works like a charm

a beautiful holiday weekend, with perfect weather to be in the garden. pictured are iris in full bloom. with crutches, it's pretty easy to sit in the garden with a camera and take photos.

it's tricky, however, to work in the garden with crutches, and the most i planted was two tiny chamomile plants, assisted by the little girl. she wanted her own trowel and, after inquiring about my pink gardening gloves, ran inside to her toy basket to fetch the white cotton gloves she uses for pretend dress up. she dug and she planted and, when it came time to water, she chanted the magic words our family has always used to urge plants into growth:"tut-tut, it looks like rain" - a quote from winnie-the-pooh.

we'll soon be drinking chamomile tea because those magic words - they always work. the iris is living proof.

they're back!

despite our best efforts to eradicate them year after year, the non-so-pretties are back again. and i almost am.

out of commission

haven't been blogging because i haven't been taking photos. it's not easy to negotiate the camera from crutches. it's temporary though and won't be for much longer. stay tuned!

ghost tree

a couple of times a week, i head west to work and, on my way, pass by this obviously dead tree,sitting just at the edge of a big cow field. it's been there for many many years, tall and stately and reaching high into the sky. it looks majestic in summer, stark white with so much lush green surrounding it. and in winter, its lightness is a contrast to all the other grey and black trunked, leafless trees. i'm not sure what kind of tree it is but i like it. i also can't imagine why it hasn't fallen yet.

new year in spring

when my dad was alive, if he was asked his age, he used to say he was older than dirt. this phrase came to me last night as i was adding a forty pound bag of garden soil to the perennial bed, and it dawned on me that this may well be the dirt that i am older than.

hidden away

this elusive native woodland plant grows in dampish shady spots in the woods. the flower of this plant is called jack-in-the-pulpit. that hooded part is the flower - fascinating, albeit not very showy, i'm afraid. but take a peek below and you will see the solitary "jack" standing upright in the "pulpit" under the hood. see?

odd that i found more than a dozen of these, scattered in the woods at the edge of the yard. i have seen these plants only a few times in my life and have no idea why there are suddenly so many. i do hope they haven't been here all along and i just never noticed!

violets

roses are red but violets are not blue - they're purple. these are one of my favorite flowers and fortunately, i have a whole section of lawn devoted to them in the springtime.

inquiring minds want to know

sitting at a gas station, waiting for my receipt and wondering why their bathrooms are called "rest rooms". of course, it's a room. but a place of rest? really?

dustweb

perhaps you can't see it here, but i spotted it the minute the i walked into the room: this thin floor-to-ceiling filament glistening in the morning sunlight streaming in the window. i have seen these before, long phantom strands that show up at a moment's notice. what is this thing? is it web? dust? and how could it materialize overnight? i saw no evidence of any living thing having created it. unless perhaps it was a result of my own negligible housekeeping these fine spring days.

mothers' day magic

i've looked forward to today with some trepidation, since this is my first motherless mothers' day. so, in an effort to be positive about the day, i decided to search until i found some small sign that my mother was with me still, if only in spirit. and find it i did - or so i thought.

early in the day, i walked into church behind this elderly woman who was wearing a replica of my mother's fisherman knit sweater, the one that she always wore and that i now possess. i held the woman's arm as we climbed the stairs, i commented on her lovely sweater, and wished her a happy mothers' day. smiling, i found my place in a pew. it was mothers' day - and my mother was with me.

as sometimes happens, my eyes misted over a few times at the church music, thinking that i had so badly wanted a sign from my mother and i had been blessed with one. then, as the mass was ending, i listened in disbelief as the choir began to sing this, a piece i love, which means so much to me, which i had posted on serendipitous the night my mother died.

which i swear i had never heard sung in our church before. ever.

between the storms

i happened to glance out the window just in time to dash outside under an umbrella to chase this shot. and then the rains came again.

forget-me-nots

really, how could i forget forget-me-nots when they are all around the house and all over the yard? this clump was found blooming by the house's granite foundation, yards and yards from the nearest garden, which must be where they came from. and look - see the fly?

black flies

what is this, you say? it's my windshield, twenty-five miles from the car wash that i'd gone to thirty minutes previously. black flies splatter on the glass as i drive, each tiny body making a p-p-p sound as it hits. this spring, black flies are thick in the air around us, infiltrating our noses, entering our mouths as we talk, getting stuck in our ears and taking up residence under our hair at the back of the neck. dreadful little biting creatures, they'll only be around for a few more weeks, thank goodness. then the mosquitos will take over.

time lost

over the weekend, i spent some time with a friend i'd not seen in forty plus years. we had a long and lovely afternoon of talking and sharing and attempting to get caught up not only with each others lives, but also with the lives of our mutual friends, back in the day. the visit made me wonder how rich and rewarding our friendship might have been all these years if we hadn't disconnected when we were younger. it was a happy afternoon with easy conversation and i still smile today thinking about it. i'm really glad to have my old friend back in my life again.

may day 2010

the first day of may and i had to hunt for a mayflower (which april showers bring!) to photograph. they've almost gone by, which is very unusual for this time of year. it took me fifteen minutes in a pretty big patch to find this lone flower. it smelled heavenly, though! happy may day!