Rosy Glasses of Spring

First apple blossoms on my baby tree.

The title really grabbed me:  Lost: One Pair of Rose Colored Glasses.  

This novella by fellow blogger, Amy Dingmann  (http://www.amydingmann.com), is sitting on my kitchen counter waiting for a stormy day so I'll stay out of the garden and read it.  In the mean time, I'm enjoying watching spring play with the title as I go about the garden Things I get to do today.

Dogwood's butterflies winging in the sun

Everywhere one looks Spring has displayed her optimism through rosy, pink flowers.

Cherry pompom

Love energy is pink. We are surrounded by its reassurance.  Spring has not lost her glasses.

Optimism at its best.

Welcomed Home

Callas greet with grace at the front door

Home feels good.  The welcoming committee of yard growies done good!

Blue Borage

Even though the back lawn has grown three inches too long to cut with the push mower and will be on tomorrow's Things I get to do today, all the plants and flowers got drunk on the abundant rain that fell while we were away and decided to throw a party for me.  It is glorious.

Rosemary's delicate dance

I'm wrapped in the surprise of
beauty around every corner on every plant.  I am home and I am loved.

Welcome Home!

Bing Bling

Sometimes the world loves a show off! Spring is that time. Perhaps the plant devas work over time in February and March to get ready for the extravaganza. Bling is all over my cherry tree.

Even if there are no cherries, the tree is worth having for the display. It's a grafted tree with four or five different cherries. Last year I ate two, not quite ripe, in a race with Nature and the jays and squirrels. This year there'll be protection over the small tree. For now, I'm reveling in their gaudy glitz.

Flesh and Bones

It nearly halted the trip.  I gasped, swerved and braked. How could this spectacular little tree have suddenly exclaimed itself in our neighborhood with my not seeing it?  It stopped me in my tracks!  But I was headed to Eugene, again, and collected my distracted wits, took my foot off the brake and slowly drove on, promising to give it proper admiration as soon as possible.

"Vulcan" Magnolia Tree

Back in Portland and nearly home at 6:30 PM, I searched the street for the little tree, did a U-turn and parked.  My nervous wave and a pointing to my camera and the tree brought the homeowners out for a chat.

Planted only two days ago, this babe will throw a
 flashy party for our neighborhood every spring.  Hooray!

They OK'd the Things I get to do today of standing in their flower bed for close-up admiration, appreciation and inspection of such flamboyant flesh and bones.

Anticipation

Glistening Delphinium ready to pop

They are ready to burst open!  And I'm watching.  It's like a slow-motion fireworks display with the intensity of color and vibrance and life building and building until it explodes in glory.  Oh, my!

Single Peony gifted from a friend

Loving this time of year is on my Things I get to do today--everyday--spending time in the yard and garden in a state of open gratitude, appreciation and observation while drinking in the glorious being of each plant's structure and flowers.  The variety is beyond comprehension, and the display is breath-taking.

Honeysuckle--a ruby challis

Find your own place to sit with something that grows outside under the Divine canopy and allow its elegance and magnificence to soothe and feed your soul.

Clary Sage.  I've never seen its flowers before.  So eager am I!

Blessings for your day.

Angel Boas

The tree was supposed to be eight feet tall at the most. It's a Baby Curly Black Locust.  It had other plans.  Over the years the slender trunk reached up and up--15 feet, 20 feet, 25 feet, 30 feet.  It takes virtually no space on the ground, and yet its dappled canopy of leaves create blessed shade about 2:30 every afternoon that it is needed.





And in the Spring, oh the spenders of it all, in the Spring it piles mounds of fragrant, pea-type blossoms along its slender arms.

If Angels dressed up, they would wear these around their shoulders.

When I was finished with all the Things I get to do today, I looked up and understood.  The tree is reaching to the Angels--eight feet won't do for a moment--extending it luscious flower boas to drape the Angels.

For Evelyn

Rhodies--magnificent, exquisite, luscious

My mother-in-law, Evelyn,  loved flowers.  Mother's Day was her favorite time of spring--a son was born May 10th which often falls on that special day--partly because the rhododendrons are in full bloom.  We always hope that a few will still be fresh on Memorial Day.  We know she gets a special zing from having several lush blooms on her grave.

Tuesday's Things I get to do today usually includes a letter with pictures to my elderly Aunt Freda. She'll love these flowers from Portland.  While I'm at it, let's just toss this picture out to the whole world--for Evelyn as well.  All souls love beauty--and this one is a beauty, indeed.

