Sparkling Lotus Ink

picture perfect Saturday

It took two 32 ounce spray bottles full of diluted neem oil and part of a third but I appear to have prevailed over the odious squadrons of cucumber beetles that were devouring this impulse purchase Datura.  This plant and many others featured in these posts (such as the fuchsia at the top of this post) are in the mix via Select Seeds' annual plant sale in early May.  Thought the Datura would be lovely to grow right next to the only accessible remaining A. angelica.  You know - that contemplative sun and moon thing again plus other contemplations based on Datura's lateral growth structure that I'll save for another time. 

Am glad I have a large bottle of neem oil for many reasons but in this particular case that stuff's been quite essential.  Felt terrible that I had ushered a lovely and lively seedling into a life of hell.  Made some baffles as I was taught during that Hilltop Orchard summer and also instinctively placed a chunk of black tourmaline at the base of her stem.  Now thanks to so many consecutive rain storms washing everything away - she is coming into strength and a wealth of lateral branchlets.  The beetles appear to be in a lulling phase. I keep the spray bottle in my tool caddy during morning chore rounds all the same.

Mama's orange streaks are going blonde.  We assume because she's spending at least half of her days out in the field and that benefits from the blending-in power of a lighter coloration

Yesterday I finally set up my scavenged silvery shallow bird bath in the field garden.  It's diagonally opposite where I planned to put it but that's because I noticed the blue and golden warblers and carolina wrens are always in this quadrant of the enclosure when I come out for evening watering time.   This corner is at the edge of the tomato patch.  The plants are very tall and loaded with fruit.  The blush oblong shaped cherry tomatoes will be on the table by this time next week.

grace's Queen bowl is now a basket of seeds. 

now the garden feels like home. This Italian protest flag was everywhere the year we visited T during his h.s. junior year winter break in the run-up to g.w.'s declaration of war.  I was very sorry I'd never tracked one down to purchase while we were there but T. brought one as a gift when he returned that May.  Yesterday I ran steel wire through the rod pocket and twisted it firmly in place with the wire fence.  This stability allows the flag to billow and swoop with every little breeze.   It's a much better spot than it's former home on the back edges of the dog run attached to our garage.

fruit of the earth:  in addition to the volunteer delicata vines we also have a vigorous zucchini and a cucumber vine.  Beans coming up - quite late from how I learned but one of our CSA friends swears by going for a heavy yield from a later crop for the best keepers especially if you combine with other ingredients in canning and freezing.   Guess we'll see how that goes for us.    Got a variety pack and sorted them to plant in blocks so I can evaluate what we like best, etc.  They are bush beans so I could save the fence in that quadrant for morning glorious vines.   Whatever variety has pale mint green seeds has emerged without exception.  Quite strong and deep rich green color to the leaves.  Without the fence they wouldn't exist by now.  J did a beautiful job turning and amending the soil in this bean patch as well as the three smaller patches he prepared so I could at long last get all of the Tulsi in the ground.  Am done with that just as the herbal harvest picks up speed and volume.

now micro harvesting:  anise hyssop flower buds, calendula flowers, prunella flowers, various mints. 

Morning fresh-picked tea usually contains a borage flower, small sprig of dill, pinched-back tulsi flower head mostly in bloom.  Sometimes I add a prunella flowerhead if my kidneys feel undernourished and/or energetically murky.

unpleasant reality check:  last night there were a LOT of helicopters. 8 at least coming in two groups of three and later in the wee hours five more just in these seemingly endless line of noise and motion.  Loud with military silhouette and flying far lower than they needed to be.  Nothing like anything in the past.  Ever.

flowers and some unsolicited advice

the first of the crocosmia flower stems came into flower today.  This was the first thing my eyes caught through the mudroom window.

first red echinacea flower from the volunteer foxglove's co-creative partnership.  The latter is gracefully going to seed.  I hope to collect plenty to share!

I think of this variety as the Quinacridone version.  She will definitely be divided in the fall.

the Meadowsweet colony on Sunday afternoon.

