Umbrella Up, Ready to Go!

Whether or not, I will actually be able to sit under it in the near future is something else entirely, but my big red umbrella has been awakened from its hibernation in the garden shed and is now in its appointed place on the deck.

My "end-of-the-season" purchase a few summers ago was a fine idea. The colour of the thing cheers me up immensely, and its ribs have solar lights. I like looking up at them after dark on warm aestival nights when I am sitting outside.

I can see myself under the big red bumbershoot on a balmy afternoon with Beau, a mug of tea close by and a good book in hand. Better yet, a whole heap of books. When the weather warms up, there will be glasses of iced Perrier with slices of lemon and dear little paper umbrellas. Makes me smile just thinking about it.

Seeing Red

Beyond the window is an ocean of white that goes on forever and ever. Weary of ice and snow, I have been longing to have my morning cuppa out on the deck, but I will not be doing that for quite a while. The best I can do is stand inside the doors with my mug and look out wistfully. At the rate we are going, we may not even see the garden before the end of April, and there won't be any greenery showing until the long weekend in May. A little bright color is a fine thing right about now, and it is welcomed with open arms when it turns up out of the blue.

While pottering in a local market a few weeks ago, a tin bucket of tulips caught my eye, and I scooped up a bunch in assorted colors, carrying them home as tenderly as if they were fledgling birds. The whites, pinks, purples, oranges and yellows were fine stuff, but the scarlets were nothing short of amazing - attention grabbers of the first order. My find was a bucket full of gladness and then some.

In an old cut glass vase (a flea market find), the velvety petals and bright green leaves didn't merely light up the day - they lighted up everything else around here too. One tulip would have been enough, but a whole bouquet was almost indecently sumptuous. It was a small ritual, a way to invoke spring, even if the blooming was indoors and in my thoughts. My tulips were a small magic that conjured gladness and made the gnarly bringer of blooms (me) feel like doing the tango with a tulip in her teeth.

From now until spring, there has to be a pot, a crock, a bucket, a vase or a tankard of something flowering near the south facing window. I think about how beautiful a single garden rose will look there when summer comes, and it seems to me that such thoughts are not just about a vase of tulips or a single rose, but about all the boundless gardens of the earth coming into riotous, intoxicating bloom.

Bunch of Gladness

Hitching A Rosy Ride

Beau and I usually notice our neighbor's bright red Toyota truck on our walks, but at this time of the year, his whole yard is a thing of beauty. The old maple that spreads its canopy over his driveway is doing its autumn thing and dropping heaps of leaves all over the truck's hood, an eye grabbing performance if there ever was one. Rounding the corner yesterday and seeing the place stopped us right in our tracks.

Villagers like to compare notes on the colours of local maples in autumn, and we tell each other about dazzling specimens, exchanging notes whenever we meet on dog walks. The reds have pride of place, but the golden acacias on Byron avenue often get a mention too, ditto the buttery birches, aspens and ginkgos nearby.

With the slow return of the village and its wild places to softer, more earthy hues, a little red (or gold) is a fine thing in late autumn. Ivan's truck and his magnificent maple fill us with quiet pleasure, every time we see them.

Seeing Red

Wordless Wednesday - Red

Easy Rider

Seeing Red

Let There Be Red

June would not be June without clay pots and cauldrons and planters of red geraniums (cranesbills) blooming on the thresholds of houses in the village, and today is the third day of the quintessential summer month. How can it be? The season has just arrived, but the midsummer solstice is only three weeks away.

Beau and I have noticed on early morning walks that many of this year's geranium offerings are accompanied by purple petunias and marigolds. There are also some splendid coleuses in rainbow shades, and sometimes all four dwell comfortably in the same pot, geraniums, petunias, marigold and coleus. What a riot of aestival color!

My gypsy soul craves coleus strains like "Dragon Heart, "Rainbow Dragon", "Kingswood Torch" and "Chocolate Covered Cherry", and I am looking for other places in the garden to plant them this year. Ditto some of the arty amaranth varieties in local nurseries like "Joseph's Coat", "Molten Fire" and "Early Splendor". Whatever I add this time around, it has to be something the little bee sisters and the hummers will love.

A pot of geraniums on the threshold of the little blue house is a long standing summer tradition. Every year, I remember the specimens that graced the threshold in past years, welcoming everyone who came to the red (Benjamin Moore 2080-10 Raspberry Truffle) front door. I remember their shape, their color, their texture, their green and rather peppery fragrance, their jubilant, unfettered flowering.

May there be geraniums at your door too. May there be blooming in your life.

Seeing Red (For Mike and Christa)

Red is the color of new maple leaves on the old trees in the garden, the cardinals who visit my feeders, the koi in a nearby pond, the gently swaying birdhouses in a sunlight dappled yard not far from home.

