Most people think of spring as a time of renewal.  Gardeners in spring are beside themselves.  Last year I began a tiny garden by my back deck so this spring holds heightened anticipation wondering if everything (anything?) took.  The shrubs planted in the fall did not, only the oak leaf hydrangea showed any sign of a shoot.  Harumi’s lady’s mantle did not.  Jeanette’s chameleon, Florence’s hosta, Trudi’s black-eyed suzies and gay feather all made it.  It’s a deep shade little patch of land but it’s mine and I got immediately to work again.  Pull out the shrubs, turn the soil, and remove even more of the endless supply of rocks.  Start thinking about containers; start thinking about annuals to see if we can get some color.  My gardening muscles were sore again, how reassuring to know they weren’t lost.

Would this be enough to sustain my garden addiction?  Even more pressing, would I be able to go another season looking at those pathetic rhododendrons outside my front door.  You already know the answer, the rhodies are history.  I couldn’t take it another minute.  They are not my favorite shrub to begin with and the fact that they were starting to brown didn’t help. 

More rock removal, more soil turning, more digging, more planning, more scraping together a few bucks and off I go to Willow Run.  I know, I know.  I head directly for the clearance corner (I call it the orphanage) and hit pay dirt.  A rose of Sharon, two hydrangeas, and a few tiny azaleas are on their way to Stowe Lane.  A few more big bang for the buck plants, sweet woodruff, mountain pinks and some sage. 

The wholesale perennial grower is opening on Saturday so I need to save a few dollars for that run.  Saturday turns out to be a crappy day, drizzly and raw, perfect for getting new plants in the ground.  I come home with coreopsis, both tickseed and thread leaf, Stella d’oro lilies a real workhorse and hugely satisfying.  I have a cup of tea under the tarp with the owners and off I go to get my plants in.

I stand back and survey my handiwork and I can see what the future of this garden will be but for right now it is sparse.  I’m grateful to have it, I’m grateful my shoulders are sore and I know exactly where I can go for help.

I talk often about the kindness and generosity of gardeners and it is confirmed to me over and over again.  I sent an email out to a few people I work with who I also know are gardeners.  Subject:  Can you help a gardener out? I explained my deep shade dilemma, my newly formed front garden and the fact that I’m out of cash.  I know they understand.

This Sunday I have the promise of one of my gardener angels bringing grasses and hosta for my poor back garden.  I will have iris and day lilies for my new front garden. He will have a batch of pignoli nut cookies.

 The UPS man will be bringing additional shade perennials from another kind gardener the following week.  As I read their email list of offerings I am overcome with emotion.  It was very difficult leaving my old garden but now I’ve come to believe that wherever I go there will be a garden legacy so long as I can reach out to another gardener.  

Spring Post Script

I’ve just posted about Spring and the promise of things to come in my garden.  Here’s what really happened:

Sunday did indeed come but the promise of hosta and day lilies was grossly under-exaggerated.  When my friend, Kevin, showed up with plants it was an entire Yukon (he normally drives a MINI Cooper) full of plants. It was a jaw dropping moment complete with welling up and a complete loss for words (no snappy remarks).  There were hosta and more hosta and more hosta, and day lilies and more day lilies, grasses and ferns, columbine and Shasta daisy, iris and sedum, and wild geraniums.  There must have been fifty clumps of beautiful perennials all waiting for planting.  Of course they all went in that rainy, cold day.  Don’t know that I’ve ever been wetter, dirtier, or happier.  My gratitude is unending.

Two weeks later the UPS man showed up.  When I got home from work there were two huge boxes on my front porch filled with hosta, day lilies, nettles, wild ginger, lambs ear, more hosta, more day lilies, and some clumps I couldn’t name and can’t wait to see bloom.  Next day another huge box with more precious clumps of perennials showed up.  Before getting to work that Friday everything was in the ground…cue the rain.  Really it started to rain the minute I was finished.  Love my universe. 

I came to learn that my friend Lance, who sent all the UPS boxes, had dug up his garden to provide clumps of wonderful perennials for me all the while his family was going through a hard time.  Now every gardener knows the therapeutic value of digging deep in your garden and sharing with someone else but this act of kindness was beyond words.  Lance’s daughter Brynn had eye surgery just recently and it was not yet bringing the anticipated result.  The discouraging part was that she is legally blind in her other eye, this was the better eye.  I hope and pray that God gives this family what it needs knowing full well that it may not be what they want.  I believe that kindness of this caliber deserves the universe’ full attention.   I hope that you will continue, as I will, to keep this family in your prayers.  I count on God’s kind universe every day and know that we can help too.

I’m grateful for my tiny garden miracle, the kindness of gardeners and the anticipated miraculous turn out for the Mitchell family. Amen.

