Hello, spring!

Hello! It has been quite a long while since I last posted (six months!). Sometimes I am too busy with family obligations to write, and sometimes being on the internet depletes my spirit, but even in the best of times my natural tendency is to retreat to my garden, my books and little projects, and to keep my own quiet company. In 2018, I wrote only eleven posts--not a lot, but something. I have thought about closing my blog, and I have thought about posting more often. All I can say is, time will tell which way the wind blows.

 

Spring in New England is three parts silvery rain and one part cornflower skies and sunshine. I always forget this ratio in the middle of winter when I am dreaming about sunny days in the garden: pansy days,  strawberry days, lily and rose days. 🌼🍓  When the snow is swirling and the wind is biting, the imagination can only be decorated with blue skies and flowers. The guinea pigs, Honey and Blossom, imagine their cage is a parsley patch and dream of blueberries.

Today is cold and mizzling and of the kind that makes my joints and head ache. I had to go out anyway, because I made plans to do my Easter shopping (sunny days, at this time of year, are best saved for walks in the woods and gardening). I bought some lovely chocolates beautifully wrapped in foil and a few little gifts to put in my kids' Easter baskets--kids who are grown-ups now; the oldest is twenty-six, and the baby is almost thirteen!

My entire stack of books, at the moment, revolves around a single theme: gardening. I love every one of these titles and am reading them all concurrently--a little in this one and a little in that one each day. The Solitary Summer is Elizabeth von Arnim's second book. It was sent to me by a dear friend and I love it every bit as much as Elizabeth's first book, Elizabeth and Her German Garden. Both books are written in the style of journal entries and are considered to be autobiographical novels. The books are full of Elizabeth's gorgeous descriptions of her garden, as well as insightful, witty, social commentary that is still relevant today. (She is also the author of The Enchanted April.). I absolutely adore Elizabeth. But I am obsessed with Beatrix Potter.

And that is a topic for a future blog post. :)

In March I started crocheting this "neat ripples" afghan. I worked on it madly for a couple of weeks, but then the gardening books stole my attention, and also the Spanish television series "Grand Hotel", which (for me) requires reading subtitles, and the blanket has halted at half-done like so many of my other yarn-y projects.
 

This guy showed up at my feeder this morning wearing half winter and half spring plumage--much like my own wardrobe just now. I'm sure I look just as funny as he!

The kittens are almost a year and a half old now and still very playful and kittenish. This one is Rhys. He has the more serious and dominant personality. His eyes are brown, and he likes to curl up in a lap of an evening. Both cats have more than one nickname. We call Rhys "Squish" because he's squishably soft and goes limp when you hold him.

This is Wyatt, aka "Stripes", and "Wild Herb" (a play on the name Wyatt Earp). Wyatt is very sweet and affectionate. He is great friends with our boxer Presley and will curl up with him in the sunshine in front of the sliding glass door in the morning. His eyes are green. Both cats have four white socks.

We went for a few walks in the winter woods last month.  

As we walked through the Pine Forest, we were thrilled to hear the hoo-hoo-hoo-hooaawww of a barred owl calling from the top of a tall pine. I'm not sure if it was one of the babies from last spring, or one of the parents, but we were so pleased to get another glimpse of this magnificent bird.

 

One day in March, we went to the beach up in Gloucester.  Everything was winter gray: sand, sky, and water.

The tide was as far out as I've ever seen it--we walked and walked.

With the sandbar exposed, we got close to the lighthouse!

Back at home, we saw some gorgeous sunsets over the last few weeks, of an intensity I usually associate with October.

These two rascals make it very hard to keep the bird feeders filled. But they sure are cute, aren't they?

