Out on the west side

Along the side of the house, where there are steps, I planted some ground cover. I hope it works. It is supposed to spread and create a "mat."

I chose a variety that seemed to be called "Veronica," followed by two other words, one of which was "blue." It has blue flowers. I hope it does spread and both crowd out weeds and also look pretty.

Right outside my kitchen window, I planted two French lavender. Although it is not hardy enough to survive even a mild Western Washington winter, I buy some of these every year because they smell so good. The idea here is, if they thrive, every evening when the zephyr blows gently through my open window, it will waft in the lovely fragrance of this lavender. How romantic is that?

I first bought this kind of lavender a couple years ago. I was at Hi Hoe Nursery with my sister-in-law, and she had picked up a starter plant. I was not attracted by its looks, so I didn't take one. Then, while she was talking to me, my sister-in-law gestured with the hand holding the little lavender. Even that small movement sent the sweet smell over to me a couple feet away. I was so enchanted that I bought some for myself and have done so each year since. This year I bought these two to plant in the ground by the window, and two others for pots on my deck.

Getting started

Local folk wisdom is that after Mother's Day you're safe from the danger of frost. Mother's Day was pretty early in May this year, but I went on my plant-shopping spree almost a week later.

I'm getting started on the great work of the summer deck. Here are lots of little starter plants in flats, waiting to be transplanted into their containers, plus some of said containers.

I have some of the pots placed where I want them. I still have new furniture that needs to be put together. It won't be all green plastic chairs anymore.

As the saying goes, sometimes you have to stop and smell the dirt:

Actually, a moment earlier, he put his little paw in the container and dug a scrape or two, but I didn't get a picture of it.

Trees and grass

Dad and I planted a new tree. It's an incense cedar. My dad loves to plant trees.

The smaller tree in the foreground here is a green Japanese maple. Dad and I planted that a few years ago. Behind it is a contorted willow. It is truncated because it became diseased so all the infected branches had to be cut off.

We had the yard reseeded, too, and it is growing. But the reason I took this picture is the robin in the center. Robins have been back for some weeks now, maybe even since February. It's great.

Spring is now so well advanced that there's no turning back.

The title of this post makes me remember some good books I read when I was girl. It was a trilogy by Conrad Richter, The Trees, The Fields, and The Town.

When I was in high school, there was a TV miniseries based on these, starring Elizabeth Montgomery.

I recall being quite pleased with the miniseries in terms of its faithfulness to the books and the quality of the acting. Just now, looking at is on Amazon, I see that it had some pretty high-powered stars besides Miss Montgomery, like Hal Holbrook and Jane Seymour.

I remember liking that the main character named her first son "Resolve."

Conrad Richter wrote a number of good books about the American frontier. I should go look up who he was, what his background was, and try to figure out why he wrote those books. Nowadays, you can find so much information just by googling a name.

Anyway, I loved pioneer stories when I was a girl. The absolute pinnacle of my love was the Laura Ingalls Wilder "Little House" series, not to be confused with the treacly TV series of the same name. The last two Sundays when I was at church and there was time between when the choir practiced and when church started, then I went to the church library and found the Little House books and started reading By the Shores of Silver Lake. That book starts out so sad, with sister Mary going blind from scarlet fever and then their faithful dog, Jack, dying of old age.

Well, I'm getting carried away with Amazon links, here. I just got a gadget that lets me put them in just by clicking. It's too easy.

Working waiting to be done

Things I need to do out on the deck.

1. Empty and clean out the pond. See, it's sandy and has leaves on the bottom.

2. Put stuff where it belongs. We had the deck rebuilt--notice it's made of pavers now instead of wood. While they tore out the old and put in the new, the workers moved all my stuff out of the way, then they put it back. But none of it is where I want it.

I can't move those big half-barrels by myself, especially the ones that are full of dirt and living plants. I need to get some strong young people to help me--preferably by doing the heavy work while I just point to where I want the planters.

But all this will have to wait a couple weeks. I know it won't happen this weekend, and next weekend I'm out of town. Saturday I'll be at the last day of the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College, and Sunday I'll be traveling back home. So two weeks from now is the soonest I'll get any work done.

