative.

Pineapple guavas are still tiny, but growing.

In the rain.

Last week I was racing the rain, which arrived Friday night. I could hardly walk Saturday morning anyway, so that marked the end of the most strenuous week, and ushered in the glorious weekend. From Saturday evening to Monday morning it was again and again granted to me to be in my other happy place, the Orthodox church temple where I worship. First the feast of St. Demetrios, the first celebration of that event since I visited Thessaloniki in June, at which time I had became better acquainted with the saint. He is wonderful.

The next day was the first commemoration since her canonization, of our 20th century American saint Olga of Alaska, Mother Olga Michael. It was especially significant for me, because our parish is suffering alongside a family whose wife and mother is in the hospital; we all are needing extra mothering of the consoling and encouraging sort Saint Olga is famous for.

“Her name in the Yup’ik language was Arrsamquq, a name meaning lowly, hidden, or unadorned—like the seed sown quietly in the earth. It was a name that would prophetically mark her life, for she lived not in boastfulness or acclaim, but in humility, reverence, and love.” 

Stories abound of Mother Olga’s loving midwifery, how she helped women sufferers of abuse, and was overall a calming and motherly presence to her own children and everyone around her. You can read the source of these quotes and more about her here: “Righteous Mother Olga of Kwethluk.”

“As she matured, she married Nicolai Michael, the village storekeeper and postmaster, who would later be ordained to the holy priesthood. In time, she would become known not only as Olga, but as Matushka Olga—a mother to thirteen children of her own, and a spiritual mother to an entire village. Quiet, gentle, and strong, she became a pillar of warmth and grace in Kwethluk.”

“The Yup’ik elders say: ‘A real person does not disappear, but remains in the hearts of those they have loved.’ In the Church, we say more: A real person in Christ becomes a saint, and the hearts they have loved, in communion with the Lord, become the Church, the living body of Christ in the world.”

The presence of Mother Olga was a Happy Place for many people.

May we all lean into the Lord,
and into becoming our real, personal selves.
Let us seek and find and live in
the Kingdom of God.

 

Busy, with mouse.

bees, food and cooking, my garden, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Getting things done. It’s so much fun to check off a few boxes on my “After Greece” list. One of the tasks was to get the fountain leveled. Just before the stonemason was going to come to do that, the pump motor died; I’m glad that happened just before, not after, the leveling. The man who always cleans my fountain when I let it turn green, about once a year, got me a new motor and installed it while I was out one afternoon. That was easy! The stonemason leveled it last night, and gave it a more secure brick-and-mortar base.

I returned from Greece two weeks ago but haven’t got back in the cooking groove. Part of the reason is, I hadn’t made it to the store to buy supplies, and was trying to assemble meals with whatever I could find in the cupboards and freezer. This morning I took my one onion, a can of tomatoes, a small container of mixed sauteed vegetables I’d stored in the freezer, and my home-grown fava beans also stored in the freezer, and made a really nice soup. “Before Greece” I’d roasted all the peeled garlic cloves in the fridge, which was a giant bag — I threw a bunch of those in, too. The soup was good hot, and also cold, as I found out later when the day had warmed up and it didn’t seem necessary to warm up dinner as well.

Recently I decided I wanted to mulch my vegetable plantings with rice straw the way I did ten years ago. So this morning I drove to the feed store where I hadn’t been since then, and was pleased to park next to the shed where baby chicks were peeping. While waiting for the bale to get loaded in the back of my Subaru, I noticed that they had not only rice straw, but rye, wheat and teff as well. The fibers of the teff straw were different from all the others, appearing to be fine and fluffy; I’d like to try that for mulch sometime.

In the past it was a hassle to keep the straw bale dry in the winter and at the same time prevent the rats from bedding down in it and chewing on the tarp that was protecting it, so I thought I’d keep it in the garage this time. Problem was, there was no space for it, unless I would get rid of the plastic storage bins that have been piling up in there as I empty them one by one. So I took them all out and put a notice on our parish email list asking for takers.

My goddaughter Esther came over midafternoon to get some lavender to use in cosmetics. I loaded her bag with rosemary, oregano, and yerba buena herb as well. She said that everything she cooks, if she puts oregano in it, it tastes better. And she’s not even Greek!

I have several types of English lavender growing here; she thought the small, darker purple blooms had the nicest scent, so I made her a couple of bundles of those stems only.

