Morning in the Garden.

I am late waking, and when my eyes do open I quickly slip out of bed and meet Caspar at the bedroom door, - legs crossed!

I carry him down the stairs and he heaves a gentle sigh of relief...   I carry him up the stairs, put him on the couch and he curls around himself and begins to snore gently. I push the button on the coffee maker and decide not to go back to bed.

It is so quiet and still in the sweet morning air, - too early for birds, - the sun is hiding behind the eastern hills, every morning rising a little further north.  Miss Callie and I take coffee on the deck, camera at the ready as we contemplate the valley and the long shadows where the sun strikes the top of K mountain.

Eventually I wander down the garden path, looking with great satisfaction at the cleared and ordered space around the lilies, and the good start I have made at demolishing the ubiquitous mint bed.  When it is cleared of every small iota of white root I plan to plant a yellow rose in its place.

I note the first pink peony unfurling its sails along a veritable sea of bobbing buds.

There is only one lone poppy in bloom, but the iris have grown tall and stately and very, very beautiful.

The peony tree is past its best shelf date, but who can deny its slightly blowzy mature beauty.

The pretty pink climbing rose takes pride of place for now.

Along with the new blooms on the clematis.

I wander off into the pasture, keeping an eye out for the homing pigeon who first came to visit last week, and who I thought had left for home after a long day's rest.  However, he has not yet become oriented and stops in two or three times a day to nibble a little corn and have a drink of water.

Morning shadows across the green meadow, and the hawthorn tree is opening its pale pink blooms.

Callie has joined me, and we linger by the fence awhile where the meadow rue marks Miss Roo's grave, - she who could not settle here but yearned for the Lost garden and lost her life returning to it.  

I see how nice the new growth is on the evergreens we brought with us when we moved and think that perhaps this will be the year they 'release' and are no longer babies but grow straight and tall and true.

I look back at the house and feel blessed to be here...

under this painterly sky and with this lovely small garden to lose myself in, with dirt on my hands and the wonderful fragrance of the green things growing - to say nothing of the challenge of the sea holly and the violets and the Chinese lantern and the yarrow and the lamb's ears who all have this passionate wanderlust and love to move house each spring, putting down roots  and nudging their new neighbours to make room for themselves.

I see that the flax is gradually opening its heavenly blue eyes, with fresh bits of sky to decorate today's garden. 

The sun rose over the hill a while ago, and now it's time to go and start the day indoors.

I turn for a last look at the garden

those cool shadows on the hills which still wear their springtime greenery

and I really don't think, - I just feel the blessed presence of it all.