April 15th, 2013

Fickle April

 

The Goldfinch has returned, along with his mate and lots of cousins and other relatives.  I have borrowed a photo from Google to share his lovely goldenness!

 

His arrival, of course, instigated a search for the long, slim thistle feeder.

 

The one hanging in the back garden seemed a likely fill-in until the other bags were found.  When I last looked it had been ignored by all small birds, but when I went to retrieve it I found it half full and the centre of attraction for a number of very small birds, which I haven't identified yet.

 

Back to looking for the nyger feeders!  I have seen them just recently, - I search all the likely places inside without any favourable results, and then decide I must go out again into the cold, miserable morning and look in the garden shed.

 

Well, where else, - they were there, of course, and now are filled with with seed and hanging seductively on a limb of the willow where all the other birds congregate.

 

 

 

A nice surprise after a fitful night and another morning of damp cold, low clouds

 and threatening rain.

 

Nevertheless, despite the weather the garden plants are growing by leaps and bounds - oh look, there - see the lilies leap - they must be 15 inches high!!!!

 

There are fat pink buds on the Oriental Peony and tiny white ones on the anemones

in the little garden outside the fence at the front, promising to make a nice showing with the tulips.

 

I had planned to go to the garden on the hill to steal away some of the prolific

barn flowers that would fill that corner along the lane with gorgeous yellow bloom

all summer long, but alas, it looks like an all day rain!

Up on the hills the Balsomroot is thirsty for all those wonderful spring nutrients
sent along with each shower, and in return present a beautiful sunny picture to passers-by.

 

I think this is a weaving day, rather than a gardening day,  - or maybe I could even go and make some muffins and fill the house with fragrant baking smells
and the promise of a nicer day tomorrow, - although the weatherman
is most discouraging of this and it seems the best we can do is look forward to May.

 But then, isn't April famous for its fickleness!!!

 

I have been visiting in blogland - lovely exotic spots and old familiar places, where I can catch up on what friends are doing and thinking and saying. 

It occurs to me that I might write a post.   It's time!

I consider how I am filling my days.

There are the books I am reading, and the loom in the back room that lures me intlo winding a bobbin with lengths of old silk blouses, cut into brilliant slippery weft,  covering the warp with whatever comes to hand and in whatever manner I unconsciously choose the colours that fill the bobbin, - a lovely mindless activity that leaves my mind free to wander, and when I have finished a session it is a surprise to see what I have woven, and how the monet colours blend together.  I have almost finished the first little mat, and will go on to another in shades of green that will perhaps encourage spring to visit.

There are wonderful daffodils and tulips in the garden, and I must go out in the rain in the morning and gather an armful to take to the church, where we are catering to a 'Retreat' tomorrow.  Tonight I made pastry and lined two large quiche dishes to make a Lorraine and a nice mixed seafood quiche, to take along with some ham.

About the books, - I have just got from the library 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' by Milan Kundera - a book referred to by Edmund Sherman in his book on Contemplative Aging.  That was a library book too, but I sent to Chapters for my own copy because there were just so many comments I wanted to pencil in about what I was reading, and that habit is somewhat frowned on in Libraries.....

I am quite ambialent about 'contemplative aging' - I see the benefits, but on the other hand too much contemplation is liable to lead to melancholy, for which a good busy day is the only antidote, I think  -  or a lovely chat with old friends, or a shopping day.  Or a day spent cleaning the house!!!  Orin the garden.....

I planted potatoes in a tricky orange plastic bag, with a little door at the bottom to retrieve the new spuds when (if) the seed potatoes produce results.  And I put a big pot of yellow pansies by the back door, hoping they would inspire the sun to shine!  Some of the peonies are sporting large, fat buds, and the rhubarb is reaching its ruby red stems up the little barrel I put over the plant to force enough stalks for a pie.

When I went in to make the bed the other morning I passed by the open window and the fragrance of the violets that grow along the fence line, under the window, made me stop and close my eyes and take deep breaths and think how lovely life is and how terribly important it is to hold close each day and squeeze every last bit of happiness from it.  I have lost two old and dear friends this week. 

I think about the continum of the years and the happiness they contain and plan another day!

It hasn't been grey and miserable every day, and we really have had some beautiful signs of spring.