The lower deck's container garden is coming along nicely.  I love tending to the strip of pots in the foreground because the deck is just the right height from the ground for standing/back comfort.  Picnic table was left behind by previous owners who said it was part of the original sale from first owner who built, enlarged, and landscaped the home.   Love this particular bit of casual history of the human place.  Continuity.  We all - of the clan who have been at home here - have sat at this table.  Dined, talked, thought and daydreamed.  This year J. had to re-work one of the end caps on the back bench.
First Monarda Fistulosa flower in the first fully mature self-seeded stand from one of the original plants I grew from seed.

my unglamorous and not yet dealt-with pool-skirt addition to the deck containers.  Mainly note many volunteer anise hyssop plants.  I grow them for their flowers which I collect less fairly than most other flower harvests.  I inter-plant tulsi pots which gives the bees another high-grade food source.  In the background is my potting table - our former picnic table from the old place.  In addition to work space the table houses two large asparagus ferns and an allamanda plant that winter in my studio.

These are thriving rescue self-seeded volunteers that I transplanted from a whiskey barrel in the field on a miserable rainy day in later April.  They've required a bit of extra nurturing and encouragement but are now fully ready to be moved to permanent homes in some pots on the skirt addition.

This is the barrel which I allowed to be consumed by red clover.  It gave me an extra harvest source and I appreciated that because clover is a flower where I am scrupulously fair about how much I take from the other species that thrive on her nectar.  The first flowering is largely kaput.  The biggest reason I allowed the clover to have its way is because of what that will give to the soil in the barrel.  Have set aside some conditioner and amendments.  Did not get the finnocchio seeds started in time so I'll sow the barrel with beets. 

Un-pictured:  a pair of swallowtails who swooped to nectar from my fledgling lantana.  To give this beautiful easy-care friend as much sun as she needs I shift the pot's location at noon and in the evening.  Most of the flowering plants I choose for the container garden can handle light shade for part of the day.   Not Ms. Lantana.  Was called to attain the plant and prepare a remedy for the new series that's emerging this summer.  Didn't know that at the time.  Just felt an insistence that had nothing to do with my personal wish-list.

This is a classic New World remedy in many commercial repertories.  Its unique gift is supporting a desire for release and change in those who cannot or will not cry.

I used to be Ms. Clint Eastwood and flat out refused to consider taking this remedy.  My rationale was pretty air tight, I thought at the time ... Well lookit, I never have sinus infections.  Ever.  and Chinese medicine says that's what happens when you don't cry as you should.  Ergo if I never got sinus infections there was nothing ultimately out of balance about the fact that I refused to cry.

not so any more.  children - and specifically Other children - in cages brought that wall down for good and all. 

but I know plenty of folks who are still not-crying while also talking about it 'way too much for the not-crying to be authentically organic and just how they're wired.  A few have written me to ask if I think it's something they should pay attention to and perhaps alter.  I usually reply with just two words:   I did.

really enjoying the fact that the first African Foxglove to bloom is the smallest decidedly runt-like of my basement seedlings.

This is the tree where the Mama catbird comes to sing a special greeting to me when I head for the field on my morning inspection tours.

Trees heavy and lush from a third night of rain fall in a row.  Three of the five overflow tomato plants have set multiple clusters of fruit.  The other two have fruit-cap forms.  If I ever knew the proper name for that phase of fruit development I don't remember.   The towering burdocks are there right in the middle of everything and thriving as they are, unchecked, because they are the King of this place as mugwort is the Queen.  After snapping this I walked over to the plants which I've been too preoccupied to track in close detail.  The flower stalks are a solid 7.5 maybe 8 feet tall.  There is a trio there.  They form a clearly defined boundary line/protective hedge.  Beneath and behind them a quantity of small leopard frogs live to jump another day.

won't this make an awesome Hungry Ghost palace?   Another left-behind item.  May have always lived in this yard.  For years now it has lived in the tiny pool cabana because J realized it was too heavy for him to manually lug into the woods where I envisioned placing it.   Now I'm glad to have a place to work on developing it and also working with it as a shrine.  This whole topic of racism, black/white relations, the emotional fever chart its evoked in me both philosophically and very personally have brought from deeper shadows any number of hungry ghosts.  Right now as you read the words I've chosen with care and love, sure, but far more than that - in order to be respectful to myself and to you in equal measure.  Right now as you read this I am showing you as gently and mindfully as I can who I am in my own white aspects.  I'm one of those unabashedly impatient foot-tapping oh come ON type of raised-to-be-white girls inside an aging half white lady's born-to-racial equality-activism-via-Pearl body.