I loved this book so much that I renamed my blog in honor of it. ♥  

Six months have passed, but as you can see, things are mostly unchanged in my little world. Every day is different yet the same, and now it is springtime once again. :)

Recently, someone asked me if I am having a good Lent. Well, if  I'm honest, I've never cared much for Lent. Late winter/early spring is a difficult season for me, physically and mentally, and forty days of forced suffering is truly beyond me. Besides, I have never found that giving up the things I enjoy has increased my Faith, Love, or Thanksgiving; it has, however, added to my misery (and I am convinced that the kindest thing we can offer our loved ones on a daily basis is our cheerful presence). So, I am continuing to learn to trust God completely, and to give Him thanks always and everywhere for everything, and to be of good cheer. 

Wishing you all the delights of spring!

Love and roses,
Sue

Suddenly it is summer in New England, and I have 'gone to the woods' to listen to the singing there: the birds, the wind, the pond, the frogs and bees. The amazing effect of these beautiful sounds is sweet stillness.

common cinquefoil

Bullfrog, photo by my son Seth

Then the LORD said: Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD; the LORD will pass by. There was a strong and violent wind rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the LORD—but the LORD was not in the wind; after the wind, an earthquake—but the LORD was not in the earthquake; after the earthquake, fire--but the LORD was not in the fire; after the fire, a light silent sound. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle ~1 Kings 19:11-13a

In the woods there is golden sunlight and dark shadow. There are mothers and fathers leading and protecting. There are children following and learning.

"To romanticize the world is to make us aware of the magic, mystery and wonder of the world; it is to educate the senses to see the ordinary as extraordinary, the familiar as strange, the mundane as sacred, the finite as infinite ". ~Novalis

Luke holding a spider, photo by Seth

 

Mallard couple - photo by Seth

If I were a woodland creature, I could imagine myself as a chipmunk. I rather resemble one, I think, with my round face and nut brown coloring, Like them, I can be shy and friendly at turns. Plus, I am attracted to their cozy, underground homes. What woodland creature would you be? Emmeline said that she would be a unicorn. 

Once, while walking in the woods, I glimpsed a magical, white creature prancing merrily through the trees. The creature's delicate grace arrested me, and I gazed at it in wonder, fully expecting to see a single horn upon its head when it turned to face me. What on earth was it, you ask? A lovely white poodle!

For a glorious week, the air was perfumed by the heavenly fragrance of black locust blossoms. These trees are native to the southeast but have become invasive here in the north and are on Massachusetts' prohibited plants list.

 

On one evening, we discovered that a barred owl had made its nest in the hollow of a big oak tree right next to the trail. Inside the hollow were two large, fuzzy owlets.

Perched in a nearby tree across the trail, we found the mother owl watching us with her great dark eyes. Barred owls are large birds, about eighteen inches tall. According to Peterson's Guide, they are one of only two species of owls in eastern North America that do not have yellow eyes. The other species are barn owls. From The Owls Trust: "Owls with yellow eyes hunt mainly during the day, owls with dark eyes hunt during the night, owls with orange eyes hunt at dusk or dawn."

As I gazed up at Mother Owl, and she gazed back at me, the rest of the world ceased to exist; there was just She and Me and the Mystery between us.

The experience reminded me of a painting by Meinrad Craighead that my friend Kortney Garrison posted on her blog back in 2011 (how has so much time passed, Kort??)

Holy Wisdom by Meinrad Craighead:

"those owls, her familiars.  she holds the labyrinth’s string, the red cord. our connection" ~Kortney's beautiful words, to which I would add, "and the ever-changing constancy of the moon."

The next evening, my sons went back to the tree, after fishing in the pond, and saw the mother owl fly into the nest. 

Mother Owl, photo by Seth

Two days later, the owlets had fledged.  We were fortunate to see one of them perched high in a tree across the trail from the big oak. Mother Owl was in another tree on the hill about 200 feet away. We have not seen them since. But, they are so silent and so well camouflaged that I wonder how often they are there in the evening shadows, watching, without us knowing.

Moon Over Horn Pond, photo by Seth

Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched. ~ Henry David Thoreau

It is just so, isn't it?