ABC Wednesday

The letter is M

The flower is the Morning Glory

 

A beautiful purple Morning Glory, stretching out from the fence

 

to blossom amidst the roses and delphiniums

 

Lovely in the morning sun, the Morning Glory is partial to afternoon siestas

 

but early in the morning a wall covered with these sweet cup shaped blossoms

 

is reward enough for any early riser.

 

Once you have this annual established each year the seeds germinate in the warm ground

 

 and the vine starts climbing in the spring,

 

covering up all sorts of unsightly garden debris

 

and lingering until the first frost.

 

I wouldn't be without them!

 

For more Ms mosey over to Mrs. Nesbitts, here,

 

with thanks to all who make this meme such a pleasure.



ABC Wednesday

The letter is L

Whereas last week it was necessary to scratch for flowers that

began with K,

 

L has been lavish with its supply of lovely flowers -

somehow it's just that kind

of a letter.

 

Lupins,  Lunaria, Lilacs, Lobelia, Larkspur, Love in the Mist

 

It is early in the morning, towards the end of May.  I am up with the sun and before I breakfast I go into the garden where himself, the sun, is making long shadows along the pathway.

 

The bright blue above is kissing the Linum awake, and as the petals open they reflect the colour of the sky, tossing and turning in the morning breeze.

They are morning flowers - by noon they will have closed up shop and be napping.
 

Within a few weeks the lavender will add its delicate
 perfume as I brush past it and stoop to pick a sprig.

and the lamb's ears will start to poke their little mauve flowers along their stems
just under their ears

 

 

and then it will  be time for the gorgeous,elegant lilies!

 

 

That come in many beautiful colours

 

 

and practically send one swooning with their heady fragrance

 

 

Oh,what is life without a garden!!!!

 

For more interesting Ls click here to reach ABC Wednesday

with many thanks to Mrs. Nesbitt and to Roger

and all who help with this great meme.

 

 

 

 

Easter, 2013

 

 

 

 

Blessings of Easter to all

and a little Easter music from long long ago......

 

 

 

 

Here and There and Creme Brulee

Yesterday was a lovely day, - in every way!

David came mid morning to ferry me to Penticton, and on the way to pick up our dear friend, Jill, - a friend by way of being one of Charles' school mates, the widowed wife of a cherished minister at St. John's, (also a school mate) and oh, just a kindred spirit for a thousand reasons....

We were going out to lunch, and to catch up on the times between now and when we last had this kind of an opportunity to talk.

We went to the Vanilla Pod, - one of the many new wineries that have taken over the orchard land on the benches between Penticton and Naramata, along Okanagan Lake.  A restaurant attached, as many of them have...  A marvelous view.  Spacious.  Windows all around.

We had a minimal lunch, - a fabulous soup, a glass of white wine and Creme Brulee the likes of which I hadn't had since we were last in England.

I mention the Creme Brulee because it has inspired me to go and buy some small ramekins and treat anyone who comes to dinner to this elegantly simple dessert;  stashing any that are left over in the freezer along with the French Onion soup so I can have a more sophisticated dinner than scrambled eggs on toast.

After lunch David very kindly drove us to the Skaha Bluffs, where Jill's grandson was scheduled to make a drop from a big yellow airforce plane on to a small meadow below the parking lot high on the bluffs.  Her daughter (the mother of the dropee) arrived with an array of old white sheets to mark the drop spot in the meadow and the plane circled overhead. 

We left Jill with her family, but before I go on with the story, Jill's grandson, (the dropee), has just been presented with a medal for Courage by the Governor General of Canada, honouring him for his part in the rescue of a young native from where he was stranded on an ice floe in the Arctic.  This involved a drop from a heliocopter, carrying medical supplies, and then jumping from floe to floe until they reached the young man in such dire trouble and were able to attend to his needs and attach him to the rope from the copter and hence to safety.  Courageous indeed! 

It was getting late, and David had to take me home to Keremeos and then back to Penticton for a dinner date, so we drove along the east side of Skaha Lake, stopping at Tickleberries for an ice-cream cone to finish off the day in style.  I had a modest Senior's cone, but David went all out for a three tiered affair with different kinds of ice cream on each layer.  Magnificent!!!

