AdventWord::Surprise

Surprise

The egg took me by surprise. I was puttering in my garden, picking strawberries when I noticed it. The blue color striking. The brown dots in line with what I think a Robin might produce. But I'd never expect to see it. I've never seen one in my yard. The Bluejay grasps my attention. This was a moment of God's providence for me. God knows me and that I'm very often surprised by what becomes joy. Things that come from small things, like color, or a word, things noticed, kindnesses, love, eggs.

This thing, sticking with the One who turns the world upside down is a lovely thing. Sticking with Him, takes me to places where I'm startled and confused and surprised. I want to find Jesus as I come along with him, as he has come to me with love. I want to look and listen and find him in the unexpected way.

Here, I live in delight.


God comes to us as a vulnerable human baby to an unlikely couple in an obscure place. And in doing so turns the world upside down. Jesus says: Stick with me even if I am different, confusing, or surprising. I have come, and I am coming to you today with love! Look for me. Listen. I am coming in an unexpected way.

-Br. Luke Ditewig

AdventWord::Be

Be
People in trauma need our presence and our prayer rather than our preaching. We will bear a much more comforting witness to someone facing deep loss by simply being with them, and in so doing, representing God Emmanuel – God with us – by our being with them. Not by our words, but by our presence.

-Br. Curtis Almquist

My experience is this: we're not exactly alike, really. And, I notice the white of the white and the purple of the purple, the qualities, when we're sitting close, being, not homogenized in look or feel. When we can simply be what and who we are in creation. There is the breath of grace of this. 

August and Blueberries

I wish, wish, wish I could share these beautiful blueys from my garden, but they aren't mine to share. They're from a great page on growing them in containers. 

I planted four plants this year. Some early bloomers, some later and some late. All with plenty of acid soil amendment and food and so far, my sweet little bushes have not looked like those above. I'll chalk it up to a cool summer (our Catalina Eddy has hung out long past June gloom season has lasted into August) and a lack of bees. I miss my little garden friends and I'm as terrified as the next person wondering what's next. We had a horrid attack of wasps early in spring and had a couple of areas sprayed. The company promised bees don't live in the same places as wasps and, well, blah, blah, blah. I fear we may have contributed to the problem in hind sight.

On a nicer note, the 10 or so blueberries we have farmed have been delicious. I'm thinking of pulling them up into containers over winter. Really forcing the acid soil and hoping for a less bleak harvest next summer.

So how about you? How does your garden grow.

Attending the gift. A patch of dirt.

My beautiful friend Vicky gave me 18 pink tulip bulbs for my birthday.

They spent the winter in the fridge.

Today they went easily under ground.

So now we wait.
And watch.
With joy and expecting.

November 29 - Giving Thanks:: the Kale Rose

And, as a garden lover, I will say, I'm always grateful for the plant someone else started. I will love these well as an addition to my front garden, welcoming friends; and to the life of my just-started Potager garden. (Can you hear the delight?)

Giving thanks - November 28:: a patch of dirt and a few seeds

There is much to be thankful for in a patch of dirt.
Inspiration.
Promise.
And in this case, Sweet Pea seeds.

A Thanksgiving weekend tradition celebrated at dark:30 on a Wednesday after morning.

Giving Thanks - November 16:: Brita for Inspiration

In the next town there's a beautiful garden store -- Brita's Old Town Gardens.

It's the store that inspires me to go beyond and seek new plantings and to love a mish mash of colors and always add this and that. (As long as they get the right sun and the right kind of soil.)

I doubt that Brita, a beautiful tall woman with joy exuding as she strolls the garden looking for just what you need, would remember our first meeting. I do. We'd moved into our first home. I knew a bit about gardening, but knew I wanted to know more. And there I was with a flower bed right in front of my living room window. All shade. I was determined to have flowers.

Brita helped find to helitropes and bleeding hearts.

I went to visit her this morning with a couple of tasks. First we had to pick a rose for a climbing wall, then, part shade flowers for beds to live with rooty birches. But the most fun was when I mentioned the Potager garden.

I have a very eclectic garden on the way there now, roses and strawberries and lavender.  But I'm ready to dive in with sweet peas and lettuces and cabbage, and, and, and. Her eyes lit up as we gathered from her stock and toured the lanes of her store grabbing the thymes, and mint and pansies and chard. She heard my love for the white rose next to the lavender, but not just for the color, for the uses and fragrances. She's the gardening friend, but really, the shopkeeper with zest and knowledge for what the garden can be.

