When May Comes...

 I awoke on a May morning to birdsong, as I always do this time of year. April is tough. My brain has to transition from no song to a sudden chorus coming in the window. And early May is worse, but better too; worse in the sense that my brain starts processing and sifting all those songs and winds up yammering to me so that I wake up thinking about what I'm hearing in my "sleep." Better in that the birds are back! and singing! and I will have to slowly learn to sleep through the robins and cardinals and wake up for the prairie warblers and yellowthroats. So this morning was kind of fun, because the song sparrow who now sings under my bedroom window has one song type that I find quite sweet.


 

 Listen to this video. He'll sing twice, once at 09-12 seconds, and again at 24 seconds.

 Do you hear the familiar climbing scale we all learned when we were three? He's singing the Alphabet Song! A B C D E F GGGGGG...he never goes on to H I J K LMNOP. But oh, the musicality in that voice! He's hitting the notes perfectly, perfectly. And my brain grabs onto that and runs with it, even before I'm awake. The brain is a wonderful organ. It can be extremely annoying, when I need sleep so badly and rarely seem to get it, but there it is.

 Right after I made this recording (dominated by the pond fountain, burbling away, and my iPhone's obsessive focus on the window screen) he switched to another song type, not nearly so anthropomorphic. And don't animals charm us most when they remind us of ourselves? Sigh. It's true. For those curious, a field sparrow's sweet accelerating trill opens the video, then a blue-winged warbler sings bee-buzz, followed by the song sparrow. Then comes the field sparrow, overlain with the brown-headed cowbird's piercing Twee dee dee! and the song sparrow finishes the 30-second clip with his Alphabet Song again. It's so rich. It's late May. Abbondanza!

Blackberry spring. 

 Missouri primrose says YEAHHH!

And THIS is what happens when you put cow manure and water on a peony that's been struggling for years. It says YES THAT IS WHAT I HAVE NEEDED. THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

 A blue jay shows up at the feeder with a soiled front. I know what that means. She's nest-building, using wet rootlets to weave her amazing solid platform, and it's dirtied her breast as she shimmies around to form the cup.

As if to corroborate this bit of situational awareness, her beautiful mate swoops in with a gular load of sunflower hearts for his hardworking wife's breakfast. So nice to have someone to cook for you when you're oversubscribed. 

 Everybody's oversubscribed. The bluebird babies grow fat and fill my nest boxes.

Oh what can happen in only a week!!

I must check this cardinal nest again. I saw the female pop off of it as I walked down the orchard path and found these three exquisite orbs full of protein and hope.

On my next peek six days later (May 16), here's what I found. And I've stayed away since. 

The temptation is great to look often. But predators are watching, sniffing, wanting, so I don't. 

I don't blog often in April, May and June. It's not for lack of material. It's for lack of time, for my cheese being spread too thin over the immense cracker of obligation. I've got everything I can do to keep up with this yard, the gardens, my family, friends and a too-hectic speaking and traveling schedule. And the moment I get a breather, and get to stay home for a few weeks in a row, in come the baby birds to be fed every half-hour. It is both my joy and my ball and chain, and balancing it all and keeping the joy is the big trick.

On days when I haven't slept much and it seems that everything and everybody needs a piece of me, and life goes roaring on all around me, I remind myself that I'm just one good sleep away from being on top of it again. And that's the truth. 

I get a good sleep, then spend a whole day, sunup to dark, gardening and doing heavy yardwork, and the sleep and the work fix the broken parts, glom them back together.

The Pig of Good Fortune smiles on the inkblot someone dribbled on the emerald grass.

The Encyclia from Guatemala laughs out loud, filling the studio with clove and honey.Twelve years it's been growing and blooming, and I treasure it more every year. 

This doughty plant, brought home as a withered bulblet in my bra, reminds me that everything good is worth waiting for. And as DOD pointed out, I'm already waiting.

Grandma Cora (proper name, Madame Chereau), blooms as she's bloomed for more than a century. Planted in the Adirondacks exactly 100 years ago by my friend Caroline's Grandma Cora, who was then young and just married, this treasure has been passed from hand to hand and state to state. It's blooming in Caroline's South Dakota garden, in my sister's garden in Connecticut, and soon to go to Massachusetts, too. We will have to count up the states where Cora blooms.

First with a few blossoms, and many furled buds

And then, when the May sun shines at last, with a full fanfare of cobalt violet, and the heady aroma of fake grape Kool-Aid! And there are orange shirts on the line, and I just have to lie down in the sweet smelling grass for a minute and breathe, unable to believe that I get to live here

in all this useless beauty I've planted with my own square and calloused hands. The nails are broken and there's dirt under what's left, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Thank you for all your expressions of love and support after that last difficult post.  I occasionally must gather myself and tell the full truth of what's going on, or I can't go forward. It takes me months to work up the words and the courage to do it, but I owe you that, and it's the best way I've found to put one foot in front of the other and keep going on. Chet Baker is doing fine. He's still good for a 5-mile walk, and his coat is coming in shiny and new. I can't tell you how much it means to me to run my hands over a mostly smooth coat,  to see the little hairs standing on end as they grow in, and to blow a raspberry on that round belly, too.

He puts up with a baby bluejay who likes to jump suddenly up on his back. He tucks his rump and scoots out from under her, which deters her not one bit. You must click on this to see the look on his face. Ut oh. Here she comes again.

Chet Baker, yep, he still comes along. And I treasure every moment that he does.

