garden
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
Thankful Thursday: the Fighting Iris edition
This beauty is blooming in my front yard, despite the 12+ inches of wet, heavy snow that fell on the bud a week ago.
Just goes to show, you can’t keep a good flower down.
Friday Haiku
They unfurled their blooms
then snow fell like wet cement.
The iris prevailed.
Springtime in the Rocky Mountain foothills
Yesterday, the forecast said it would start snowing this evening. Instead, I woke to smothered flowers and shrubs in my front and back yards. I spent more than an hour outside with a broom, clearing snow from collapsed lilac bushes and apache plume shrubs. I’m probably going to lose my iris display this year. Again. And forget about the poppies.
Sigh.
The finches are handling it pretty well. We’d already called it a season and brought in the long extension cord that heats the bird bath, so that’s a bummer. I filled the dish with hot water this morning and the water has already turned slushy.
The snow’s supposed to continue through Friday and then on Saturday? This:
Tulips interruptus
Despite already feeling overwhelmed by my gardening responsibilities, I brought 10 tulip bulbs back from Amsterdam. I wanted to have a yearly floral reminder of our trip. Today, I went outside and figured out where I could wedge them in. I prepared the soil and used my handy-dandy tulip-bulb-digger-thingy to make a hole. I set one bulb in the hole and then thought, “It’s been a while since you planted a tulip bulb, maybe you should check for any special instructions.”
Good thing I checked with the interwebs. Tulip bulbs are only supposed to be planted in the fall. Doh!
Amsterdam tulips nearing the end of their bloom.
My bulbs are now tucked away in a paper bag in a basement cabinet. They’ll stay there until September when my phone calendar alert reminds me that it’s really and truly tulip planting time.
Happiness shared is the flower
Happiness held is the seed;
happiness shared is the flower.
~ John Harrigan
I just photographed this iris, the first to bloom in any of my gardens this year. This was also the first iris to bloom last year. I’m very happy to witness its delicate beauty again. And I’m also happy to share it here.
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I changed my mind
Just now, I sat down at my computer and went to pexels.com in search of a Lamb’s Ear photo. My plan for this blog post was to publicly declare my new-found hostility toward that invasive plant, and to describe how I’d ripped out AT LEAST SEVENTY GAZILLION of them from my garden today.
But when I got to pexels.com, my search results from several weeks ago were still there; I’d been looking for images for the characters in my work-in-progress.
And this guy was the very first photo:
I’ve decided to drop my rant and, instead, dedicate today’s post to this delightful child.
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Twofer Tuesday: Tulip edition
Today’s post is brought to you by people who no longer live here. The first tulip was planted by former neighbors, but not when we were gardening side-by-side. Rather, they did one of their infamous “drive-by plantings” when we weren’t looking, and gifted us some miniature tulips.
The next tulip is a senior citizen and was planted by the former owners of our house. Next month, we’ll have lived here 20 years.
That red flower is a lesson in being beautifully tenacious.
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A garden had better make room
A garden is to be a world unto itself,
it had better make room
for the darker shades of feeling as well as the sunny ones.
~ William Kent
I worked in my garden today and experienced conflicting feelings. Why was I born into this life and society while others were born into regions of the world that are under constant assault? I’m no more exceptional than any of those people facing horrific circumstances. Why is that I can quietly work in my garden while others know only mayhem and violence?
At times, I felt guilty for my easy day outside under the blue sky.
However, I also felt satisfaction knowing my work would help living things thrive and that my efforts were keeping materials from the landfill. I reminded myself that I was creating beauty in the world and that beauty is a legitimate pursuit.
Last spring’s poppy blooms reminding me of the beauty yet to come.
Today, my garden made room for all the feelings.
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Because I’ve had it with February’s fifty shades of brown
Bring on the blooms, yo.
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Friday Haiku
What’s your fave color?
Brown, said nobody ever.
Wanted: daffodils.
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A little frost for your Thursday
“Fire and Ice”
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.”
~ Robert Frost
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Friday Haiku
Ugly out there but
beauty is a rebel’s friend.
Must refill the well.
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Healing effects
Lavender has many medicinal properties. It’s also good for the soul, especially on a gray Sunday afternoon in January. Now if only this post was a scratch-and-sniff.
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About everything
Fiction is too beautiful to be about just one thing. It should be about everything.
~ Arundhati Roy
I absolutely agree with Ms. Roy. Fiction should include the smooth, the rough, the soft, the sharp, the bright, the dull, the everything. Right now, however, I’m struggling with a bit of overwhelm in regards to the EVERYTHING I’m contemplating for this current project.
The good news is that I’ve (temporarily, at least) eluded my panic, and am whittling away at one piece of EVERYTHING that I hope belongs in the story. If it turns out this piece doesn’t belong, I will still have learned something.
Disclosure: That mature sentiment will fade if this project turns into one long-ass process of elimination.
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Friday Haiku
Shrub running amok,
an aggressive takeover.
The elegant brute.
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Tracy Abell 