What I'll begin reading sometime later today. 

would give quite a lot (and I do realize I've said this before) to have Howard here to explainify - if only through historical contextualization - these painfully awful and increasingly strange days.   Have had some kinda almighty struggle of late figuring out where (or even what) my personal sense of life processing via my ingrained sense of racial context is truly centered.  What is my racial consciousness actually about and how do I upgrade it from all the overwhelming options.   Things didn't really start turning around for me with that until yesterday.  In the aftermath of the initial shift in focus and...I guess you'd call it more directly and personally calibrated racial triage and its solution.

From my point of view - if you're a white person - screw any further consideration/explication of your fragility for the moment.  Just ... for right now ...  Look on that part of yourself as, I dunno.  Hillary's emails from a democratic/critical thinking point of view  Read/play/think/engage through your strength and get back to self-examination of what was previously un-tapped info/general life awareness after the fact of moving through your strength first.  You will truly (I promise) gain and learn a lot more from circling back to that other point later when you can also apply the direct retrospect of having engaged through your strength in the meantime. 

Also:  Read Zinn next.  as in n-e-x-t.  There's plenty of stuff to find here online to read for free.  You might find relevant You-Tubes or Vimeos of him reading his words or speaking to the subjects they contain.  Do this with great conviction if you balk or bristle at the idea and/or immediately think oh no that's not who I am.  Who cares.   About any of that.  At a moment like this?  Not relevant.  You shouldn't even care.  Not at the vastly needful moment of THIS moment.

  Read Zinn specifically in relation to his work as an educator and activist during the Spelman years.

You're welcome.  At some point this is going to click in a way where you WILL want to thank me.  Instead pass the fire to somebody else who needs both the light and the warmth that only comes from collectively joined and collectively focused human energy.

p.s. notice how I'm not spoon feeding you from my wealth of collected  Howard links?

that's on purpose.

what are you going to do with your strength. 

Aim to push yourself all the way beyond your personal feelings.  Especially those concerning your own self-relationship. 

thank YOU

eta:  definitely check out the article Mo offered in the second comment - under my name - below.  This is where we, collectively, are. 

sunshine after rain

Am 63 years old now.  It rained a great deal on my Tuesday birthday as it often does.  The ground was in need of massive soaking and it's our combined gift to have it so.  Hope you enjoyed some glimpses of my exuberant (and lengthy) morning inspection tour.  It began around 7:30 and everything looked sensational.  Despite the amount of wind and rather violent rain there were no casualties beyond a few stalks of the Great Fleece Flower.    And a daunting amount of windblown debris.  We had roughly 3 inches of rain.

(we also on/for my birthday had our first take out pizza since before the winter holidays.  T eats takeout roughly half the time from a small constellation of trusted places but this was a major adventure into former normalcy for the two oldsters.  We liked it but I wouldn't want to get back in the habit.  This is the kind of thing that only truly made sense when J had to drive past the places in order to get home.)

It's an ongoing practice for me to take the first couple of days in July as extra time to rest and reflect.   A revolution around the sun has finished and another is beginning.  I like to be still and undistracted enough to soak up that liminality here in the green hearted season.  More generally I also like to consider the dreamy restful needs of the newly born.  What if our birthdays offer us a chance to unfold anew - just as an infant does.  Feeling and breathing air with increased understanding and acceptance.  Coming to understand form and light.  wind and water on the skin. 

I thought about that a lot this year.  And as the rain poured down and I made a point to think about myself and the past year rather than fictional characters I also thought about how hard it was raining the night T was born and how I hadn't a clue of that until he was taken away, with J, for his second apgar test.  And the two midwives said to me enjoy these moments alone.  You won't see anything like them for a long time.  And they laughed amidst shared looks as women do.