Fine Threads

Details on Dame Apple

Dressmaking still interests me.  I could spend hours as part of the Things I get to do today looking at fine fabrics, detail work in pockets and plackets, and perusing new patterns for garments.

It's a modest show this year after all the pruning and shaping

So since Dame Apple did her thing a week ago with the blossom, buttons and bows,  I've been all over it.

A luscious branch next to the path

It seems that the finest people-garment is nothing compared to the perfection of this ancient tree, her ability to grow leaves and to make the most delicate and robust blossoms all at the same time.

No queen's wardrobe could be better

Now that her dress has come to maturity, fully flowered for this season, those of us who've watched the process and the end result are wildly blessed.  Thank you, Your Highness.

Francies for Her Dress

Button blossoms

Dame Apple is putting on the bling. She is now spring-young enough to make her dress be covered with shades of pink and white:  pretty buttons and bows tied carefully to the tips of each branch and branchlet. Deep at heart, she must be a 7-year-old designing her finest Easter dress.

La Belle Dame 

Somewhere on the list of Things I get to do today I wish I could for a moment be Dame Apple, exploding with excessive good taste into a show-stopping garment, elegant beyond human words.

Blissed on My Butt

It's been awhile since I've sung any hymns.  Yesterday this old one sprang out of nowhere, drawn by the glorious bright orb in the clearest of blue overhead.  "Heavenly sunshine, heavenly sunshine, filling my soul with Glory Divine."  That's as far as my memory would take me, and that was enough. It was straight from heaven, no matter what your religious views, and it filled my soul, my heart and my body.  It was bliss.  You can tell we have been seriously missing the sun in Portland.

Gloriously healthy peony in its protective support

I was sitting on the earth making the beds of collected flowers, shrubs and various plants look prettier.  Some of you would call it weeding, but the emphasis and the spirit of my task is entirely different from the drudgery that is associated with that term.  I was taking my time and taking my time all at once.  It was bliss.  It doesn't get any better than this in the Things I get to do today--play in the earth, rearrange for my pleasure the beauty of these that grow, and bless each with my heart and love as they are seen and touched.

OMG (in the very best sense)

Shock and awe!  What to my wondering eyes did appear?  I discovered that the lovely twig cages used to protect perennial shoots from spring-loaded chicken feet were still very much alive.  They are sprouting leaves.  Next puzzle for Handy Andy:  plan for keeping the twig cages but not have them grow into vigorous variegated Dog Wood bushes around my favorite flowers!

Dame Apple's Spring Dress

Nature's schedule is her own.  You can't rush it.  Digging up seeds you planted yesterday to see how they are doing does not encourage them to sprout and grow faster just because you are impatient. So I've done my best for many days now, as part of the Things I get to do today, to allow The Grand Dame Apple Tree of our ditch-becoming-Fanno Creek plenty of time to swell her buds, squeeze out the tips of new leaves, and to pretty her new dress with blossoms.  Silly me.  My doings have nothing to do with Dame Apple's dress.

Looks like 3 or 4 blossoms are tucked away in this clutch of new leaves
Little pretties for another day.

Today, however, she caught me eye.  A slight fatness at the end of each of the branches seemed more green than usual.  I brazenly walked right up to her and took a good squint.  Sure enough, the basic structure of her dress is nearly ready.  The fancies will come along in their own good time.

A Dribble of White

We define objects by contrast.  We know hot from cold, light from dark, smooth from rough.  If everything were smooth, tan, and monotone, there would be little meaning.

Dribbled with white

My mother-in-law loved contrast:  black and white was her favorite color combination for clothing.  Brilliant flowers in the garden made her coo with pleasure. Planning which blooms accented best the ones snuggled next was a delight for her spring.  One principle she followed in plotting out the plantings was to mix in "a dribble of white."  The contrast made all the flowers look smarter.

Moms love pink

All philosophical wanderings aside, remembering the importance of contrast at this time of year while one moment I'm bundled up for winter and then next working in shirt sleeves helps define the Things I get to do today.








So Mom Nature's been talking to my mother-in-law and this morning decided to accent the first flowers of spring by dusting them all with "a dribble of white." The delicate crystals kissed all the garden, but only the flowers remembered it long enough to sit for their portraits. Sweetly stunning, indeed. Both these moms know what they're doing.