I would like to have the deck "sittable" by Mother's Day, which I traditionally host so that the moms in my family don't have to do any cooking.

I should add a third item:

3. Assemble the furniture I've bought--a rocking chair from True Value Hardware, and two Adirondack chairs I ordered through Amazon, plus a potting table I plan to buy at True Value. All require assembly.

Resurrection Sunday

As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. "Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him."

Mark 16:5-6

Maundy Thursday, April 1, 2010

Today is Maundy Thursday. Based on the Gospels, this evening is the evening when Jesus washed his disciples feet, celebrated the Passover with them and, in that context, instituted the Lord's Supper, then progressed to the Garden of Gethsemane, where he prayed to be spared death but submitted to his Father's will, then was betrayed by Judas and arrested.

There is so much to think about and take in on this night. My heart is always moved by Jesus' acknowledgment to his disciples in Gethsemane that his own heart was sorrowful even unto death--Matthew 26:28:

"My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death" - King James Version

"My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death" - New International Version

This, and the anguish of his prayer to the Father to take this cup from him, "yet not my will but yours be done" (Luke 22:32), "And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground" (Luke 22:44).

When we read these passages, we cannot take his sacrifice lightly. As the great hymn says, "What language shall I borrow to thank Thee, dearest friend, for this Thy dying sorrow, Thy pity without end? O make me Thine forever, and should I fainting be, Lord, let me never, never outlive my love to Thee."

Fishtrap Creek

Mountains' majesty

We had some beautiful weather in February, and one Saturday morning it was so spectacular I drove out into the county and took some pictures. I remember thinking about the fact that some of these mountains are in Canada and, as I was taking the pictures, people were there for the Olympics.

Plaintive cries

I work in Bellingham, which technically is a port city.

I work in a lawyer's office, nothing to do with the port, and most of the time I'm hardly aware that the water is near, but when I come out of work at the end of the day and walk to my car, I see the water.

Any time that I come outside, I am likely to hear the seagulls' cry. This video captures the melancholy sound as the sky darkens at the close of day.



I tried to think of a poem that would somehow reflect this mood, but I couldn't come up with one.

The Swan Fairy Tale

As I said in my comment section below, I remembered a fairy tale about a girl whose brothers were turned into swans. I thought it was seven brothers, but it was six. I guess it was the girl who was the seventh child. I did remember that she had to make them shirts in order to change them back and that at some moment of danger she was done, except for one last sleeve, so she threw the shirts over them and they were transformed back, except that the youngest brother still had a swan's wing instead of one arm, because his shirt didn't have a sleeve. Here's the Grimm version: The Six Swans.

Seven children is a fairy tale theme. In Harry Potter, Ginny Weasley is the seventh child, a daughter with six older brothers. J.K. Rowling was very aware of fairy tale motifs and traditions, and I recall reading an interview or possibly a post on her website about this aspect of Ginny.

Now I just found another one, Hans Christian Andersen's version, and in his it's eleven brothers and a sister. Interesting how details change in the basic story. You wonder why. And then some other elements are unchangeable. It's brothers and a sister. The brothers become swans. And the sister must make shirts and not talk until she has done so. And her refusal to talk somehow gets her into trouble. She's so loyal to her brothers that she almost dies to save them; however, at the last moment they also save her.

Swans

This morning when I was out walking my dog, a flock of swans flew overhead. By the time I pulled my camera out of my pocket, turned it on, and pushed the relevant button to take a video, they were almost gone, but you can see them in the lower right hand corner of the sky and you can hear them honking.

Waiting, waiting, waiting for spring

A beautiful, sunny morning today, but with a cold east wind blowing. The sun was most welcome and gives me that anticipation for spring.

My pansy has more blooms.

I love pansies--violets--heart's ease.

Here are a few leaves of peppermint. Every winter the peppermint dies back, but it's so hardy that when spring comes, all I'll have to do is give it food, water, and sunshine and soon it will fill and overflow the pot again.

Just a reminder that peppermint is so hardy as to be invasive, and I would never plant it in the ground, as I understand it would take over a flower bed and start going beyond the bounds even of that.

