Come walk with me in the sunshine, distant memories of warmth on our faces. Fingers no longer cold, layers no longer needed. Winter's icy tentacles loosened, grasp slipping
Watch it sent back in despair to a dark and dismal cave, fit only for the cold beast. Spring step forward in Winter's place, let us greet you with wonder, dance with us among the new purple crocus.
It's late on Sunday night. I have been avoiding writing Monday's blog post for a little too long now. And it looks like I am still having difficulties downloading photos onto Adobe. Procrastination obviously is not a good thing.
My eyes are probably as pink as this flower. Time seems to be running out.
I'll let you know on Tuesday if I can download new photos.
You know the phrase, into every life, a little rain must fall? It seems like we are getting our share of wet right now. The downward turn in the economy is hitting us just like everyone else. Between cutbacks, and job losses many of us are feeling the pinch. It won't last forever, I know that.
But I am hoping that these"spring rains," will result in a more beautiful garden. We will weather the storm.
After all, what is a garden without rain? And how are you going to know the good times, if you never experience the bad?
The other afternoon we heard a screeching outside, rough and ragged, shrill. It went on for a few minutes. The crows must be mad at Bootsie, I remember telling Gar. They sure are giving him heck. And they sound like they are recovering from Laryngitis.
Then just yesterday when I was busy at my drafting desk, I heard the same shrill screeching. Out on the branches of the giant Rhody were a pair of brilliant blue Steller's Jays. Busy telling everyone in earshot how upset they were that we did not include peanuts in our contraband birdseed. I guess they felt that the buffet was just not up to their standards, since they never stuck around long enough for me to grab the camera. They seem to be coming and going, a little camera shy, but loud, very badly behaved tourists, finishing up their winter vacation in White Rock. I've got to send Gar out to get some peanuts, or whatever these picky eaters prefer. Somehow I am sure that I would not want to be in the kitchen when they send back the meal.
What I have learned from my new 100 mm macro lens. That I really need a heavy duty tripod just like the experts say, after all that is why they are the experts. And the sight of my camera falling forward due to the weight of the lens is just not nice. That I need to do a lot more arm curls, like Gar says, after all he is the work out expert. Then maybe that sore spot in my arm will go away. That no matter how long you can hold your breath while taking a shot, inevitably when you let it out is when you will click the shutter. That the details in life are just as important as the big picture. That no matter how expensive the lens was, it was worth it.
That Gar is getting a little tired of being my photographic model. His saying "No, not again" every time I pick up the camera has given it away. That getting the lens is not going to make me a better photographer instantly, I need to practice, practice, practice. After which, I might finally have a good enough shot to show you. These are all from the telephoto lens. That's what I have learned from my macro lens.
Although we are in the month of March, and daylight savings time has come to us, spring seems to be in limbo.
Back east, they are celebrating with warmer than average temperatures, signs of green, and snow melting. Here on the West Coast, we are bracing for a freezing -7 overnight cold spell.
This is not the way it is supposed to be. We are the ones who get the warm spring, not them. We are the ones who send the pictures of golfing in our shorts, it is us who get to show the daffodils first. Spring come out, come out, where ever you are. Our crocus are up, the snowdrops are still hovering over the frozen soil, the sun is shining, alternately it is hailing, or snowing. As I write this, it is both sunny, and flakes of snow are drifting down. Spring please come out of hiding, we need to see you.
Pink I think…
I think that I need a gardeners"Roundtoit" widget, but I don't know where you can get one. I have heard many other gardeners say that they need to get a"roundtoit". For those of you who are wondering what a widget is, don't ask me? I haven't got a"roundtoit" widget, so I can't look up what a widget is. It's a vicious circle. Trust me. I have all these tasks to be done out there, and in here, and maybe a"roundtoit" widget will help.
Take the seeds, nice collection right? Well they look lovely sitting in a pile on the floor, and now it is March. There is a reason that they are not seeded yet, I don't have the room, maybe I can get a"whenwegetthespace" widget, and put that on my blog. Along with the"roundtoit" widget. Think of all the tasks I could accomplish with these widgets. Now if I could only find someone making a"gotoworkforme" widget…
My gardening mistakes seem to be expanding as rapidly as the water retention crystals that were in my soil mixture. The very soil that I used for transplanting most of my perennials. There are large clear chunks of jelly like substance laying on top of most of my containers. Because after I watered them, it snowed, and then it rained. A lot of rain. It looks like Alien spawn. At least my perennials won't get too dry.
