Froth and Fragrance

One day there are no leaves on trees in the village at all, and the next day the same trees are fully leafed out, their voluptuous canopies alive with birds who dish out madrigals at sunrise and trip the light fantastic from branch to branch until the sun goes down. Their pleasure in the day and the season is obvious.

Crabapple trees, flowering almonds and plums seem to leaf out and flower overnight, and wonder of wonder, they are alive with madly buzzing bumbles, honey bees and wasps. Dusted with pollen from stem to stern, the little dears are in constant motion, ecstatic to be feeling sunlight on their wings and foraging for nectar on a balmy morning in May's middling pages.

Here comes another fine summer of prowling about in gardens wild and domestic with camera and macro lens, drinking in light and gathering nectars of my own. Now and then, I will put down my photography gear and dance with the joyous bumble girls. Ungainly creature that I am, I hope no one is watching, at least no humans. The bee sisters are tolerant and don't mind my lurching about at all.

The Power of Three

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.

And There In the Woods...

Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis)

Rambles At Sunrise

And so they begin... our routines of staying home and doing homely things like gardening, yard work and baking, of taking long rambles with Beau in early morning before our favorite haunts are tenanted by unleashed dogs and their thoughtless owners, by sleepy walkers, bemused gawkers and weekend warriors.

Nights are still cool here, but early mornings are perfect for wandering about, and we seldom encounter anyone else on our rambles. In the overstory, grosbeaks start their day with a song, and woodpeckers tap-tap-tap on nearby trees. Geese fly overhead between the river and local farm fields, now and then, a solitary heron, a bittern or a great northern diver (loon) in graceful flight. This morning, a single cormorant flew over our heads on its way to its summer lodgings.

Seen through the trees, the early flickering sunlight is grand “stuff”, and it has a buttery, caressing quality. Greenery is coming up everywhere through last autumn's fallen leaves, delicate ferns and blooming trout lilies near the creek, budding trilliums, the leaves of hepatica, wild columbines and tiny wild hyacinths. When we pass through her grove, I greet the Beech Mother and give her a pat. I'd give her a hug, but she is an old tree and my arms are not long enough to do that.

Beau and I go slowly along together, and the light is a shawl on our shoulders, a wrapper woven by the Old Wild Mother in shades of green and gold. There are so many treasures to be seen in the woods―it is a wonder we ever get anywhere at all.

First Purple Crocuses

Wordless Wednesday - First Mourning Cloak

Little Blue

On an overcast morning in late April, I am bending over a cluster of blooming Siberian squill (Scilla siberica) in a corner of the garden, training my camera on them and trying not to go base over apex (ass over tea kettle) among the emerging daylilies nearby. It's the same old game as in countless other seasons. While trying to stay upright and capture images, I am also trying to be attentive to spring's wonders in all their natural wabi sabi grace, their suchness. It's a Zen thing.

Then there is the matter of patience. I must wait for the wind to pause in its madcap dance before clicking my shutter. Sometimes the exercises turn out, but more often I am rewarded by blurring, flickering and dancing coins of bokeh.

Spring is a time of brightness and radiant becoming. This is the seventh springtime without my soulmate, and it was his favorite season of the year - he loved the tiny wildflowers lifting their heads in the woods and fields and fens now. The ache of losing that beautiful man never goes away. On our morning rambles, Beau and I think of him as tucked in one of our pockets and enjoying the unfolding splendor of the great wide world with us. We send him our love, every single day.

Sequestered, 350 (CCCL)

Everything's Coming Up Maple

Friday Ramble - Bloom

Foliage popping out everywhere, avian courtship rites and nests cobbled together in every tree - the village is greening up before our eyes as Beau and I potter about and peer into gardens and hedgerows. Spring does not make a quiet entrance this far north - she comes over the hill with an exuberant bound, reaches out with a twiggy hand, and everything bursts into bloom. On a recent morning walk, the first crocus of the season was blooming in a protected alcove, and we both did a little dance. We were drenched by a squall on the way home and didn't mind at all.

How can this week's word be anything except bloom? The word originates in the Middle English blo or blome, meaning to open up and flower lavishly, to glow with health and well-being, to be as sleek and glossy as an otter, as dewy and flushed with sunlight as a garden tulip or an early blooming orchid in a wild and wooded place. There are probable connections (or roots) between bloom and bhel in Proto-Indo-European, the hypothetical common ancestor of all modern European languages, In that ancient, oral and unscribed tongue, bhel means to unfold, to leaf out or come into flower.

Perhaps a better word for this week would be sex, because that is what springtime's lush colors, alluring fragrances, velvet textures and warbling ballads are about - the Old Wild Mother's madcap dance of exuberance, fertility and fruitfulness. Every species on the planet seems focused on perpetuating its own heady genetic brew, and the collective pleasure in being alive is almost tangible.