***

In tonight's early evening I broke a pair of reading glasses.  Third pair in a week.  A single pair remaining.  Jim suggested a CVS run to re-stock.  Why not?  We'll jump in the truck right now.  Both of us suddenly ready  - both at the same time -  to go out and do this thing.  We went to the one with the self-serve checkout that never has more than two or three other people in it.  Ever.   

We had masks, gloves and a list.  In both directions we enjoyed beautiful rides through the woods and fields right on the cusp of twilight.   Once in the town with the CVS we made note of people socially distancing in line at the barbecue place.  Across the road a group of 7 squeezed maskless around a picnic table all seeming to talk and laugh at once.    People have been going around to places of service work to decorate with handmade banners of appreciation.  Knew that was a thing but it was nice to see it locally with my own eyes.  We came home on a different road that was quite leafy and wild.  Then we took a slight but compelling detour before coming home. 

A road at the edge of a secondary hill on the next ridge over from our own.   We looked at a place there.  One year on J's birthday we stopped, spur of the moment, to pick raspberries at a farm a bit further along the road that's since become a lot more high profile and considerably spiffed up around the edges.   We gawked like people taking in Manhattan for the first time.

in beauty its beginning is finished

Ended my last post with a certain wish for finishing our garden gate once knowing J would top it with a stabilizing crossbar because the frame is so heavy.  I'd hoped to hang the wind chimes above in the resulting space but alas the piece is too long to fit.  J hopes 'at some point in time' to find stained glass we could insert in the space.  When he mentioned that I brought up an idea I'd had to somehow mount/insert a big dish I recently found by the side of the road.  He saw it clearly but the space isn't quite tall enough.

The place where I hung the wind chimes is well suited for the lines and look of the piece.  A female catbird watched everything - including my journey towards this spot.  She clocked me (I saw her flutter to a closer branch for a commensurately closer look) as soon as I stepped out the door.  Later - after it was hung and had grown silent she flew to sit on a maple branch near the western edge of the garden -  She sang and sang interspersed with her more percussive repertoire of noises. 

Yesterday in between rain showers we hung the gate.  This morning I once again leaned into horse wire while Jim affixed wire to wood.  He used hardware from a gate (and entire section of fence) that fell down years ago after one of the hurricanes.  I'd forgotten about this episode as well as the gate's saved hardware.  Think this is fine for its purpose  Anything that can get through the gap can also get through the fence's wire grid as well.  Have concluded I'm going to cave to popular advice and use the dish as a low bird bath.  I know a great spot that's well-aligned with the flight paths of small warblers and other woodland birds. 

*****

Last night I took an unplanned three hour nap on the couch.  Once awake I spent some high quality wandering around the downstairs time.  Doing little boring-to-me things I notice on the fly but never actually fix/change/re-organize.  There's something about mild disorientation and a re-setting of circadian rhythms that I find a pleasant match for a whole host of tiny ideas I have and then conclude I don't have the patience or sufficient devotion to detail to implement them.

with-in my wandering I shook out a curtain in a way that made a beautiful Tibetan bell ring.  Where it has always hung - the spot for which I bought it - frames it awesomely as a thing to see with your eyes.  But it hardly ever rings.   Have never felt this bell was meant to be mere set-dressing so I took it down and let it swing gently in my hand.  Realized if we put it in the field hanging from the gate's cross-beam it would ring any time the gate opened or closed as well as when the wind moves it.

Yes.  Okay. 

The hammered pattern on the peace symbol is a flowering vine.   J's eyes lit up when I first rang it this morning and suggested this bell was a great solution until the stained glass shows up.  We hung it this morning and then I lingered to plant-out leeks and hill-up the shallots and take general stock of what's needed most in the week ahead.  Have concluded the volunteer squash plants are actually pumpkin vines.  Figured I would scythe the plentitude of kentucky mint and let the vines forge their own path beyond the one I'm making to access other key plantings and gradually give them more room to breathe free of goldenrod, mugwort and other leafy opportunists.