First reaction, what the hell did I do?

Second reaction, find the flash light. Got it.

Third reaction, check the circuit breaker.  All fine.

Emergency reaction:

Put your shoes on and the dog leashes by the door in case you have to scram.

Text someone to see if they have power.

Light candles.

Watch the firemen roam around outside your door.

Wave the towel under the smoke alarm (from the candles), hope the firemen don’t hear it.

Listen to the people upstairs on their deck trying to find out what’s up.

Read by candle light and wonder how people in the early days weren’t all blind with headaches.

Wave the towel under the smoke alarm again

Put out a couple of candles, do we really need the one on the dining room table?

Take the dogs for a walk

Go to bed. 

Wake up when the lights go back on.

Turn all the lights off, ironic don’t you think?

Go to bed.

Someone sent me an email the other day with one of those 20 question memory tests.  Put your score in the subject line and pass it on.  Get your pencil and paper ready and don’t cheat by scrolling to the bottom for the answers. Ready, begin.

I got 19 out of 20.  As I finished I realized that the only reason I did that well was because it was a multiple choice. This test was based more on recognition of the correct answer than recalling a fact.  Of course that didn’t stop me from trying to figure out the answer before seeing the choices. What we do to ourselves…

So that’s how it works…you can actually stop feeling like you’re about to lose your mind simply because your file cabinet of a brain is stuffed with everything you’ve ever seen, heard and learned.  I mean, in your entire life.

I worry about my brain more these days then I did, say, ten years ago.  I find myself forgetting things much more often.  I keep telling myself not to worry about Alzheimer’s until I can’t figure out what to do with the keys instead of just where they are.  I’m also starting to recognize (there’s that word again) that most of what I misplace is due not to aging but to not paying attention.  I’m simply trying to do too much at one time and something gets left behind (literally).

I notice there are fewer people my age at work these days.  They seem to be around the late thirty to early forty ages with an uncanny ability to recall all things they’ve ever seen, heard, and learned.  They are also incredibly tech savvy (which I am not) so going forward I wonder if they will have brains filled with as much as people my age.  Will they be rewired to avoid storing anything? Will they know full well that they can summon up any bit of information they need within seconds for immediate use?

Or will they find themselves doing the same double game test of trying to recall the answer before the choices appear? 

Isn’t it true that within 48 hours of the perfect hair day you can wake up looking like Bomba the Jungle Boy and there isn’t a thing you can do about it?

I had my hair styled two weeks ago by a “master stylist”, first chair, the mentor of “junior stylists” at a very lovely full service day spa.  You know the place, lush wallpaper, marble floors, mood lighting, music, aroma, and lovely people moving back and forth at your beck and call. Would you like coffee, tea, cappuccino, fresh baked mini muffin?

Why?  My hair got long, and wide, and red…and it seemed the very smart thing to do at the time. Go to the master so that he could create a style to match my features, my lifestyle, and my personality.  Wow every one with your new transforming makeover!

Seventy dollars, a sales pitch for new product and a smile and wink later I was thrilled.  My hair looked great…for exactly…two weeks.  So today I woke up looking like Bomba the Jungle Boy and I had a fit.  The text to my best friend went something like this: 

Ok 70$ later my hair sucks, can’t wait 6 weeks to fix it so ur in charge of my next f’n haircut. 

Thank God she does not take these challenges lightly.  Not three hours later she called (from Memphis where she was stuck in the airport trying to get home) to talk me off the ledge and let me know she’s got me covered.  I, of course, finished my ranting and raving with, “its like built in obsolescence of the hair”. 

Which got me thinking? …I know you’re shocked by that.

·         Built-in obsolescence: a product becoming obsolete and/or non-functional after a certain period, also planned obsolescence.

·        Planned obsolescence has potential benefits for a producer because the product fails and the consumer is under pressure to purchase again.

·       Purpose of planned obsolescence is to hide the real cost per use from the consumer, and charge a higher price than they would otherwise be willing to pay.

·       Planned obsolescence stimulates demand by encouraging purchasers to buy again sooner if they still want a functioning product.

·       There is, however, the potential backlash of consumers who learn that the manufacturer invested money to make the product obsolete faster; such consumers might turn to a producer (if any exists) that offers a more durable alternative.

God Bless Wikipedia…

I am that backlasher consumer.  My hair is thick and wavy, it stays where you put it with very little “product”.  I now color it myself saving 120.00 and it holds that color a relatively long time.  What I need is a barber! 