 

 

I spent a lovely contemplative evening recalling our conversation and the pleasure of being with an old and very dear friend with whom we shared so many parties and picnics and quiet times and Christmas Eve glasses of wine after midnight services, and weddings and funerals.  It is that wonderful sense of comfort that pervades you when you are with familiar dear ones.........

And we had such a great chauffeur!

ABC Wednesday
March 27th, 2013

The letter is K

Not the easiest letter when you are looking for something botanical that begins with K

Here is Kalkwitzia Amabilis

 

most commonly known as a Beauty Bush

 

Amabilis means 'lovely' and it is a most apt descriptive name

 

A Chinese shrub of the Honeysuckle family

the bush was twice discovered in Central China, - once by the Jesuit

Missionary Giuseppe Giraldi in Shensi, and then in western

Hubei province by E.H. 'Chinese' Wilson, who was collecting for Veitch Nurseries.

 

It was named for Richard Kolkwitz, a professor of botany in Berlin.

 

The shrub was first grown in the Veitch Nurseries in 1901

and became very popular in the U.S. following World War 1,

almost a defining shrub in American gardens between the World Wars.

 

The flowers are pinkish, with yellow throats and very fragrant.

It is attractive to bees, butterflies and birds.

The fruit is bristly, which proves, I guess, that you can't have everything!

 

In full sun the shrub will grow 8-10 feet tall,  requiring a fair amount of space

as the branches are very arching.

It is propogated by soft wood cuttings, and I would love to find one of these

lovely shrubs and try a soft wood cutting!  I would put it in the corner of the back garden

and it could have all the space it wanted.........

 

Here is a close-up of the beautiful bell shaped flowers,

which grow in pairs.

 

 

For more K's go here, to ABC Wednesday

and thank you to all who work with this wonderful meme.

If I had my druthers.....

If I had my druthers the room at the end of the hallway would still be Charles' dressing-room-cum-small-workshop, but alas, that is not to be.....

And so today two of the sons and a son-in-law wriggled the loom out of the travel trailer where Charles and I had deposited it some years ago, put it in the back of Frank's pick-up and while I was at the church doing Bulletins for tomorrow's Palm Sunday service, they marched it up the back stairs and had it all assembled, even with the warp still on it and in good order when I got home.

Thank you so much, fellows....

 

I have a studio again!!!

 

The last entry in my weaving journal, written on July 1st, 2008. reads;

 

"Have given up Glimakra - it is at Sharons - not yet put together.  Still have the Le Clerc - it is in storage in the Quonset hut, but there is a spot for it in the trailer where most weaving equipment resides.

 

I am once again encouraged to weave by my inner self - the energy quotient is considerably less, but there are things I want to do while I still can.  Starting with the table loom (not the Dorothy) and all the silk blouses I have been saving.

 

Look up recipe for rag bags - (Ruth Blau's honeycomb) and start making silken strips''

 

I did do that, - the Le Clerc did make the trip from the Quonset Hut to the Trailer, 

and I did start to make small silk mats, but then we moved, and Charles' mobility reached the stage where he couldn't just slide into a pair of trousers and throw on a shirt and jacket, - it was instead a painful operation for him to dress, to put on socks and shoes, and he needed a place to call his own -

a cave where he could fiddle and sort and read and think

and one does what one must.

 

I know he would be pleased to see the Le Clerc in operation again.  He was such a part of the weaving operation, making sectional warp beams for both the Glimakra and the Le Clerc

and so many other creative additions to the looms and the weaving equipment. 

 

His dream was to make an automatic fly shuttle for the countermarche, but time flew by instead

and  the years weren't long enough to realize all the dreams.

 

I see him smiling at my pleasure today.

 

 

 

 

How lucky I was to be married sixty-seven years to such a lovely man!!

My dear DIL, Nicola, came yesterday and did magical things with my computer, so that now I am Wireless (is that the same as being Clueless?) and I am able to use Charles' laptop here at the kitchen table, while my toast toasts and my egg boils merrily in its little flowered china jar.which I resurrected when I changed my breakfast menu.

I even cut my toast into soldiers, and dip them, something my darling husband was not familiar with, not having had an English mother.  I am afraid, he didn't entirely approve of the practice!!!!!!

