Garden Days

Spring snuck up on me this year. Actually, it sneaks up on me every year. The past couple of springs I missed prime planting time by over a month. My new garden wasn't laid out until late last year and I was (quietly) very grumpy with the guy who put it in because it was already too hot to plant new perennials. This year, I started way too early. Easter Sunday I put in Rudebekia roots, and Dahlia and Caladium bulbs. Yes, Easter Sunday. A month of 40 degree nights ago. Is it any surprise that not a single one of those bulbs has even come close to blooming?
How unlike me to be too early. I was born almost two weeks late, and I suspect my corpse will be late for its own funeral. Everyone will have a good laugh because it will be so appropriate. People at funerals sometimes need a good laugh, don't you think?  But I digress....

Here's a fabulous yellow azalea I picked up at a local nursery. The yellow petals are already dropping off to make room for bright green leaves. Last year I planted an Oak Leaf Hydrangea in the same spot, but it drowned in the wetclay soil. This time I worked the ground so that everything is very loose and drains easily.

I took this pic of the tulips last night while the dogs were out for their final constitutional. I've never had tulips before. So glad I went with one color. (How strange it is to see flowers blooming at night. I've always been fascinated by flowers that only ever bloom at night.)

Here's helpful Scout. You'll note that he's artfully surrounded by sticks. No, I didn't put them there. While I garden or sit on the porch to read, Scout will go off to the woods and find a stick and bring it back to chew on for a while. Then he'll wander off and find another one and bring IT back. That's about 3 hours of work there in the picture. Silly dog.

Back when I had a myspace blog (still there, much neglected), I posted lots of photos of the area where we live. It's terribly picturesque for an area often referred to as Devil's Kitchen. Hrothgar likes to accompany me on warm weather walks while Scout stays home.

This is a mock orange tree. I don't know the real name for it. All I know is that it's short and sprawling and kind of junky and smells like Flower Heaven. (Think of a frowsy, old Southern Aunt) They're all over our neighborhood. Most are all leafed out, now. But a few still look like this:

And this is one of the creepiest buildings in Southern Illinois. Is it a shelter? A bus stop? A guard house? A couple of times a year, it changes inside. Somewhere we have a photo of it with a cardboard Jesus peeking out. Another time there was a fabric alien with enormous black eyes hanging just inside the door. I'm always kind of afraid to look when I walk or drive by, lest I see something truly frightening. What I like, though, is that it's become a  not-so-private performance art piece.

Tomorrow I'll be outside again--walking or gardening or reading or visiting. Probably gardening. It's immersive and absorbing and hard to pull away from, almost like one's first reading of an excellent book. Who can think of anything else when the weather is warm and one is blessed with yards and yards and yards of wonderful, blank dirt?  More garden photos to come. I can't resist.

Right now there's a barred owl outside my window, calling and calling. Time to see what he wants.


Be safe, be well! Laura

Offline and Outside

I've become totally dependent on the Internet!

I turned on my computer first thing this morning, even before rolling the boy out of bed, even before letting the dog outside. It's a terrible habit, I know, but one I can't seem to break. In between setting out breakfast and rounding up backpacks, I checked email and even answered one. But once everyone was out the door, disaster occurred. I went back to the computer, bowl of tasty breakfast cottage cheese beside me, only to find that nasty "No Server Response" page.

Off to flick the modem "off," then "on." No joy. I unplugged everything, re-plugged everything. Turned off computers...you get the idea. *sigh* It was all for naught.

I walked the dog, hoping that would be the magic pill. Then I called our ISP. Seems there's no problem on the line. Back to plugging and unplugging. I was particularly encouraged to hear that I could find helpful technical advice at their website. ha!

But, of course, I can work--at least for a while--without the Internet. The novel is all on file. I was just missing my connection to the outside world. I've decided that this is some kind of cosmic hint that I don't need to be connected 24/7.

There's so much important stuff going on outside. I'm keeping an eye on the enormous beech tree in the backyard, hoping, praying that it will bud after it was so badly damaged by frost last spring. A neighbor friend of mine is in the midst of chemo. I made plans to see her next week. The dog is looking slimmer from his regular walks. The boy has a new bike, and it's awfully fun to watch him ride it. There are robins in the yard. And turtles.

The ironic thing, of course, is that you're able to read this because I popped into town to cruise onto the community's Internet. But when I turn it off, I'll be gone again! Probably not for long.

I hope you'll get some non-technical, computer down-time. It's spring out there. Enjoy!

A Touch of Melancholy Spring

It is raining today. It has been raining here in Southern Illinois for over twenty-four hours--the flip side of the tender blessings of spring. Our pond overflowed its banks yesterday, sending torrents of brown water over the dam that is our driveway and up onto the boardwalk steps leading to the gazebo. When I awoke this morning, I was amazed to see that the pond had receded almost back to its banks, but the creek on the other side of the dam still sounds like whitewater. (The photo is from abc.com--I am not so brave. But our creek looks much the same.)

I have my happy light on beside me. The gray days of March are almost as much of a challenge for my S.A.D. as November. But it's not all about the sky, today.

I hope you'll drop by Patry Francis's most recent blog. (If you're not familiar with Patry, and The Liar's Diary Blog Day, start here.) Her cancer surgery last week did not go well and it had to be repeated yesterday. But Patry writes about it with amazing strength and, yes, humor. Patry herself is such a gift, and there really should be a better word invented than "inspiring" for her approach to life.

My daughter, Pomegranate, took off for Italy and France with her grandparents yesterday. I wrote about it for Mid-Century Modern Moms. I happened to catch her on the phone a few minutes before she boarded the plane at Dulles and she sounded very businesslike. When she returns in April, I think I will mention that the phrase, "This is good-bye, Mama," is not the last thing a mother wants to hear before her daughter gets on an airplane. I miss her deeply.

The other day I heard an interesting theory about the region in which we now live. Southern Illinois is prone to tornadoes and floods and sudden dramatic shifts in the weather. It is, I think, an enchanted, unpredictable sort of place. Between 100,000 and 300,000 years ago, glaciers came down out of the Lake Michigan basin and stopped about ten or fifteen miles north of the gently rolling hills where our house is located. You can tell the area from which the glacier retreated because it's flat, flat, flat for hundreds of miles. Here is the theory about the strangeness of this place: This region was--for a long period of time--constantly buffeted by competing elements. The surrounding conditions that glaciers require are not particularly hospitable to human life. But not too far away, the land was arable, and covered with vegetation. Perhaps it is that we haven't quite recovered from the conflict--the earth's memory is long, measuring things in centuries and cycles rather than moments and days and weeks. Or, perhaps, the conflict is still, somehow, going on.

I am watching the pond again today, and am grateful that the drought the area suffered this summer is, no doubt, over. These things that are happening now will become other things tomorrow. There will be sun again, for a while. And I'm happy to know that is something more than a theory.