Yesterday I tied up tomato plants and pinched-out suckers for most of an hour once the gate was in place.  I didn't have the foot stool I use in deference to a cranky leg.  The opposite knee became super duper cranky as the result of squatting for an hour straight. I've thus appropriated an unused knee brace from J's collection.  It's far too snug for him but on me it's comfortable while also providing support.  So I definitely made it a point to bring the stool today. 

A bit later we went out just as the rain began for a bit of point and shovel transplanting in the strip gardens.  At the moment there's still a hole waiting for me to pop in an African foxglove.  Planted three and have four or five left to get situated. These plants are just coming into their first budding.  Am hoping I can get them all in the ground this afternoon.   Also put in a Van Houttei sage and a newer low growing anise hyssop variety.  [eta: just verified my info and see that it grows to 3 feet.  I thought it was 12 inches which I found completely enchanting.  will now have to transplant somewhere appropriate where it won't cross-pollinate with the other varieties.  sigh.]

My next big garden push involves working-in the rest of the horse compost so I can plant beans.  Also going to plant-out a lot of my tulsi crop since we got a late enough start to leave empty space in the new growing track.  That soil will also need pitchfork revival and some amendments.   Starting kale, broccoli another round of traditional culinary basil varieties and more leeks on the deck.  My gardening brain trust is evenly split on whether or not it's too late to start finocchio so I'm going for it.  The first bunch, which had begun to set plump bulbs, were ransacked by skunks.

While I was composing this post J made himself available to dig a few transplanting holes as agreed upon earlier in the day.   We didn't get all that far before the rain changed from pleasant to punishing but every empty transplant pot is its own form of accomplishment.  Working on filling in the strip gardens because it's close to get back inside if lightning suddenly erupts.  Haven't heard any thunder for about half an hour.   And this is perfect transplanting weather!  Will have to let my knee decide how much more I get done on this particular day ...

let's wander like cats

images are mixed mid-week to present from the sunny/rainless time that's just now probably almost definitely getting ready to end.

this red sage is a new trademarked variety that's supposedly hardy through zone five.  We're now classified as 6b.  When we arrived we were 5a.  The shift is a lot more fun for a gardener born and raised in zone 7.  Entirely grim in context and collective root of the climate change crisis.

Am planning on re-potting or planting it this weekend. Most likely potting until this flush of blooms fade and then planting to encourage a second flowering in mid-autumn.   Meanwhile for this flowering welcoming it to the back deck where generations of the same hummingbird clan have been nectaring in my vacillating container gardens. 

We got the last side of the fence in place mid-week while it was still brutally hot in the early evening.   Was consequently running on half-power and a very sore body for two days.  Today is day three and so far I'm pacing my activities super mindfully.  Am still a bit uncomfortable physically from the effort of getting this sucker in place.  J had said repeatedly it was going to be a beast and I finally asked him to stop but now I comprehend a lot more of why he had to psyche himself up in that particular way.  The middle section went up seamlessly in just under a half an hour like we did it for a living year after year.  He'd been bang on to Eeyore over the final stretch early and frequently, though ...

Today the gate will be attached impending rain storms permitting.   Tomorrow for sure if they last longer than expected or arrive later than radar predictions.  This final part of our garden fence building project is going to be epic.  Especially from J's intuitive building skilz POV and also because it means he'll turn his outside world attention towards opening the pool and having that be ready for his morning and afternoon work breaks.  It's epic for me because I've been in the garden a lot most evenings due to ongoing watering needs.  I've come to know the feeling tone of its enclosed iteration without the full impact.  Is downright magical rather than claustrophobic as I'd feared. 

The physical gate itself has been a morphing testament to J's inner vision from the jump.  He saw what he intended to construct in his eye's mind and then worked with what we have to hand amplified by what he knew to be available at the local lumber yard. He's been there a lot since This began.  And has consistently felt comfortable entering and walking/driving through.  People wear masks even if some have a lot to say about it.   Quality of pressure treated lumber is going down due to presumed rushing of process to meet increased demand.  And EVERYbody's got something to say about that including me.

  the Yard has always been a center of considerable local activity but now it's also enabled former procrastinators - especially from the tech-centric class, like J, who worked long hours and then commuted a couple more per day -  to become rarin' to go lunch hour warriors.