I'm enthused about the next steps.

The best inspiration in film is Meryl Streep's potager in It's Complicated. Mine isn't quite this big and won't have the perfect rows, oh, and I don't look like Meryl Streep, nor am I married to Alec Baldwin - but you can believe the colors and joy of the mixture will be there. I love, love, love the tomatoes working up the frameworks. Tomatoes will have to wait while Sweet Peas meander up in mean time.

So, here's my Thanksgiving today: to Brita whose sea blue eyes sparkle and whose ideas breathe breeze into my project. And for the stylist who designed Ms. Streep's garden. To Alec Baldwin for standing there. And for my own Dear Husband, who keeps saying, "I'm glad your doing just what you want there, Dear."

I'm inspired and so grateful for the ones who join in.

The Intruder

This morning, I had my first cup of coffee in my garden chair as I read to the middle of MEMORIES OF RUNNING, by Bruce McLarty. I was up, oh so very early, and brewed the cup and took to the seat at first light. I traveled with Smithy to New York and listened to the old artist lady describing Art and Light and repeating, "That's Omega there. That's God's work," as she wandered off. I was engrossed in good writing, the good use of good words, and each time I'd reach for a big swig, I'd notice pieces of lovely in my garden.

The easing of the paint along the arm of my chair.

My pal's resting position.

The slight turning of the rose petal.

 The shifting light from the candle in the blue-gray of morning.








And then: the intruder.

The sun.

I don't think I've ever been unhappy with the sun peeking over the rooftop. But there it was with all it's light and warmth, beckoning for the day to start in earnest. But it had started, in the perfect way, with the chair and the book and the dog and the coffee and the time. There it was. Time.

I recognize I'm pushed to consider how I will spend my time this day. It look's like its time to fill my list with things (like working) that must be done. But this morning, in the early moments, I felt the fullness of what my soul desires: transporting words, the stillness of time, the coolness of morning, the beauty of Creation right in my yard, the work of a little black spider at his web within arms length and, without working to connect to God in scripture or text, just being in the midst of all He's granted, I am filled.

I'm even accepting the trickling light the intruder supplies as it dancing across my table.

Morning is changeable, I realize. The cool, the warmth, now the breeze. The waking birds are coming to peruse and a barking dog around the block is joining.

It must be time for a second cup.

Seeing

Today I started the Revisiting Sanctuaries on-line workshop. (You can too! Go, it's wonderful.) I participated once before and want to dig a bit deeper and join the conversation and fun again. So today, I am seeing. I was specifically looking for something that brought be joy in color and this is it. A little geranium I picked up at Trader Joe's just because I love the color. I'm planting it in my little front garden with the beautiful variegated plant and the big rock.
It's stunning.

My gardens tend to the same color scheme. White and pink with a bit of lavender. So, I'm thrilled for this bold joiner.

So, I must ask: how does your garden grow?

Fanny. A curious cat, indeed.

Well, there we were enjoying a front yard barbecue when Fanny, the cat, came upon the condensation dripping from the ice bucket. This is a neighborhood party we enjoyed a week or so ago. And yes, I'll share much more about the fun we have making delicious foods for the grill and the plate. But I simply must share Fanny.

She's a funny cat. I don't qualify as a cat lover. I have, however, loved a couple of cats in my life and Fanny is one of them. (I like the T.S. Elliot kitties, too.) When we have coffee in the garden, she pops out of the front door (or comes out through the window) and joins we gals. On occasion, she's crossed the street and gone two doors down to sit on my front lawn, either waiting or observing. (My big dog is not happy about this.) When you don't acknowledge her, she might hit you. She also marvels at things. You can see her wheels turning. So, this experience was very funny. She walked up onto the porch and found herself under the little table. She felt a drop or two of water on her head and instead of bolting, like most cats, she simply surveyed and finally just drank the drops as they fell on her.

You can't imagine how much fun it is to watch her shenanigans. Unless you're a cat lover. In which case, she's very likely winking at you.

Out of context and yet, lovely

The other night I looked out on my neighbor's yard and saw this Liquid Amber leaf. Until the last week, our summer weather has been cool which makes me wonder, am I supposed to keep my thoughts on fall?

It makes sense.
Though I rebel terribly.

Let's go to the beach.
Shall we?

February 3 - I Love:: Camellias

My heart sings when winter comes and these beautiful, delicate camellias bloom on my front porch.

Ahh, the Bergamot

Like many, many people my only understanding of the Bergamot was some essential oil memory. An oil sold with the likes of Patchouili oil. It had something to do either with hippies or massage therapists.