Love and roses,
Sue

Back in 2013 I wrote a post about an article I read depicting the traditional lifestyle of Transylavanian hay farmers.  In the article the photographer interviewed a young woman, and what she said has stayed with me all this time. The young woman's name was Maria:

One woman she (Ms. Effendi) photographed, Maria, 23, was pregnant and working in the field when they met. She spoke more English than most villagers and told Ms. Effendi that she and her husband had spent a year in France, where he worked in construction. But she missed their home in the fields, and they returned.

In Maramures, Maria told Ms. Effendi, she has room for activity of the mind. People in France were preoccupied with the daily distractions of urban life, and they didn’t have any room left for “beautiful thoughts.” (A Fairy Tale in Transylvania: NYTimes Lens)

When I consider all of the troubles of our times, the senseless violence, moral confusion, disparity, oppression, inequality, antagonism, hopelessness, etc. I wonder what would happen if we allowed our minds to only dwell on beautiful thoughts.

♥

Spring came in breathtaking splendor at the beginning of May and lasted just two weeks. The pear trees that line our lane looked like brides in white lace. 

 "The soul that does not attach itself solely to the will of God will find neither satisfaction nor sanctification in any other means, however excellent by which it may attempt to gain them. If that which God Himself chooses for you does not content you, from whom do you expect to obtain what you desire?... It is only just, therefore, that the soul that is dissatisfied with the divine action for each present moment should be punished by being unable to find happiness in anything else."
— Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade, p. 14 Abandonment to Divine Providence

This week is the first one of the entire year that there are no doctors' appointments on the calendar. YAY!!!  The last few months have been so busy, I don't feel like I have had time to come up for air.
So far, the year has not turned out the way I expected it to, but a very long time ago, I learned to surrender my expectations and turn my heart to the needs of the moment and the well-being of those I love. However, I cannot say with any degree of honesty that I am always content/satisfied with the way things are. But, if I could think beautiful thoughts in the midst of every moment, regardless of what happens within that moment, I can see the result would be, if not "happiness" the way most people define it, then at least peace. 

But, it is by far easier to "count our blessings" than it is to acknowledge that all is blessing. Especially when quite a lot of life involves suffering that is beyond our ability to control.

Our little chicken flock is only two now: Trixie and Henrietta. They are seven years old and still giving us eggs. I love keeping chickens, but I wouldn't do it again unless I lived in the countryside. Rodents have been an annoyingly relentless problem for us for the last year and a half. We have cats, but don't dare let them outside in this busy neighborhood after our dear Mischief was killed by a car a few years ago, when he was just three years old.

One of my favoritest things about springtime is the annual warbler migration. I love bird watching, but the window of opportunity for good viewing is a short one in New England, and I pretty much missed it this year due to family obligations. Still, there are plenty of backyard birds to watch: orioles, house finches, cardinals, hummingbirds, and blue jays. Sometimes, Love sends a golden bird to sing right outside your window.

And the kittens. 🐱 🐱 So much cuteness! Even the word kitten is nice. Rhys and Wyatt are six and a half months old now. Wyatt loves making death defying leaps onto the tops of book cases and playing in the kitchen sink:

We went to Boston on May 5th for the Pugs Take Boston event at Boston Common  It was a gloriously, lovely day with every tree in full blossom.

Elvis had a marvelous time. That's him wearing the red leash, and next to him in the neon yellow harness is a quite famous pug called Mochi . He has his own instagram account, comic strip, and even books. 

We had a lot of fun meeting other pugs and their owners. Afterward, we enjoyed looking at the beautiful architecture of the City.

I loved this house on Beacon Street. There were bluebells growing in front of the basement windows:

And now, only two weeks later, summer has arrived to our backyard. The trees are lushly green and fully leafed out.

We celebrated my baby's twelfth birthday last Thursday! When he was born, he was two pounds heavier than any of my other babies, and my older kids nicknamed him the "Big Show". Now, at twelve, he is nearly six feet tall--the tallest in our family!

Wishing everyone a Beauty-filled week. ♥

Love and roses,
Sue