Yeah we all shine on,
like the moon,
and the stars,
and the sun.
~ John Lennon
garden
Poppy and Potential Poppy
I’ve spent the last couple hours working on my revisions that are moving along, but are also causing me a bit of angst as I struggle to achieve the vision I have for this middle-grade project. I just decided to take a break to put up a blog post and went to my photo
files for an image. I chose a picture from a couple days ago of a poppy in bloom along with a lovely not-yet-bloomed bud. As I cropped the image, I considered blog post titles and immediately landed on Poppy and Potential Poppy. I’m embarrassed to confess that it took a few moments for this extremely relevant factoid to hit me:
The protagonist in the manuscript I’m revising is named Poppy.
Oy. Here’s hoping we both achieve our potential today.
A tame version of yesterday’s wild
Yesterday as I ran on the open space trails and flax tickled my legs, I wished Zippy was with me. Blue flax flowers are his favorite and they’re at the peak of their bloom right now. Good news for him, our flax is also blooming at home in one of our beds.
Here’s a domesticated memento of yesterday’s trail run.
363 days ago today
This is what was happening in my front yard nearly a year ago today.
There needs to be some serious growth taking place in the next two days if the tulip wants to debut on the same day this year.
Spoiler alert: I don’t think it’s gonna happen.
Welcome, beauty
Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
My iris haven’t begun blooming yet, so I’m posting this photo from last April in anticipation of the splendor that’s in store for us.
I’m forever grateful to my former neighbor, Tina, for sharing her iris-love with me. She had many different iris in her vast gardens and when I first began digging in the soil, creating my own little patch of beauty, she’d toss iris tubers over the fence. I’m pretty sure this photographed iris is one of those long-ago gifts.
Wordless Wednesday: the take-that-gray-day edition
Because it’s currently 13 degrees outside
It’s too cold to take Emma for her walk.
The sun is nowhere to be seen.
It’s gonna be dark-dark-dark in a couple hours.
Humor me and this long-ago clematis bloom.
Wordless Wednesday: Wishful Thinking edition
Certainly a red for everyone
Striking a blow against November with an image from October:
Bright reds
– scarlet, pillar-box red, crimson or cherry –
are very cheerful and youthful.
There is certainly a red for everyone.
~ Christian Dior
Friday Haiku
Today is frigid
and it’s just the beginning.
Eye on the spring prize.
To love beauty
To love beauty is to see light.
~ Victor Hugo
What a difference a day makes
Yesterday was a beautiful autumn day, sunny and in the low 60s. Zippy and I spent the afternoon working in the yard, trying to catch up on our much-neglected gardens that have run amok. The sun shone through the leaves and I paused in my work to capture this vibrant image:
I made a conscious effort to fully experience the colors and balmy temperatures, because there was a huge weather shift on the way. This morning we woke to about 4 inches of snow on the deck railing (currently 8 inches or so).
Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny with a high of 51 degrees. Welcome to Colorado.
Friday Haiku
Welcome, ungulate
nibbling the flower garden.
I’m happy to share.
Thankful Thursday: in which I court Painted Ladies
There’s no palette as rich as a garden.
And the intensity of it – I make this statement all the time:
You can’t plan nature; you court her.
~ Robert Irwin
Coneflower choir
Wordless Wednesday: birds-and-blooms edition
Thankful Thursday: the imperfect-perfection edition
Friday Haiku
Meet the invaders
dressed in shades of pretty pink.
These peas are not sweet.
Open your petals of power and beauty
Do not waste time dreaming of great faraway opportunities;
do the best you can where you are.
Open your petals of power and beauty
and fling out the fragrance of your life in the place that has been assigned to you.
~ Orison Swett Marden
The accumulation of detail
All fiction relies on the real world
in the sense that we all take in the world through our five senses
and we accumulate details, consciously or subconsciously.
This accumulation of detail can be drawn on when you write fiction.
~ Rohinton Mistry
Thankful Thursday
My neighbors have stopped celebrating the 4th of July!
To everyone who had fun without the benefit of explosives,
my dogs and I salute you!
These are a few of my favorite things
And I’m especially fond of this honey bee. I first tried photographing the bees and lavender plants in the backyard, but couldn’t get any good shots. Then I came out in the front and found this bee. He didn’t seem quite so busy as the dudes in back.
This guy takes time to savor the nectar.
Time for another edition of TAKE BACK THE ORANGE
I offer these vibrant helianthemum from my front yard as an antidote to the soullessness and unabashed greed of Agent Orange and the GOP.
Remember, people: ORANGE CAN BE BEAUTIFUL AND LIFE-AFFIRMING!
We would be robots
Poppy downed by May hailstorm before it had a chance to bloom.
If we were to lose the ability to be emotional,
if we were to lose the ability to be angry,
to be outraged,
we would be robots.
And I refuse that.
~ Arundhati Roy
All flowers keep the light
Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light.
~ Theodore Roethke
