5.03.2013

Garden's Little Secrets and other stories

It's hard not to be in a good mood today. The forecast has seventies in it for over the weekend, and the apple tree is in bloom!


as are the bluebells... and the pink bells, and the white bells:


and the Solomon's seal:


and the white lilac and the red rhododendron:


and the columbine:


and the roses are getting close:


and the sumac, after months of being an unassuming fuzzy stick, is leafing out. I love this baby tree.


Also, I love all the garden's little secrets. I've been having fun putting some of them in myself. Under the garden hoops live the tomatoes:

(and behind the garden hoops lives a ridiculously large brush pile)


and behind the rosemary, the sweet peas are beginning to climb their little trellises:


All the sunshine has me feeling positively cheery. If, as suggested, it gets to seventy-eight on Sunday—that's shorts weather, or wear-my-sundress-all-day weather. It's gin-and-tonic, read-out-on-a-blanket-in-the-sun, hook-up-the-hose-for-the-first-time-this-year-and-water-the-gardens weather. My kind of weather.

Maybe I'll take Harry Potter out on a blanket and get some reading in.

* * *

Maia in "There's something interesting on the floor, and I think I'm going to kill it" mode:

From here, it looks like a bit of already-dead koosh ball,
left over from nieces' visit.

* * *

Music of the week: The Flower Duet from Delibes' Lakmé. The speakers max out into crackles a few times in this recording, but I've no fault to find with the singing.


* * *

Happy weekend!

7 comments:

  1. Well, I had to scroll past all those pictures of plants & sunshine, but there it finally was: Cat picture!! ;)

    Have a happy weekend too. I'll be AWOL for Monday's postings on the read through. Out of town for a conference the early part of the week.

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    1. Haha, George. I have to make you work for the cat pictures, or you won't read anything else. :P

      Hope you have a good conference! We'll miss you on Monday's read-through post.

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  2. No one in their right mind plants sumac... well, maybe that's my prejudice since my parents had a mini forest of the stuff growing behind their house. I always liked it but they ingrained in me a hatred of it's tenacity and ability to spread...
    I love that Lakme duet. It's so beautiful. And speaking of music... I forced Masha to look up some of your stuff online. Holy crap, you're good! (That honestly wasn't meant to sound surprised; I was going for enthusiastic but the internet has a way of conveying the worst motives.) Have you ever listened to Moire Brennan? If I still had her CD I'd send it to you - I think she's Enya's sister. She's got a ton of music out but I owned "Whisper to the Wild Water" and it was really good. She's very Catholic both in her aesthetic and her theology, which totally comes through in her music. I think you would like her.
    -The Neglected Husband

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    1. Oh, gosh, that makes me happy... I'm glad you liked my music! :) And yeah, the Lakme duet is one of my favorite pieces. I feel like I've heard a song or two from Maire Brennan--I'm a big Enya fan--but it's been a long time. I'll have to hop over to YouTube and see if I can find some of her work.

      Funny, but I was just this afternoon thinking that I miss jamming and need some guitar-playing friends, and immediately thought of hanging round a bonfire with you and Masha. ;)

      We'll see how the sumac does. It has to fight the morning glory and the English ivy and being in the shade a lot, so it might not be too bad. On the other hand, the laburnum in the far corner of the yard turns up everywhere and is annoying about it, so I may regret the sumac-planting in ten years.

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  3. I love that you know your flowers and have a personal relationship with each one of them. Did you like that part of tLotR? I was always in awe of Tolkien's knowledge of plants, something I'm very ignorant of. My uncle has that green affinity, though, and my mom enjoys gardening, though she's not on a Latin-name basis with her backyard plants! I, on the other hand, am a terrible grower. But I do so appreciate green things, and love flowers.

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    1. Hmmmmmm. Next time I read LotR, I will have to watch for plants! I remember the little elanor flowers... that's about it.

      Remember Proginoskes in L'Engle's The Wind in the Door, who had learned off the stars by name, just because things need to be Named? Meg was a Namer, too... I'm no naturalist with extensive botanical knowledge, but I have to know my own plants by name. :)

      Even if you can't or don't garden, it really is lovely to have flowers around!

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    2. Oh, no! I thought I had read that one, but that's not familiar . . . because I would definitely remember that part about Naming things, it's beautiful and really resonates with me.

      Delete

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