On a mushroom in a glade...

By: Juan Olivarez
On a mushroom in a glade,
Sat a pixie, in deepest shade.
Pondering the setting sun,
And the twilight, just begun.

Set the pear tree free!

  This is a picture of the wonderful pear tree we inherited with our house 8 years ago.  Heavily pruned, with branches curving to the ground, we decided to let the tree grow as it wished.  Today, we have people stop by to tell us they have never seen a pear tree as tall as ours.  I'm not sure if they are admiring it or criticizing us.

 Masanobu Fukuoka (福岡 正信), 2 February 1913 – 16 August 2008) was a Japanese farmer and philosopher celebrated for his Natural Farming method.  This was part of his implementation of the Tao-philosophy of Wú wéi translated in part as no-action (against nature), and he described it as no unnecessary pruning, nature farming or "do-nothing" farming, of fruit trees, distinct from non-intervention or literal no pruning. He ultimately achieved yields that were comparable to or exceeded standard/intensive practices of using pruning and chemical fertilisation.

Pink: the colour of universal love.

Put some pink in your life when you want:

• calm feelings
• to neutralize disorder
• relaxation
• acceptance, contentment

Every seed is a promise!

Every seed is a promise and these shining seeds are promising me 10-foot tall "Giant Russian" sunflowers.

Of course the sun will have to shine enough, and the squirrels will be trying to steal them, and the cutworms can't wait to chew through their stems, and the wind tries to topple them at every chance...


But if they survive all that, then I will have some magnificent 10-foot tall sunflowers!

Let the sun shine in!

From across the yard I spotted this beacon of light and ran to get my camera.


It was only when I looked at the picture on my computer screen that I noticed it was mud-spattered and slightly torn.

Too perfect?

It didn't change my opinion of how beautiful it was, but I reconsidered putting it on my blog.


Because, we prefer pictures of perfection, don't we?


Look more closely at my flawed daffodil.  It has a more authentic glow to it, don't you think?


In real life, we are all a combination of beauty and flaws.  We may get mud-spattered and torn, but this doesn't diminish our ability to be a beacon of light to ourselves and others!

We come to love

not by finding a perfect person,

but by learning to see

an imperfect person

perfectly.

Sam Keen

Re-united and it feels so good!

Ah, the drama that goes on in my backyard.
     Family reunion...  will the kids know who their parents are, and more importantly, will a parent accidentally eat a child?      Wait, what?

Yes, it's all about the goldfish moving from their horrifically cramped, plastic tub, into their glorious, circular pond.  Aside from the drama of being caught in a net (nobody likes that), and making sure the temperature change from indoors to outdoors isn't too drastic, it's all about "being set free."


We all love being set free, right?


This spring we added some family drama into the mix.  Last summer we were surprised to find we'd unknowingly transferred a water-plant full of fish eggs from the goldfish pond to my non-fish, supposed-to-be dragonfly pond. 


So, what I thought were dragonfly nymphs, or tadpoles, turned out to be 34 baby goldfish!  (Yay, but not really.)


The babies had to be kept in a separate tub, indoors all winter, until they could be re-united with their parent(s) this spring, outside in the old/new pond.

Thank goodness, no one ate anyone they shouldn't have and now we have one huge, happy family!


Memo to self: do not transfer ANY plants from the goldfish pond to the non-goldfish pond.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garlic grow?

The garlic

is giving new meaning to the word "contrary."
 Compared to the rest of the garden,

it is growing magnificently,

(thank you).

One week ago

And today:

"Ta Da," I say, in a bragging way.

Goes to show you, while some of us turn and run in the face of abnormally cold temperatures and ice pellet storms, the garlic just continues on and gets the job done.

Sometimes contrary is not a bad thing.

Go Team Garlic!

My Garden of Yuck!

Photo proof of a garden only a mother could love. 

 Yes, this is my beautiful perennial garden.  Not so beautiful right now, but it is on its way, in progress, ready to burst...

Like a butterfly before it emerges from its cocoon,


or a dragonfly waiting to rise up from its underwater infancy,


I know my garden shall grow itself out of this "yuck" stage


and become a flamboyant, fantastical, parade of colour.




All I have to do is have faith and patience (combined with a bit of weeding) and Mother Nature will do the rest!


 (Picture proof, or photoshop, will follow.)

The Voice Of An Angel

The Voice of an Angel

By: Rosemary Danielis

Soft as the voice of an angel,

Fresh as the morning dew.

I'm filled with a sense of yearning,

I long for something new.

I shake off this cloak of darkness,

Free from winter's embrace,

And stand in spring's sweet promise,

A warm and blissful place.

A different kind of Orange

Waiting, waiting, impatiently!

When will we, be set free?

Our Goldfish spent the winter in a rather unglamorous, large, plastic container in the unheated sunroom of our house.  Now that the ice over their heads has melted, they are eager to make the move to their summer pond.