Here's the sunny side of the deck:

And here's what I usually call the shady side of the deck, but the time of day and year made it sunny, too, for a short time:

Sweet singing in the choir

This evening in choir practice I hit a high note I haven't reached in years--not just the F at the top of the treble clef, but the G on top of it. Usually the E just under the top is as high as I can get.

I wasn't straining at all tonight for notes at the top of my range (and that's almost over the top for me). Either the months of singing every Wednesday night are paying off, or it helps to eat a salad that's heavy on the onions before going to rehearsal.

If it's the onions, I'd gladly eat them every week, but that might be too high a price for those who sing near me in choir.

Sour notes or sour breath? Which is worse?

The stuff that dreams are made of

Last night, I kept dreaming about something I needed to do at work today. Then I woke up and went to work and did it. Note to unconscious: Once is enough. Reality will do just fine for workday tasks. I have no need to re-live, or pre-live, them in my dreams.

Spring in January?

We've had an exceptionally warm January. My honeysuckle thinks it's spring.

It's sending out leaves.

And this pansy is spreading and getting new blooms.

If we get some mild freezes before real spring, I'm not too worried about the pansies. They were hardy enough to survive this winter. Plus pansies are often plentiful and cheap not only in nurseries but outside the local grocery stores. I spent a bit more on the honeysuckle; I forget how much, but over $10 I think, and last summer was the first summer I planted it, so I don't know how it takes severe weather. I bought it to try to attract hummingbirds. My fear is it will bloom, then the weather will freeze and all the blooms will get killed. Nothing I can do about it, though. It'll either happen or it won't, no matter what I do. So I might as well get a good night's sleep.

I'll wake up tomorrow and it will be a month closer to spring.

January is drawing to a close

Tomorrow is the last day of January. I don't think I'll be sorry to see it go, although I will be sorry to see the weekend end. January and February are my 11th and 12th favorite months. I don't know which is in 11th and which is in 12th; maybe it's a tie. January has one happy holiday, and that's New Year's Day. That's still a day you spend relaxing with your family.

However, within a week or two, you can hardly remember what it felt like to have that warm, gezellig experience.

You're in the gray, drab workaday world.

And January is long.

What February has going for it is (1) it's short and (2) it's closer to spring than January is. So I guess January is my 12th favorite month and February is my 11th favorite. Just as winter is my 4th favorite season.

In March, I start thinking about going to local nurseries and buying baby plants, but I try not to. Local lore, as passed on to me by my dad, is that you're not safe from a freeze at night until after Mother's Day, which is in May. You don't want to spend a lot on plants that get killed within a few weeks by frost, although, well, that has happened to me. Maybe not that I spent a lot, but that I bought plants when it was too early to put them out. I hunger for them, in some kind of spiritual and aesthetic way.

Sometime in April, Lynden Christian School has a pancake breakfast fundraiser, and then some student group -- FFA? -- sells baby plants that day too. Last year the lady selling to me kept warning me that the plants I was buying were still "tender" and had to stay under cover. I kept them under the roof of the upper deck until it was safe to put them out further.

For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;

The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;

The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell.

(Song of Solomon 2:11-13a)

We're not there yet, but we're on our way.

Where have all the proofreaders gone?

This evening, I read an online article that used "discrete" when it meant "discreet," and another that used "disbursed" when it meant "dispersed."

Just because spellcheck doesn't highlight a word doesn't make it right.

Splish splash

Birds cavorting in the bird bath this sunny morning.



You have to look right at the bird bath and see the water fly.

You can tell it's still winter because I'm filming through my window between the deck chairs that are piled up there. How many more weeks until I can start planting flowers again? And how long until I can sit out there enjoying it all?

Winter sunshine

We had a lot of rain yesterday, then a heavy dewfall last night. This morning when the sun came up, the water evaporated into the air.

At first it was foggy, then it became more of a misty sunshine.

What a mood-lifter.

A winter pansy.

Pansies are such a beautiful flower. How lovely to get a bloom in January.

Late in the afternoon, it clouded over again and became rather chilly. Well, it is January. A mild, sunny morning is a gift. It would be ungrateful to complain that it didn't last.

Last winter was so relentlessly cold. This winter, it is cold sometimes, but it does relent. This morning was one of the softer, kinder weather moments.

Shadows on the walls

The sun was out for a while this morning and created these beautiful shadows.