While she was still here, another parishioner stopped by to get some bins. She took almost all of them, and later another person took the remainder.

After the first batch of bins was gone, Esther and I were still standing in the driveway when I saw a field mouse run past. What? At that time of day one doesn’t expect to see such a critter, and I actually haven’t seen a mouse around here in ages, at any time of day, though we are always battling rats that come up from the creek. I could only guess that the mouse had been inside the bale of straw. Uh-oh. Now I am not sure about storing it in the garage.

Son Pathfinder has a new house, with new-to-him plants scattered around it. So he texted me a photo of one of them, wondering if I knew what it was. I had seen an almost identical one on my neighborhood walk the other day, but my Seek app couldn’t identify it correctly. We kept looking up plants and trading ideas back and forth for an hour via text (we’re very slow texters), and finally figured out that it is a yucca: “The flowers are edible and have a peppery flavor. Fruits can be roasted or dried and are sweet and fig-like.”

Here, the bees are finding the teucrium to be full of their favorite sweet food.
And with that I will say good-bye for now.

 

The next day was honeybee day.

bees, my garden, nature, , , ,

The day after Groundhog Day, or Candlemas, etc., my walk took me past a long hedge of rosemary in bloom, where hundreds of honeybees were already getting ready for next year’s Candlemas. There were both the golden orange striped and the browner kind. I had a lot of fun taking their pictures and sorting them. Most of the shots had to be tossed, quite a few because I had completely failed to include a bee in the frame.

I don’t know much about bees, but it seemed crazy that so many of them were around to notice the rosemary; our nights are still frosty. Do the people with the rosemary hedge also keep bees… handy? But many blocks away, on my own street, was a single such bush and bees were buzzing on its flowers, too. Now, as I write, it occurs to me that I saw bees on rosemary two years ago, possibly as early as January, in a nearby town.

When I got home I went straight into the back yard to see what’s going on with my own rosemary. It is barely starting to bloom, and there was not a bee to be seen. But across the garden, the cyclamen are coming up!

A rosemary comeback, and big plans.

home, my garden, , , , , ,

The first sunny day we’ve had in a week, and my plan was to work on cleaning the garage; I do not say “to clean the garage” because that sounds like I could ever finish.

But first, a walk. The creek is so high, and now running smoothly so that the sky reflects off the water, distracting from the quantity of mud still flowing below.

After breakfast I opened the overhead door of the garage to get light on my subject, and remembered that I wanted to trim the abutilon. It never stops blooming, so I can’t wait for dormancy. One bloom shone brightly yellow and caught the sun penetrating its petals.

You know how it goes in the garden – One thing leads to another, and I did a bit of tidying up the next hour. The first asparagus has emerged, and lots of California poppy plants that you can see behind one of my new wallflower bushes.

But what is THIS? A ladybug, yes, I know, but the bug is sitting on a stem of rosemary! A stem of a bush that is taking over a pittosporum bush, and already blooming, and I never saw it until today. It’s from a root left over from the gnarly plant that was there until three years ago; what a surprise that it didn’t show itself all this time, until now.

I had to cut it off for the time being, because I didn’t want to take time to dig out the root, which is what is sadly necessary.

gl P1040918
Rosemary in the previous landscape.


Several of my yarrow clumps seem to have died out,
but a couple of plants are starting to bloom.

And the abutilon – the star of the show.

I eventually did get a lot done in the garage. I’m making space there for stuff that’s been stored in the house, especially in the great room upstairs, because… Announcement!: I’m starting a remodel of this big room. For almost three decades it has been used for homeschooling, large families sleeping or even living in there, Mr. Glad practicing his drums, and always, the storage of many, many things, not in a very efficient manner. We avoided doing anything to it, while we fixed more urgent areas of the house and property.

My plan is to divide it into three rooms: a Guest Room, a Sewing Room, and a full bathroom. Plans now being drawn by an architect will soon be submitted to the city for a building permit, and the contractor is standing by….

There is nothing lovely or very interesting to tell about in the garage, or in the great room. Decorating, choosing furniture, colors and such matters do not inspire me. They challenge me and find me bored and impatient, and that makes me want to escape here and write about books or saints or the moon I saw through my window last night. So things might not change too much on the blog. I’ll be seeing you around!