Thankfully, life provides experiences (and a  foraging neighbor) so my understanding has been refined.

Stick with me here.

In the early 2000s, a lovely gardening man I worked with, used to bring small vases of Freesia into my office in winter. At first I just thought they were beautiful. Over time, I realized that they were beautiful and fragrant and drove me to want a cup of tea. And, as my unintentional explorations led, I found my desire fulfilled in Earl Grey. I've become quite an Earl Grey connoisseur, I enjoy the subtler, not to perfumey types and I like the hint of Bergamot. (See how we came full circle - wait there's more).

I was content with my tea and freesia experiences. Then this summer my friend, the foraging friend, introduced me to a beautiful line of pure and delicious olive oils. They are tres special. The way the olives are harvested and crushed makes for a very complete flavor. Garlic is crushed with the olives (for the garlic olive oil) rather than garlic oils being added to the olive oil. No infusion. Full on flavor marriage. You can learn about the oils here. I'm never going back!

In the end, the flavors hold up in cooking or preparations really well and that pleases me.

One day, I was looking at the Bergamot label and was truly surprised to learn that Bergamot isn't extracted from actual hippies, but from the Bergamot, a citrus fruit grown in Calabria, Italy or perhaps France.

Finally, yesterday, Mary handed me an actual Bergamot from one from her travels. Yes, it looks like a lemon and your knowledge of citrus has probably made your mouth water as if to smell or taste the sour. But the fragrance is intense and beautiful and clean and freesia like.

I have to cut into it and taste it. It's said to be more bitter than the grapefruit, which seems impossible with its beautiful scent. I plan, however to wait. I want to leave it on the counter in my kitchen and breath in all the aroma this beauty has to offer.

These beauties are homegrown.
Last year Elizabeth told me to pot my poinsettia and put it in one place and leave it. Lo' and behold, it became a flowering poinsettia. The little red leaves became flowers in a surprise appearance in December. The rest of the year, it was just green foliage.
I'm thrilled. I've seen those planted in the ground and they get tall and leggy and not so easy to see in the Christmas transformation.
I'm delighted.
And I have a couple of new ones to pot for next year.
Ah, the garden.

In the still of the early morning in the yard the fall rose blooms.
Imagine my delight.

Yesterday and tomorrow

Yesterday we went apple and pumpkin picking at Riley's Farm.
Tomorrow you'll see pictures.

Saturday in the garden

I love fall and I love my time in the garden. Right now, that time is a bit too limited for my taste. We're all back to work and back to schoolish here. That mode seems to have brought with it the practices and meetings and evening events that have muscled their way into onto my summer's once free flowing calendar.

It could be that the once free flowing calendar was a figment of a summer dream. 

It maybe lasted a couple of weeks, but I really liked it and prefer to think of it as a more permanent way of life. Isn't denial lovely?

But I digress. Today I'll spend a while pruning in my garden. It's time for some fall cut back, but I'm a bit reluctant when the Scabiosas, which have been producing since February, continue delighting.

And then, this summer beauty has more to offer in continuing blooms.

Still, I'm going in.

October has many more delights, the salvia is blooming and the Amemonies are just about to grace the yard. It's time to make way for what's coming and the anticipation of the inevitable pleasures a change of season brings.

A Peach Spot

This is where we sit at John and Mary's. In the front yard amidst the iceberg roses and peaches. A perfect spot for morning coffee, an afternoon's magazine perusal or dinner with the many or few.

This morning, some of those peaches made it into an Ohio Peach Pie. The recipe is Nora Ephron's, from her book HEARTBURN. The book is full of the story of her life with that Watergate reporter and chocked with cooking tales and excellent recipes. (My youngest would like you to know that Ms. Ephron uses inappropriate words in the book and your young children shouldn't be reading the page right next to this recipe. Negligent Mother's Club, here I come.) I've only ever made a version of her vinaigrette. I embraced and enhanced it in my early cooking days and don't intend to let it go. Ever.

Oh, do see below.

Peachy

Oh, the summer fruit.
Who doesn't love the color, the fragrance, the flavor of the peach?
The neighbor's peach tree is overloaded and I'm dreaming about what each of these darlings will become in the next phase of their lives.
I'll let you know as we go. But I must ask the question:
What do you do with your peaches?

160 Any Street

I believe I'd be more than happy to live at 160 Whatever Street.
Assuming the flowers speak like this against the garden gate.
And you?