March is doing its 'Lion' act today, - very damp, chilly and windy.  I will confine my gardening to writing in my journal and  replanting the lily bulbs I rescued from the garden on the hill to bloom  in tandem with the blaze rose that grows against the garden shed.

                                           

I'm off to discover what precious rich earth lies in wait for me at the bottom of the compost bin to make the lily bulbs feel at home in this sparse soil here in town.  And to see what progress the daffodils are making........

If the weather improves tomorrow will see another couple of hours in battle with the cutch grass and the Chinese Railroad Line that have made themselves at home - even throwing great parties at times, I suspect, - up there in the old garden.   It does, however, just seem to ignore this neglect and is springing up with great energy and promise, glorious in this wild March weather.

I am reminded of D..H. Lawrence and The Enkindled Spring.

 

This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green,

Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes,

Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between

Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering rushes.

I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration
Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze
of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration,
Faces of people streaming across my gaze.

And I, what fountain of fire am I among
This leaping combustion of spring?  My spirit is tossed
About like a shadow buffeted in the throng
Of flames, a shadow that's gone astray, and is lost.

 

 

Wednesday, March 20th, 2013

ABC Wednesday

The letter this week is J

 

 

The lovely, romantic Jasmine seems a perfect choice for J.

 

 

A cherished Valentine present in 2012

 

Jasmine - its name derived from the Persian 'Yasameen', meaning Gift of God.

 

It has the most compelling and enticing fragrance

 

The National Flower of Hawaii, Indonesia, Pakistan and the Phillippines

 

Jasmine has great cultural importance in the East

 

being used in marriage rituals, festivals, religious ceremonies

 

and in the home

 

Used often as a hair ornament, - tucked behind the ear or in a braid

 

its lovely fragrance is pleasant to both the wearer

 

and the passer-by

 

 

 

 

for more takes on the letter J visit here, at ABC Wednesday.

 

A Sunday Drive

Scooped up by David and Nicola we took the old familiar path towards the Lower Similkameen, around by Ginty's pond, through the meadows and the orchards, where the sap is beginning to rise, the grass grows greener every day, the willows glow in the sunlight, the little black angus calves frolic close by, and down by the pond the shrubs don the soft, subtle shades of spring.

Over the bank, perched on a railing, we spied a large bird, - a golden eagle, said David, and certainly it bore all the signs of that magnificent bird, and this is not called Eagle Valley for nothing. We watched as it sat silently, quietly.

 

I caught it with the camera as it flew low across the meadow. a great large shadowy span, pale against the stubbly earth and the patches of burnt grass that had reached on to the grass from the burning of the bullrushes that clog the creek running alongside the road.  Can you see it, centre left? Perhaps if you were to enlarge the picture....

The upper pond was clear and reflective - a few ducks swam between the branches mirrored on the water. 

 

 

 

 

The lower pond, which held no water in the fall when Charles and I visited. was beginning to fill again. No turtles, no raccoons, but away at the end a pair of nesting ducks, and another couple swimming their way into the remnants of the rushes.

 

 

The remains of last year's corn crop lie waiting to be folded into the ground to feed next year's cobs, or to br taken away for composting

David captured a picture of K Mountain, not as silent as it looks as spring break-up tumbles rocks down the talus slides that give the mountain its name.

We finished the lovely afternoon with an early dinner at the Thai Restaurant in town, and I felt refreshed and somehow comforted by memories of the times before that we have lingered here and there along the so familiar route, the so familiar scenes.

As I write dark clouds gather over the valley, touched in the west by the sun dodging between them on its way along the rim of the hills.  The catkins on the hazel nut tree outside my window stretch out long and golden and my heart feels a little lighter, even though the forecast for tomorrow is for stormy weather and wild March winds in the afternoon.

In the morning I have plans to go once again to the garden on the hill, as I did this morning.  Under the fall debris those amazing scarlet buds poke through the rich black earth, and the daffodils have pushed aside fall's sodden leaves, grown tall and straight and true and any minute now will burst into glorious bloom.

I snipped at the forsythia and brought home enough to brighten up the Church this coming Palm Sunday before the darker days of Holy Week. - there should be daffodils galore for Easter.