Pleasure it is to hear iwis, the Birdes sing, The deer in the dale, the sheep in the vale, the corn springing.
William Cornish d. 1523. adapted by Benjamin Britten for The Spring Carol, this version sung by the Oxford Youth Choir.
When I was a little girl, Mr. Allen, the old man across the street, offered to pay me one dollar for every dandelion I dug out of his beautiful lawn. Roots and all. A dollar was a lot of money, but dandelion roots go very deep. As I recall, I didn’t make much money.
Ah spring! When the world comes to life in all its glory! The cherry tree takes our breath away, and the spring flowers…iris, poppy, russian sage make way for lilies, clematis…the delphinium that I left in a pot last fall, hoping for the best, and back it came!! Ecstasy!
Our previous home had many gardens. We now have two gardens along the sidewalk in front of our house and a little sanctuary that we create every year at the end of our driveway. A pop up artist’s tent becomes ‘The Clubhouse’, with screens, a hammock swing and a glass of ice tea, with Buddha, Wise Old Man and Wise Old Woman, Bill and I transported lovingly from our previous home. They watch over us.
I was out on the front this morning thinking about all the gifts of gardening. It teaches us to let go, to try something new, different; a plant, a rock, an ornament. Would a lupin ever survive in this spot? Is the cosmos re-seeding itself? Should I move the rusty rooster statue to a different spot? And then there’s the meditation of weeding. While our eyes and our hands are removing what doesn’t belong, our minds are free to drift to days gone by or future fantasies.
…the fountain a neighbor gave us because why, I don’t know, they were tired of it?? I could hardly believe our luck. I gave them my painting of the Salt and Pepper Bridge in exchange. They’re very happy. So are we!
…or the birdbath my sister Geddy gave us for a wedding present. She’s gone now, but her birdbath remains to remind me of how beautiful and funny and full of life she was! She would have sanded and repainted it by now. I will, Ged, I promise.
…or Ma’s swan that sat in her back yard, and now sits on our front wall.
But I’ll wrap up my ode to gardening today with my father, on this father’s day weekend.
These bunny rabbits were my dad’s. He adored them. I was lucky enough to be chosen to be the guardian of the bunny rabbits.
Dad was not a gardener, but you never knew what might grab his fancy. He was SO excited the day he lugged home the life-size, illuminated, Santa Claus and eight reindeer from the dump and set it up in the back yard. My mother, not so much. On Saturdays, he loved to put on his corduroy pants - and shirt -and mow the lawn, or walk behind the lawn-sweeper contraption, or pull the rip cord on the ‘whizzie izzie’, as he called the weed wacker. And of course, leaf burning in the fall was a high point for him, and us all! Yard work was dad’s escape into that ecstasy of gardening. It took him away from the worries of supporting a wife, six kids and a big house, on his fluctuating commissions as a salesman of electroplating equipment.
Happy Father’s Day, Dad. We all love you and think of you every time we smell burning leaves or hear a ‘whizzie izzie.’
I love spring. I love the blooming, the renewed hope of it all. I love the awe that I experience in the form of surprise that all happens again so brilliantly. I often find myself saying things like, “Oh I have never seen this hydrangea with so many blooms etc.” never ever before!!! Every year!