Out with the old

Spring is all in a rush this year, tripping over itself on the way in (and out) the door. We went away for ten days and my dark purple crocus have been and gone. We are going away again, and I fear that next I tread the brick path to the backyard, pear petals will brush my cheeks as they blow off their branches. I can't bear to miss the pear tree. I wait for it all year.

Spring's arrival always comes just when I least expect it. I am all settled into dark, silent mornings, wool blankets, and the seat of my cushy desk chair. This year my routine is even more broken. I have told my gardening clients I will complete spring cleanups for them - trim, divide, edge, tidy - and then I will be closing up shop as a professional gardener. My stomach gives a little lurch as I type that. To close a business that has been so good to me? To say no over and over, when a sensible person might be hiring an employee and taking on more clients?

But it's not what I want anymore. I want to travel with Matt, and move to the country. Wherever home is, I want to be there - in my own garden, not someone else's. And damn me, I've never been able to abide by something I don't want anymore. Pigheaded or dreamy or whatever I am, I'm off in a new direction, for better or worse.

On a lighter note, signs of summer are early: the exhaust fans are running in the bakery downstairs, Simon the cat has taken up post in the second floor window of the house in the back alley, and the Dancing Man - in all his glistening balletic beauty - is hard at work holding down the sidewalks of South Side with his untiring moves.

Ziar breadseed poppy

It's the time of year when avalanches happen in my pantry. In shoveling out the debris, I find some summer forgottens... We grew a short little row of these Ziar breadseed poppies (Papaver somniferum, or opium poppy), which are available from Fedco. This past week on my birthday, Matt put a few spoonfuls of our harvest into a batch of heavenly lemon-poppy-seed cream scones.

 

Days are getting longer

How rabbits recline

Today is not the sort of day on which a bunny might be seen in this come-what-may, and-isn't-the-breeze-lovely? position. Mother Nature heard my yesterday's plea for more true gloomy winter weather, when one does not feel she is Missing Out on Everything because she is spending the day at her desk. Bunnies are in their hollers, or under their bushes, or at least definitely not in my salad patch considering the tautness of their bellies or the delicate peppery tasting notes of arugula, when paired with something more mild like a nice tender mache.

Well ahead of schedule...

First crocus. Where has my winter gone? I am not through with my indoor to-do list yet. Oh dear.

My tobacco is bigger than me!

I keep finding unposted pictures of happy memories, when the world was green and much less apocalyptic. Here I am with my Scherazi tobacco. I bought the seedling from a woman at the Ithaca farmer's market. She said it had an amazing scent in the garden, and made for a good smoke. I enjoy the fragrance of nicotiana when I am moth-gazing at night, and Matt enjoys a good smoke, so it sounded like just the ticket. I was disappointed when the lovely pale pink flowers came and smelled like nothing. But then on a warm afternoon when the sun was cooking up little thermals of air above the garden, I smelled something... Dark-dirt-animal. Wet-leather-smoke-and-manure, like a damp cigar. This must be the smell the farmer was talking about - one I associate with cured tobacco, and didn't know could come from a green plant. I can never call it up on command - crush the leaves, bruise the stem... nothing. It wafts up like an aura when it wants to, and I love it.

Frederick, master of ambush

This is Frederick. He lives on Brook Street. In the early morning, from his porch, he spies my dog Laika and I approaching from the east. He does not like this. But at the same time, there's the thrill of the hunt, which is, after all, thrilling.

Frederick does not sound the alarm. No - he has a plan, and it involves Silence and Stealth. He is slingshot-fast. So fast that the human eye cannot trace his path. Now, he is crouched behind his Shrubbery (which I suspect he has - with the help of his master's pruning shears - optimized into The Perfect Disguise).

Here is what Frederick would look like, if you took his Shrubbery away:

I have been duped by Frederick one too many times, and now, understanding his wily ways, I cross the street. This disappoints him, accustomed as he is to winning his nasty little game. He was so looking forward to transforming into the dog version of one of those terrifying samurai throwing stars, scaring the very soul out of my dog and I, and then slamming into the chain link fence at waist level. At that point we would realize the assault was really all in jest, because Frederick would stand, dust himself off, and trot back to the porch for a snack from his kibble dish, and a wait for the next unwitting opponents.

[Frederick (that fiend!) and I are pleased to take part in Illustration Friday's "Suspense" theme this week.]