That's what I get for using up the great bargain from late last summer. The water retention soil was a super deal, and I was too busy to go out and buy other soil. I mix all my own soil, using a mixture of coconut fiber, organic topsoil, perlite, sand, and now, water retention soil. The bright blue plastic bags of soil were taking up valuable space on my deck. And they had been there all late summer, through winter. It was time. And they were ugly, I can't have ugly in my garden, now can I?
There was another mistake that affected these poor long suffering perennials, I moved them outside into the open. And then it froze. After all, it was the end of February, it should be spring. This is BC right? Well apparently I am wrong, this is Alaska. Zone 0! We had snow and minus 6 C temperatures last week. Gardening mistakes, the garden centres love em.
I have decided after the fourth day of trying to clean up my deck, that all I really needed was a gardening fairy.
I need to go from this… I should have advertised for one, imagine how much easier it would have been then. She could have interviewed, shown her credentials, been hired, and waved her magic wand. Instantly the entire deck of 250+ pots would have been transplanted, cleaned up, trimmed back, watered, and ready for spring.
To this! Unfortunately life doesn't work that way. So it has been me, who is transplanting, trimming, moving, or should I say heaving pots around. Sweeping, washing, tiding and cleaning. There is literally no end to it. And to top it all off, I am only halfway. I don't remember it being this hard last year, but then again, maybe last year I hired superman to come out and help.
I am still in a spring cleaning mode, and now it is focusing on the house. Last night I mentioned to Gar that I would like to give the bathroom a fresh coat of paint. He was almost asleep, and when I asked him for his opinion on a appropriate color, his answer was"hot pink".
Now I know that he was teasing me, and there is absolutely no way that we would paint it that particular shade. But am I not tempted?
Yesterday I decided to fit in a little gardening, and enjoy this extraordinary run of sunny weather we have been having. The deck is still a mess, and it looks like it will be for some time. On the way out the door I thought briefly about turning the stereo on loud enough that I could hear it outside. The music might be soothing, but I was in a contemplative mood, so I changed my mind.
Had I turned it on I would never have heard the natural gardening music. There were birds singing, gulls keening, chickadee's were chirping. Crows were cawing at each other, and anyone else who moved. Faint rustles in whispering leaves as the warming breeze swept through the branches of the Rhodo. A wind chime from far away gave off a high tinkle, like sunlight sparkling on water. I listened to the sound of Bootsie appearing, as he slithered through the open patio door. Always hopeful that I would put down my gloves and go inside to feed him another helping of his favorite canned food. Then after wards the crackle of stirred up dead leaves as he runs through the shrubs, playing"hide and go seek Bootsie" with me.
The smallest of birds with wings fluttering descending on the winter bird seed, rushing away with a whir when they discover me there instead. Truly music to garden by.
I have heard you loud and clear. Fatigued Fridays will not be a regular post, I promise! I was just too tired to write last night. Garden Centres in the spring, are hives of activities, a flurry of getting ready, unpacking, and cleanup. Some days it seems like you never get caught up, that every time you look up from the pile of boxes you have been unpacking there is another delivery truck zooming up the driveway. Lately we have been sorting out plants that never made it through the winter. Our poor babies have had a lot of winter stress this year, due to the weather, and they are showing it. We have had to sort through, might make it, have not made it, and hooray, they made it. By the end of the day, our feet are dragging, sunshine or not. While we are happy to be active, there is a enormous amount of work to be done.
So I promise no more Fatigued Fridays, and I will try to stay awake long enough to write my posts.
After moving very heavy nursery tables around in the glorious sunshine all day, I am rather fatigued. No complaints, just tired.
In fact, I fell asleep on the couch, life gets in the way sometimes, you know how that is.
So my apologies, I had a wonderful post in mind, but I think that I just can't make my fingers type much more. I am writing this on Thursday night, trying to stay awake. But at least Gar and I got dinner.
So I am jokingly going to start a new idea for posts, called Fatigued Fridays. Who knows, it just might catch on. TGIF.