Forsaking appointed chores, we poke around in the garden, lurch about in village thickets, peer into trees and contemplate the blue sky for long intervals. It's simply a matter of blooming wherever one happens to be planted. Beau is already a master of that splendid Zen art, and his silly old mum is working on it.

Thursday Poem - Swiftly

Swiftly the years, beyond recall,
Solemn the stillness of this fair morning.
I will clothe myself in spring clothing,
And visit the slopes of the Eastern Hill.
By the mountain stream a mist hovers,
Hovers a moment, then scatters.
There comes a wind blowing from the south
That brushes the fields of new corn.

T'ao Ch'ien (translation by Arthur Waley)

We are still several weeks away from seeing new corn, but for me, these eight lines are the essence of April and springtime.

Wordless Wednesday - Willowy

Spring in a Jar

It will be a week or two until the "daffies" in the park are up and blooming, but I could not resist bringing home a gorgeous bouquet of heirloom specimens from a tin pail near the entrance of a village market a few days ago.

Everyone nearing the place stopped to look at the narcissi on display, most of us heading home with a generous bunch clutched in our paws along with our coffee beans, artisanal cheese and freshly baked croissants. Gotta love weekends!

Daffodils are the essence of springtime, and my blooms have a delicate, sweet fragrance with just a hint of spice. Lovingly arranged in a jar in the dining room, their velvety white petals and glowing centers make my heart glad. 

Reaching for the Light

Reaching for the Light

Wood squill (Scilla siberica)

One day, there were piles of snow in the yard at least three feet deep, and I could not get anywhere near the garden shed for white stuff and sneaky patches of ice. The next day, the snow was receding into the good dark earth, and tiny flowers were springing up everywhere, reaching for the light over their nodding, fragile heads. 

Grasses thrust themselves out of puddles in the park, and a few ducks paddled up and down the little creek among the trees. Everywhere, there was birdsong, each and every feathered singer in the overstory declaring its delight in the season.

We could hardly believe our good fortune, and every sunbeam, new leaf and tiny bloom was a gift. If we had stopped to look at everything we encountered, we would never have gotten anywhere at all. I was able to get the shed door open and greet my gardening tools. Was spring here at last? If so, not for long.

If I had not written this idiotically cheerful post, we probably would not have gotten snow overnight, and now it is snowing again. I never learn, or rather unlearn.

Happy Easter

Thursday Poem - An April Night

The moon comes up o'er the deeps of the woods,
And the long, low dingles that hide in the hills,
Where the ancient beeches are moist with buds
Over the pools and the whimpering rills;

And with her the mists, like dryads that creep
From their oaks, or the spirits of pine-hid springs,
Who hold, while the eyes of the world are asleep,
With the wind on the hills their gay revellings.

Down on the marshlands with flicker and glow
Wanders Will-o'-the-Wisp through the night,
Seeking for witch-gold lost long ago
By the glimmer of goblin lantern-light.

The night is a sorceress, dusk-eyed and dear,
Akin to all eerie and elfin things,
Who weaves about us in meadow and mere
The spell of a hundred vanished Springs.

Lucy Maud Montgomery

Returning, Little By Little

Potted Tulips, Crocus Thoughts

Winter's continued presence in the village and the woods of the eastern Ontario highlands is not entirely unforeseen — one can reasonably expect the long white season to lurk in the shadows and make surprise appearances until late April at the earliest, sometimes well into May. This far north, Winter delights in stealth tactics, and one must be prepared. I remember a not so long ago year when storms and killing frost wiped out our newborn veggie patch on the first day of June.

When the long white season finally retreats, the woods green up rapidly, and within a short time the whole forest is carpeted in bloodroot, trilliums, trout lilies and Dutchman's breeches, the tiny blooms of spring beauty and wood violets. No quiet and subtle entrance here for Lady Spring, but a triumphant fanfare, running footsteps, an explosion of shaggy green leafage and a riotous profusion of blooms bursting forth, almost within minutes.

During my scant hours of sleep last night, I wandered along in a cloud of wildflowers and lacy green ferns, listened to rose-breasted grosbeaks singing in the overstory, watched an osprey hunting over the Clyde river. (Sigh) early days yet. Dreams will have to sustain me for another several weeks—at present the north woods are a realm of snow and inky blue shadows, and so they will remain for quite a while.

There are gardening catalogues all over the house, and I dream of putting my hands in the good dark earth of the garden again, but the place is still at least a foot deep in snow. For now, potted tulips and crocus thoughts will have to do.