I love seeing this and thinking of the larger collective quality of life shift it's creating - in various ripple effects - for those who've decided to respond to our shared life shifts in this particular way.  Just a few months before the pandemic locked us down here in MA it must be said that I felt partially adrift within a life/style that was equally locked in and at the same time entirely removed from who I planned to become when we moved here - who we knew ourselves to already be. 

I don't at all like the manner & context prompting either one of us to get ourselves and each other shock-waved into a form of action that's been too-long pushed into the realm of a future tense left unimagined at a practical/planning level.  But the enlarging - and fencing - of the garden has put us in a much different (far more balanced and rewarding) relationship with ourselves, each other, and our authentic capabilities to live a life much closer to our dreamy plans and the Place. 

     [spontaneously got up from completing this post when the rain began with a gentle patter.  Potted the red sage as planned and placed her in a position of prominence in the deck container garden. Finished potting up the overplanted calendulas I rescued from the field a few weeks back and began to situate in their permanent homes yesterday.   Put in the three straggler tomatoes that were becoming very straggly indeed.  Potted up six Sweet Thai Basils.  Working in the rain was amazing - first at my poolside potting table and then out in the field.  It took me through memories of every adult gardens' history and much relating to my teens and childhood garden bases.  Also girl scout camp.]

I dare to hope against hope for a certain clearly envisioned grace note following the gate's successful installment.  bulletins as and when.

harbingers of summer's abundance & beauty

I love cobalt blue.  biennial Italian Alkanet blooms are the very essence of that color and so I fell in love with them at first sight 30 years ago.  For the past few years I've failed to get them through their first summer let alone the winter hibernation they need before blooming in glorious brilliance during the solstice season of their second year.  Last year I got just three very scrawny plants that far.  Only two returned. 

The larger and far more robust of the two - pictured above - is roaring strong if small in diameter.  It produced five flower stalks.  This is what greeted me Sunday morning - a mad proliferation of joyously grateful flowers freshly popped in happiness.  I feel certain it was in part a response to the previous day when I was called to create a fresh iteration of this flower essence for the Sparkling Lotus repertory.  At first I balked as I thought the temps of the rising sun would be too hot for the flowers.  But in the end their calling prevailed and I had a palpable sense of appreciation from the plants on the following morning.  Have been walking a bit above ground ever since.  [and don't worry.  I've since staked and tied the branch properly.]

The plant's electrical flower medicine signature focuses most strongly in the fourth and fifth chakra range.  The key word in that sentence would be focus.  Of both visual and in-sight-full natures. One of the key components of the SL classic synergy Red R[evolution].  A bit later I was also called to prepare a re-boot of the amazing Lady's Mantle/Cathedral Quartz blend that's attuned to this time rather than the pre-Katrina summer 2005.  And then the next day -

I was called by chickweed and the self seeded dark plum columbines - both volunteers at the edges of the tiny strip gardens lining a short brick walkway from the driveway to the mudroom porch.

One of the upsides of having little to no rain for the last few weeks:  the number of red clover micro-harvests I've been able to make.  Every day I make the rounds - harvest roughly a fifth of the freshest blossoms available on any given day.  This is what I've determined to be my fair share  - taking into account what I know we need year-to-year and then a bit extra to share.  And then, when it's a good harvest year, also reserving yet a bit of extra-extra for experimentation and unforeseen happenstance.  By the week's end all my available small-scale drying baskets were filled.  I had to resort to pinch-hitting with my great-grandfather's painted (it's a clump of daisies) china platter. 

Using it for practical medicine making purposes, especially during the solstice weekend, gives everything a ceremonial flair.  I would have held it in my open palms, like ladies on ancient urns and vases, but I'm an extraordinarily clumsy person.  and I don't want to break this platter or any part of my body during a reflexive but ultimately ill-advised effort to save it.