Do you think that there is a spell check that understands Latin? Is there a program out there that I can type in Philadelphus coronarius 'Aureus', and have the correct spelling the first time? Without resorting to googling it every time?
It is bad enough that my spell check only speaks American, not Canadian eh? Colour becomes color, centre becomes center. My pre published posts are full of little red error lines throughout. Very distracting when you are trying to proof read a post. Worse if you are a potentially poor speller. Like me. Maybe I should just send my computer back to school, Latin 101. More than likely it would come back with a attitude. I can hear it now… That is not how you spell Philadelphus.
Redo it.
I am not going to show you pictures of my messy deck right now. Trust me, you don't want to see them. There is nothing there but pots full of brown dirt, dead sticks, and a little bit of evergreen branches. Not to mention the pile of pots that are perched precariously on the 1 x 6's balanced between two of the lawn chairs. Oh, and the crumpled, cream colored duvet cover that was used for emergency winter protection, the one with the great big dirt smudges on it. It started when the temperature dipped suddenly to way way below zero. In Celsius it was cold, and going down to -15. I was still in the middle of that nasty flu virus, but I braved the sub zero temperatures and went outside. Only to find out that most of the pots were frozen to the brick railing. Those that I could pry off, made it to the lawn chair's temporary shelter. And there they have sat for a few months. Every year I get too anxious and move plants out too soon, cut back to early, and re pot before I should. And I pay the price. This year, well I figure that most of them have frozen to death, so they can wait a little while longer.
Yesterday was a lovely day, I moved a shade loving golden mock orange, Philadelphus coronarius 'Aureus' to a better spot under the giant Rhodo in the garden. It was frying on the deck, despite the shade from the Parotia tree. That meant that the maiden hair fern, Adiantum pedatum, could finally move into a bigger and better spot. It has huge fronds that need to get shuffled aside every time someone opens the deck gate.
With the Maiden hair fern vacating it's container, the Japanese painted ferns should be moved so they can show off their spectacular burgundy and silver foliage. Do you see where I am going, once I start moving just one plant, there is a huge line up of others clamouring to be repotted. And it is not even spring yet, I can hardly wait.
The mess is growing bigger every day.
Spring, you are a fickle season, a tease, uncommitted, and unrepentant. You are just not that into us! Are you? One day you show up, the next, you don't bother to call. You lead us on with warmer temperatures, sunny days, and bright shots of green, you temp us to drop the winter clothing, dance in the garden, and then, you leave. We thought you were such a exciting new friend. Today, you let your comrade, Snow call on us. Breaking up isn't that hard to do is it, when you use someone else to do it? Snow, that nasty white drifter. Showed up here, telling us to leave you alone, don't call, and don't try to see you. Fine, Spring, if that's what you want, we will leave you alone. For now. But our hearts are broken, we want you to know that. And next time we might not be so willing to accept your offer of friendship.
A change of pace for you this Sunday.
I'm at the beach — archives. Thought you might like to see some beach photos, this was a spectacular sunrise in October. Unedited, and straight out of camera.
Happy Sunday.
There is a sound, and if you listen carefully you can hear it. It is the sound of spring starting to happen. It is the sound of seed catalogues being delivered to mailboxes. It is the sound of delight, of gardeners dreaming, envisioning, and planning. It is the sound of bulbs pushing forth through the frozen soil, and the sap sluggishly moving in trees. It is the sound of clouds bringing spring rain moving across mountains, and valleys, turning from harsh winter snow, into gentle moisture. There are pencils scribbling, as gardens are being redesigned, wish lists are made, and seeds are being ordered. Computers are whirring, as garden blogs bloom, and cameras are coming out of hibernation. In some places the sound is louder, spring is well on it's way. In others it is barely a thought, not even yet a whisper. But it will continue to gather strength. When the last snow shovel is placed in the gardening shed, when the gardening gloves replace the mittens. You will hear it. It is spring, for all of us.
Just to prompt you to get out and acquire your own amaryllis. And because mine is more fully opened now, I wanted to share these photos with you. Buy one in a pot, that is tightly budded, you will be enjoying the blooms in a week or so. If you are lucky, it may even repeat the performance, with another bud forming.
