Tag Archives: spring

The garden glows.

my garden

The last time I mentioned my plum trees here, I didn’t include a photo of the whole garden, even though I’d taken quite a few. They just didn’t convey what I was seeing. Then a storm moved in and we got drenching rains. It turns out that when the plants are well watered, at the same time that they are leafing out, they start to glow. This special condition is most noticeable when the clouds are blocking most of the sun.

Even though there aren’t many flowers — other than plum — blooming in the back garden, all the different leaf hues and textures add up to a colorful early-spring show.

I’m really grateful to those of you who told me in the comments that you don’t get tired of garden pictures. You encouraged me to keep trying, to look for new angles and views of the “same ol'” plants.

For anyone who is wondering, I’ll tell you what plants are creating the most colorful contrasts right now: Along the back fence, the tall dark reddish bushes are dodonaea, or hopbush; the flowering trees are Elephant Heart plums; the small bushes with new, tiny orange leaves are dwarf pomegranates; the cropped blue-gray bushes along the path are lavender; the pale green swath in front of the plum tree is nigella or Love-in-a-Mist; and olive trees are growing in the big white pots.

In these views you can’t see all the weeds that are also springing up, and with the continuing rains I know there will be more of those to keep up with. But let’s not think about work just yet. There’s a fire in the wood stove, and it’s the season for watching from inside my cozy house as the the cold wind blows outside, making a wild moving picture of my glorious garden.

Homey doings in early spring.

books, food and cooking, Lent, my garden, , , , ,

This month I had two occasions when friends visited me for one or two nights, two different friends each time. It was fun to have people to cook for. About an hour before the first pair of guests were to arrive I found out that one of them couldn’t eat the bread I had planned to serve with soup, because of gluten intolerance. I have just enough time to make muffins, I thought, using Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free flour again. I mixed up the wet ingredients, and then — could not find that flour anywhere.

Though I rarely bake anymore, I have a dozen sorts of flours in a refrigerator in the garage. I rummaged through those and decided to use one cup of cassava flour and one cup of buckwheat flour. The latter was the sort one would use for buckwheat pancakes, that is, from roasted groats. Some people don’t like that flavor, so I was taking a chance that my guests would.

The muffins turned out very nice, we all thought. But the cassava flour is a little heavy, and I think if I try this again, I’ll use more buckwheat and less cassava. That very evening I discovered the missing flour, in the wrong refrigerator.

The last time I made pancakes I did not use buckwheat flour, but I did use this beautiful batter bowl that I received as a Christmas gift. It holds an amount of batter that is just right for one person, and its presence on my kitchen counter has encouraged me to make pancakes for just myself, for the first time ever.

Another type of bread I helped to bake recently was the little prosphora that our parish uses as one type of altar bread at Divine Liturgy. That day we only made these small ones, and two people prepared dough. One of the dough makers used more flour than usual, and we ended up with a record number of prosphora — so while they were cooling I took their picture:

Lent is coming right up — for us Orthodox it begins on Monday. Many people I know like to choose some “spiritual reading” for Lent, and I have done that many times. Our women’s book group has often chosen a book to read together and discuss after Pascha. But this year we didn’t; we still haven’t discussed the last book we chose, to read during Advent.

At one point I thought I would read The Seer: The Life of the Prophet Samuel and its Relevance Today during this season. And then I looked around my house and noticed so many other worthy titles. Maybe I would cast lots among these below, and let God decide for me:

But the finality of that action frightened me. It’s not likely that I will finish any of these big books during Lent anyway, because I always seem to use any extra time to attend the lovely Lenten services at church. So in the end I decided to read (from) all of them, and I’ve stacked them up next to my reading chairs as my Lenten Library; my plan is to read at least a little from one or two of them every day. Being goal-oriented does not come naturally!

hairy bittercress

The last couple of days have been sunny at times, and the weeds in the garden are getting my attention, as they grow like weeds in springtime. So I got out there and pulled a bunch. I try to keep a thick layer of mulch on my garden to prevent weeds, but I guess I got behind in adding to that layer. I’m hoping to do that this week.

The anemones and crocuses that I planted at the end of November are starting to bloom, and the muscari and daffodils are showing leaves; obviously so late in the fall was not optimal for getting them in the ground. One reason I got busy weeding was to make sure they won’t be hindered from lifting their pretty faces to the sun. Of course, it’s good for me to do that with my own face when I get the chance, and I trust that will be the case more and more as springtime unfolds, in the earth and the air, and in these anemones.

Companionable Love-in-a-Mist

my garden, , , , , , , ,

I’m gushing every day over my lush garden; once again this year, but twice as much, the extra rain has prompted everything to grow BIG! A friend said it’s because the precipitation was spread out more evenly over the season.

Nigella, or Love-in-a-Mist, has spread its soft, blue-blossomed self all over the place, so much so that I needed to rescue a lot of plants from the stems that had grown tall, taller, and so tall, with their seed pods getting heavy, that they lost their balance and fell down on the surrounding lavender, germander, yarrow — whatever was there, trying to come into bloom itself.

It’s a happy chaos, out there. But a gardener must garden, and manage things, if lightly.

Verbena planted last fall.
Apple mint and Bugloss.

The hopbushes (dononea) seem to be extra full and extra colorful this year:

Yarrow buds and nigella pods clinging.
White-lined Sphinx Moth amongst the Mexican Evening Primrose.
Showy Milkweed

When I was lifting nigella off the echinacea out front, I noticed that the Golden Margeurite also was encroaching and reclining, on the germander nearby. I had to cut it back a lot, but you can hardly tell, there is so much of it. I brought it indoors and it has made a long-lasting bouquet of golden sunshine.

A sudden whirl of green.

nature, poetry, trees, , ,

I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such a dramatic springtime as here in Wisconsin, the sort of place where winter covers everything with snow, and the plants have to do their thing fast once the warm winds begin to blow.

These small flowering trees seem to have calculated how many buds and flower petals can possibly be squeezed out of their sap — then they produce a few hundred more for good measure.

A day or two later, the leaves are pushing the blossoms aside, saying, “Our turn! Gotta hurry!”

DECIDUOUS SPRING

Now, now the world
All gabbles joy like geese, for
An idiot glory the sky
bangs. Look!
All leaves are new, are
Now, are
Bangles dangling and
Spangling, in sudden air
Wangling, then
Hanging quiet, bright.

The world comes back, and again
Is gabbling, and yes,
Remarkably worse, for
The world is a whirl of
Green mirrors gone wild with
Deceit, and the world
Whirls green on a string, then
The leaves go quiet, wink
From their own shade, secretly.

Keep still, just a moment, leaves.

There is something I am trying to remember.

~ Robert Penn Warren

Each morning the goslings by the lake appear to have doubled in size. Clouds race across the deep blue sky, darken and thicken, and pour down rain. The anemone buds droop, the sun blazes out, and the white flowers open gladly to take in the rays.

Snowdrop anemones in Pearl’s garden.

Pearl and I took the dogs to the dog park where they had a fine romp, and I admired more trees and flowers.

Virginia Bluebells

Earlier this week we drove to Sheboygan for dinner, and all along the road I got to see lots of handsome farms with beautiful silos, surrounded by bright green fields. On the way home I was quite taken with some stripey clouds.

Everyone and everything is gabbling joy.