So far I've put up a quart plus an additional pint and a half.   This is plenty for our family's needs including the all important (to me anyway) smidge of extra.  Additional harvesting (which is only going to last another week or so - presuming we get the thunderstorms predicted for tomorrow as 85% likely.) will be set aside for tea blends intended as gifts.  Gonna be optimistic and say people will [all/hopefully most] be willing and able to receive such wellness tokens.

Shortly before the Solstice sunset I smelled the unmistakable scent of a freshly bloomed gardenia flower.  The potted bush who has been a stalwart companion for 14 years had put out a single flower from a small branch I'd planned to remove once the rest of the bush was through blooming.

this is something for you to have.

There were a few leaves, and I'd apologized to them, but there was NO bud on that tiny branch when I announced my intent to prune it away.  Had there been, obviously, I would have made no such announcement.  It seemed the bush wished me to have one of its flowers as part of the pruning process.  I took the antique perfume bottle vase to my nightstand and the flower's perfumed my sleeping dreams since.

*****

Also of note - J will be starting a new job next Monday.  The past two weeks or so leading up to that announcement have been fairly intense.  But now I can see the way it's shaking down as rather perfect timing wise.  We just got the garden fence task completed yesterday and this afternoon he's constructing the gate.  He'll spend the rest of the working week getting acquainted with new hardware, work protocols, etc. 

  Meanwhile I went out & about this morning on day two of MA being further opened.  Had a personal errand to run and thought I might add a stop at the liquor store between here and there.  Am concerned I don't have enough for the flower essence repertory's needs.  At the beginning of the season I bought two 12 jar cases of half pint bottles.  Figuring that was more than enough for an optimistic projection of what I'd need for mother stock storage.

I have just 6 remaining and it's only the third week of June.

also of note that's HUGE from a gardening perspective:  Yesterday J got a four-way splitter for the back spigot.    Prior to this I've been hauling water here there and everywhere not reachable by hoses attached to the Y-splitter.  In plastic gallon jugs, two at a time. This got the job done at a bare-minimum level.  I felt zen af and also as pure-living as I seem likely to get but the seemingly endless process of it also hurt my body tremendously.  J says he's been watching in disbelief "the way you hustle out there."

The faucet by the side of my garage bay is unusable for now and so the back spigot ultimately irrigates the field and evolving sanctuary.  Prior to last night I'd need to wrest the hose across the driveway to clean and freshen the bird bath plus water the strips by the mudroom porch.  BUT.  yesterday J also got a separate hose for the deck and not-quite-a-patio container garden.  This year it has an additional extremely inelegant but equally true to my south jersey girl roots annexation of lawn space.

Here's yesterday's tiny strip gardens by the porch from a doorway view

This morning's errand went smoothly and I did not encounter anything disturbing, ill-advised or downright bone-headed along my way.   Had planned to make a second stop at the liquor store since I might need more brandy for preparing individual usage stock bottle strength for distribution.  But there weren't any cars in the parking lot or lights on in the store.  Automatically assumed there'd been somebody there with covid but who knows.

news and the deteriorating homunculus not yet taken away and tended to and so much unrest unleashed with careless disregard  -- rising numbers on infection in a whole new group of specific places where I know and love people.  I have not grieved with any true conviction for the first group.  Working very slowly on articulating the shock factor of unplanned release.  Very different plans being made in the Italian cases.

Yesterday J played me a beautiful song he wrote in response to the death of a friend's mother.  Today I asked if he'd made a file I could listen to because it's so moving to me in a way that's ultimately uplifting and hopeful.  We listened to it and I gave it my breakdown of highlights/glowing review and then he told me of the influence.  Don't know what he has planned for words.  But the melody line is lovely.