Mike and Christa passed away a while ago, but their red bird houses remain, and I think of my old friends whenever I pass by. So many conversations when I was walking Beau or Spencer or Cassie. So many spirited exchanges about hawks visiting their yard, squirrels stealing their saffron crocus bulbs, the nut yield from their walnut tree. They grew some of the most towering, impressive sunflowers I have ever seen anywhere, and the webs spun by orb weaving spiders in their hedge were often several feet across. There was lots of stuff to talk about when we met, and I miss them.

One of these days, all that will remain of us (Beau and I) is the conversations we had on our morning rambles, all the happy natter about birds, bugs, varmints, weeds and village yard sales. There are worse ways to be remembered.

Sequestered, Week 234 (CCXXXIV)

Wordless Wednesday - On the Fence

Let There Be Red

June would not be June without clay pots and cauldrons and planters of red geraniums (cranesbills) blooming on the thresholds of houses in the village, and today is the fourth day of the quintessential summer month. How can it be? The season has just arrived, but the midsummer solstice is only three weeks away.

Beau and I have noticed on early morning walks that many of this year's geranium offerings are accompanied by purple petunias and marigolds. There are also some splendid coleuses in rainbow shades, and sometimes all four dwell comfortably in the same pot, geraniums, petunias, marigold and coleus. What a riot of aestival color!

My gypsy soul craves spectacular coleus strains like "Dragon Heart, "Rainbow Dragon", "Kingswood Torch" and "Chocolate Covered Cherry", and I am looking for other places in the garden to plant them this year. Ditto some of the more arty amaranth varieties in local nurseries like "Joseph's Coat", "Molten Fire" and "Early Splendor". Whatever I add this time around, it has to be something the little bee sisters will love. 

A big pot of geraniums on our threshold is a long standing summer tradition. Every year I think of their ancestors, the jubilant foremothers who graced our threshold for decades and welcomed everyone who came to the red (Benjamin Moore 2080-10 Raspberry Truffle) front door. I remember their shape, their color, their texture, their green and rather peppery fragrance, their unfettered, ecstatic flowering. They were perfect expressions of summer, and I always thanked them, each and every one. 

Happy June! May there be joyous blooming in your own precious life.

The Music of What Happens

Around the corner, three song sparrows are trilling their hearts out from a rooftop.  Their pleasure in the day and the season is echoed by a construction worker a few doors away belting out Doug Seeger's “Going Down to the River” as he installs drywall in the old Victorian house on the corner. The door of the place is wide open, and his rendering of the gospel classic is somewhat off key, but it's soulful and fine stuff indeed.

This morning, the crows left an offering in the birdbath, a tiny, dead field mouse with its entrails spilled out and floating forlornly around in limp spaghetti-ish circles, assuredly not the way one likes to start the day. Somewhat downcast, I went back to the deck and held my nose resolutely over the aromatic mug of Italian dark roast waiting for me there. Later I donned rubber gloves, gave the wee mouse back to the earth, scrubbed out the birdbath and refilled it with clean water. The crows will probably return with new booty tomorrow, and we will commence clean up operations all over again.

Tulips in every shade of the rainbow are starting to bloom, but it is the reds that dazzle truly - the blooms are almost incandescent in the early sunlight and so bright they hurt one's eyes. Frilly daffodils and scarlet fringed narcissus nod here and there, and violets sprinkle the garden in deep purple and creamy white. A neighbor's bleeding heart bush is covered with tiny green buds swaying to and fro on artfully arching stems. Magnolia trees in the village are flowering and rain fragrant petals like snow, their perfume lingering everywhere. Wonder of wonders, the first few bumble girls of the season have arrived, just in time to partake of the crabapple blossoms that are starting to appear. When Lady Spring finally shows up here, she hits the ground running.

What an amazing trip this season is, and what wonders there are to feast one's eyes on; trees leafing out, wildflowers popping up everywhere, feeders in the garden full of songbirds. If I were to stop and take photos of every splendid thing we (Beau and I)  see on our morning walks (and everything is splendid at this time of the year), we might not get home again for weeks.

Thursday Poem - Don't wait for something beautiful to find you.

Go out into the weather-beaten world

where straw men lean on frozen fields

and find the cardinal's scarlet flash of wing,

a winter heart, a feathered hope.

Without a camera or a memory,

we travel these old country roads,

turn corners like the pages of a book,

enchanted by the ordinary life

of fields and rocks and woods,

of small wild creatures stirring in the brush.

We take home pockets full of myths

and wonders seldom seen.

We will not give up easily,

Across the breakfast table

in our precarious nest,

we make those promises keep on going

that no one ever keeps. And yet...

there is the cardinal again,

a finial on our old gray fence.

Red is for Valentines.

Dolores Stewart 

This morning's poem is reprinted with permission from my friend Dolores Stewart's exquisite volume of poetry, The Nature of Things.

Wordless Wednesday - Crowned

Seeing Red

Seeing Red (2)

Wordless Wednesday - Seeing Red

Easy Rider