I love my best friend who has found a barber (former master stylist, savior of backlasher consumers) who will cut my hair for 17.00 plus tip.  She will supervise the style and make it perfectly clear to this man that I do not use a lot of “product”; I rarely use a dryer, and don’t like to shampoo the shit out of my hair every day.  She will set up the appointments for every six weeks and we will meet at her house for cappuccino and make it a girls (her mom included) outing.  I’ve been saved…this consumer will win.  Back to the Jungle Bomba…

I am lucky to live in a condo with a deck that backs up to a wooded area.  You can’t really call it a forest because it is only about a city block deep.  Seems funny describing the woods in terms of city blocks but you know what you know.   I’ve seen deer, turtles, squirrels, chip monks and a wonderful variety of birds. 

Just recently I had the privilege of watching a pair of Blue Jays begin their family.  I’ve always been a lover of birds. Growing up my father kept bird feeders right outside the kitchen window and my former home had bird feeders in the garden; but I have never witnessed anything like this.

This Blue Jay couple began building their nest on the edge of the woods but something made them change their mind about that location.  They moved their construction to a large flowering shrub right outside my bedroom window and adjacent to my deck.  They were building not five feet away.  This seemed very unusual as blue jays are notoriously territorial and can be aggressive, why would they put themselves so close to me and my two dogs? That said,  I immediately christened myself a “safe place”.    I believed I was many people’s “safe place”  but having moved on from a life I knew for thirty years I was questioning many of those things.  This seemed to tell me that in all the things that had changed being a “safe place” was not one of them.

I watched them build their engineering marvel.  Working in complete cooperation with an “unspoken” delegation of duties, Mom apparently the architect and Dad the builder.  They worked strands of twig and grasses around the outside of the perfect v shaped nitch.  They reinforced and sewed with string, bits of vines and newspaper.  It was perfectly built and amazingly secure.  I would later watch through storms and wind but there was nothing to fear, that nest wasn’t going anywhere.

Once completed Momma Jay began her vigil.   Blue Jays form monogamous lifelong bonds and during this period Dad would feed Momma while she brooded the eggs.  The incubation period generally lasts for 16-18 days but I didn’t know that at the time.  What I did know was that I couldn’t keep my eyes off the nest.  Every morning when I opened my bedroom blinds I would check for Momma and wish her Good Morning.  I would watch her through the storms and while having coffee on my deck.  While I was watching Momma, Dadda was watching me.  Instead of flying around the corner of my deck he would fly right through the deck making it perfectly clear that he knew I was there. He never once became aggressive with me but I watched him damn near peck a squirrel to pieces.  It did my heart good to see how he protected her and his future family and I was proud to have his blessing.

I remember the first little beak peeking out from under Momma.  I was the proud Aunt in absolute wonder.  Then another little beak and another until all five eggs had been successfully hatched.  Momma finally got to leave the nest to help her mate forage for food.  Luckily there is a neighbor with a bird feeder so that task wasn’t as daunting as it could have been.  They carried on the feeding process over the next two weeks or so; each taking their turn foraging and feeding the kids.   

They began their lessons in earnest with leaving the nest for longer periods of time.  Momma would wait in a nearby tree and listen for the peeping.  She would actually wait for them to stop peeping before she flew back into the nest so they could get used to being on their own more and more.

Then there were feathers and I knew my time with them was short.  I continued to check on them and became a bit panicked when they could barely fit in the nest.  When the storms came I was vigilant in watching to make sure they all stayed in the nest but it occurred to me even if something happened to one of them there would be nothing I could do. There is a natural balance to things in their world; there are distinct boundaries and designated destinies.   This was a valuable lesson for me, one that should have been learned long ago.  For all the good I’ve ever tried to do there was much unintentional harm that came along with it.  Letting people fall is sometimes that best thing you can do for them, letting them pick themselves up is even better.  Consequence in nature can be devastating and final but consequence in the human world has the unexpected advantage of being enriching.

Shortly before I left for my Cape vacation they were gone.  I don’t know if they all made it but I am hopeful that the feathers I saw at the base of the shrub were leftovers from six lives lived in a small space.  The nest is still there and I see it every morning when I open my bedroom blinds which makes me think of them every day. Much like many of the people who have left my life, I hope for their good fortune, I hope that their destiny is enriching and that their consequences are beneficial. 

They can’t know the lessons I’ve learned from them about cooperative relationships that share responsibility and showcase individual strengths, about building a strong home that can endure the outside elements, about protecting your own while giving them the distance they need to become strong and learn from their consequences, about confirming my energy as safe and about letting go. 

In the natural world life is deliberate and purposeful, there is sheer survival and only the fittest will make it.  In the human world we have the luxury of choices, learning from our mistakes to live another day and free will.  It’s my hope that I can draw from both those worlds; to live deliberately and purposefully while using my choices wisely.