in the garden

I would have told you that summer was, hands down, my favorite season. 

 

And summer has a lot to brag about with its beach days, flip flops, ice cream cones, forgetting what the inside of your house looks like, sun-kissed skin , warm air on bare arms and endless days without anywhere I have to be.

 

Spring is the bouncy wood sprite prepping for the endless party of summer.

 

But the past few springs I have experienced with a joy akin to making your last mortgage payment, learning how to ride a bike for the first time or the feeling I had when I drove down the road alone in my own car after I got my driver's license.  I'm talking unadulterated joy.

 

As if the wondrous experience of our barren, introverted landscape exploding outward in lush, endless shades of green wasn't enough to make me happy, working in the yard and in my gardens is one of my favorite things to do.   Also, Sandi finished her senior project (!!) and last weekend we were able to work side by side in the yard.  Close the night with a glass of wine and that is about as good a date as we need.

 

We decided not to put in a vegetable garden this year because we need a massive infusion of high quality soil (rather than trying to grown veggies on the sand and clay again) and to have that be a project for next year.  Sandi came up with this temporary fix idea to cover/use the plot that was our garden rather than have it be a weedy eye-sore in the middle of the back yard.  Just a few more landscape timbers, a tarp, some mulch and the leftover slate from our patio project.  Now we have a super sunny spot for all our container tomato plants.

 

 

And if that weren't enough, this spring I can multiply the joy by 10 because I have my own little wood sprite helping to lay the carpet for summer's arrival.  Maya is really, REALLY into gardening.  I took her to the nursery as a reward for her hours of help in the yard and she was giddy.

 

 

 For Mother's Day, at preschool she made us each a pot and gave us a packet of seeds.  We each planted them with her and she has been caring for them diligently on the kitchen window sill.  They have made their debut outside and we will plant them in her own little garden.

Part of my glee in seeing spring this year might be that I had an especially dark winter and it feels like everything inside and outside of me is blossoming.   I feel like the tiny sunflower sprout that we discovered a week after Maya helped me plant them.  She waited so patiently over the past month for it to be time to plant and when we finally did she kept saying, "This is the best day ever!  This is the thing I've been wanting to do most!"

 

How can you not adore this level of enthusiasm?

Can you see how the shell is still attached?  It is as though the sprout just burst through the outer covering to find its way up toward the sparkling sun.

 

Yesterday morning Maya and I were out before 6 admiring the garden and checking for new blossoms.   She is so excited to get her shoes and a fleece on and get out there.

She discovered this one on its way toward opening.

 This is currently Maya's favorite flower in the yard, the single blossom on our rosa regosa bush.

 

Our neighbors came over to get the girls to show them this nest of baby birds in their hedge.   You can sort of see the face of the one on the far left but they were all tucked in together.

 

 

 There is nothing like sunrise in a garden.

 

 Spring is the icon of possibility. It is a time of awakenings, unfolding, rebirth and such rapid growth that you could sit and watch it if you had the time. I am nearly tireless this spring, waking at 4, even without an alarm, to the cheerful orchestra of birds outside my window. It is a good thing that the sun eventually goes down this time of year because if not I might never sleep.   Some nights I work in the garden until the mosquitos drive me inside.

 

In so many ways, the blossom that is about to be is just as exquisite, if not more so for all the promise it holds, than the blossom that already is.  

 

 

 

 

Welcome spring. I raise an iced coffee and, to finally make good use of the mint in my garden, a mojito, to you. 

 

 

I stepped outside yesterday and discovered a new scent on the breeze.  I smell it each year and don't know how much I love it until it returns. I'm not certain what flower makes this fragrance but I think it is a wild bush with white flowers that grows along the edge of the woods.  As I experience this spring with a more open, unguarded heart I am often breathless at the arresting beauty and magic all around me. 

 

 So to wonder and amazement and living wide open, I raise a mojito to you as well.