May 26, 2017

Happy birthday to Hodge (yesterday), The Light of Cambridge, Star of Middlesex County, and to Ida (today) who is in every flower and bird and shining through the sweet souls of my children, too.

Garden Weasel At Work

It's a thing, going from a grayish green house to a bright barn-red house. I never thought much about what color flowers I'd put up against the old dull siding. I really have to think about what I'm using this year, and I'm loving every minute of it.

The old gray siding is still on the garage. Sigh. We ran out of money. I can't believe our house was ever this color. But I picked it. It seemed safe. Yawn.

Our friend and my hero Marilyn Ortt gave me a start of her Missouri primrose about 22 years ago as a housewarming gift. It's never been more beautiful than this spring, the spring when we lost her. She did more for Marietta than almost anyone I can think of. Started and maintained our recycling program way back before it was cool. Served on the Tree Commission. Started, with my MIL Elsa Thompson, the Marietta Natural History Society. Fought for open spaces and nature preserves and clean air and water...she was amazing. I think of her every time I look at these primroses. Treasured plants are like that. You remember the people who gave them to you.

They say that redheads shouldn't wear pink. Hmm. I disagree. I'm diggin' this magenta and green petunia, with white heliotrope, pink Cape mallow, red Cuphea, pink verbena, and yellow and rose-throated petunias. I don't put pink right up against the siding, but it's fine a ways out.

 I ventured a little red in geranium "Wilhelm Langguth," then swung over to my favorite petunia, "Papaya." I think it looks fine against the siding. Maybe not the red geranium. Still tinkering.

A better shot, in shade. An astute observer will note Kalanchoe or Paddle Plant "Fantastic" in the rear basket. I love those things.

Cobalt blue, as in my beloved lobelias, is the PERFECT accent color for barn red. Yum!!

I'm learning...

Here's my favorite tangerine hibiscus, frozen to the soil, representing with her first blossom since November 23, 2013. It  took a LONG time for her to pick herself up by her bootstraps and send up some shoots. Man, that was a long wait. But she's coming back at last. Her two cutting kids are, too.

While the single orange hibiscus hasn't been replaced in my heart, I have to admit that my ultrafancy hibiscus "The Path," a Logee's Greenhouse specialty which was a gift from my dear friend Donna Quinn, is coming into her own...

TA-DAAAAA!! That's a six-inch blossom there. I like big buds and I cannot lie.

Not only that, but each one lasts two entire days! I've never had a hibiscus last more than one day in warm weather. She's extrasexyspecial. That pink throat kills me. Everything about this plant kills me. She tried to die three whole times in the greenhouse--hated the cold nights. But she hung in there and so did I. She doesn't much like winter, but loves summer. Hey, me too. 

Here's that awesome green and pink petunia again, paired with New Guinea impatiens and lobelia. I'd love to slip a Persian shield plant in there, come to think of it...

A bit of a plant collector...a crazy monkey plant collector. Lori, there's the beautiful variegated agave you sent me!

And the Ruby Red grapefruit tree is in the bottom blue pot. The two grapefruits it's bearing are the size of navel oranges now!! Phoebe has threatened me with harm if I dare eat one without her. Maybe Christmas break they'll be ready? I don't know how long it takes. Anyone? Months? A year? They set fruit sometime in February.

Another planter in the making, with Fuchsia "Betty," Abutilon "Blushing Belle" and Rex begonias "Ring of Fire" and "China Curl." Very pretty combo.

If I have one complaint about the abutilon, it's that it makes too darn many flowers. Imagine that. But really, it gets in the way of its growth pattern! Weighed down by its own blossoms.

Logee's. This one is a bit overbred, if you ask me.

A new discovery for me, also from Logee's, is a tropical spiderwort (Dichorisandra pendula) they call "Weeping Blue Ginger." Well, it's not a ginger, but I adore the growth habit. So very elegant and Oriental. It's covered in blue three-petaled buds that are taking their own sweet time opening. I just dig the shiny dark green leaves and its angular habit. It's going to be awesome when it blooms. I think this is going to be a huge plant. Already two feet tall and reaching for the stars.

Phoebe has developed a penchant for cutting flowers, so I'm planting 40 Blue Point florist's zinnia plants for her. Our little nascent cutting garden, soon to be set out in the beds.

I lost so many perennials to cold (ALL of my beautiful cardinal flower that the hummingbirds loved so much) that I'm going to have to fill in a lot of holes with zinnias, which they also love. Must look for some good cardinalflower. I will miss it so in July. 

The view out the kitchen window. Garden Weasel paradise. Adore my mini Phalaenopsis and Doritaenopsis orchids inside on the windowsill.  If you wonder why so many are in pots, it's because the rabbits eat pretty much every annual I try to plant in the ground. They leave most of my perennials alone, though they devoured my creeping phlox and Virginia bluebells this year, dammit!  They'll reduce a geranium to a pile of leaves overnight. Eat it to the ground. Lobelias, same deal. Impatiens, forget it. We have a LOT of rabbits. Chet, get on that. Little dude goes on bunneh and chipmunk runs about a dozen times a day. No effect.

Yep, looks like somebody lives here, somebody who, after the worst winter ever, can't get enough flowers, sunlight, color and June.

When June comes...

Spread them shadders anywhere.

I'll get down and waller there!

Rench my throat in wild honey 

and whoop out loud!

Part of the James Whitcomb Riley poem my father loved to recite. He'd trail off there, having forgotten the rest. Like father, like daughter...

Being Iowa born, he generally didn't have much good to say about Hoosiers, but he loved JWR's poetry. Me, too. The poetry. Got no beef with Hoosiers.