[just looked in on the gate making project.  J was in the process of getting the braces fixed into position.  No way can we carry it out to the field together.  It'll have to go in the back of his truck.  There's been so much intentional gardening and harvesting this year.  It's equally magnificent and boggling to parse.]

it was a good day outside

The area to the mid-right in your viewing orientation hints at a pivotal area J cleared for me yesterday afternoon.  I'm both happy and grateful plus a little bit in shock but in a very good way.  Over the winter I hoped to get this far but one never knows how that will go beyond inner visions or lack thereof.  Now I'll have the necessary space for planting most of what I was picturing when making my seed order choices.   This doesn't always pan out (understatement) but when it does the achievement can lend a festive celebratory air to mundane and repetitive tasks that must be done as thoroughly and mindfully as possible.

It was very good medicine to be out there mingling with all the rest of everything while also asserting myself as a gardener I didn't know how to be until I had a deepened sense of the space.  And equally deepened understanding of what was already there.  This season the very name evolving sanctuary has taken on greater meaning and ongoing relevance.  Despite/because of how crazy busy this next chunk of time will be in the task upon task sense I've been making a point to actively spend time just-being within the garden's sensory and energetic embrace.  quietly sitting on the ground near an especially favorite plant just as I have since early childhood. 

Today I realized there's space for a camp chair there in the garden-within-a-garden.  A small overgrown patch of grass that I just started cutting as a place to walk amongst the developing plantings.  Am beyond grateful our various garden-related projects are coming together in their own unorthodox fashion. That pleasant/encouraging happenstance is keeping me in touch with how much a garden gives, constantly, by way of solace and deep-space dreaming.  Re-membering the core of soul's self.  Maybe it's collective - that core - in radiant light as well as underbelly darkness?

While J's finger has healed I've been experiencing a stretch of time in which my muscles ached and burned so much I didn't do much gardening beyond dreams and a loosely woven series of plan b, c, and d planting options if J couldn't spare the time to do what he did.

From a different angle you can see how this piece of clearing work was a final link of sorts.  The imaginary sight line angles I've had trouble explaining with words are now able to explain themselves because they're beginning a rudimentary form of actualization.  The garden feels loved again.  In the way a gardener does love their spaces of work, worship, and well-ness. 

Am going to plant a [modest] mass of the white African foxgloves I started in my basement greenhouse.   They reach 5 -6 feet in height and i think they'll be a nice eye-resting foil for whatever  combo of Sunflowers I'm able to successfully sow.  So far my efforts have been thoroughly ransacked.  Glad I didn't get my heart set on making the sunflower house happen.  Fingers crossed.  Should have started some seedlings under lights in the basement a few weeks ago.  Next year perhaps I will.  Ditto zinnias.

Yet another angle of the newly cleared space.  Will weed-out the goldenrod, chocolate mint, etc. from in front of the Siberian Iris.   As you can see I added some additional top soil.  That's all I had juice for because I needed to keep as much reserve energy as possible for Fence Day today.   Tomorrow I'll add the lobster compost conditioner and twist-mix everything together with my pitchfork.  Dig the additions in deeper and see if I need to add any more top soil.

  *****

It was a good day to manifest the critical foundation level of a goal I knew I wasn't physically strong enough to achieve on my own.   Today J is sore from various forms of hustling yesterday.  So a slow start to the day's activities is giving me a chance to catch up on laundry as well as getting this entry posted.  

Behind the two milkweeds in the center of the above image you can see another freshly mulched spot where J dug-out the largest clump of assorted opportunist plants that's been clogging the evolutionary corridor.  Asked him to do that first in case he decided the larger section would take too much time away from fence prepping in the field.  But he was up for doing as much as possible on such a picture perfect day.  Hence the stiffness and current napping on the couch.

There are a few smaller clumps at the other (front) end of the bed that I can handle on my own.  Lots of additional wild strawberry runners and some baby yellow docks that are still young enough to get the roots out intact when you pull them just-so.  Will inter-plant what's there with lemon bergamot and hopefully sunflowers occasionally punctuating everything else. 

buzzkill alert: chagrined to see cucumber beetles copulating like mad on the datura leaves.   Let's hope the neem will help.

tackling the fence - part 1

Yesterday afternoon J and I got the first piece of our garden fence erected.   He'd suggested this after I announced this past weekend as an ideal time to get our tomato plants in the ground.  I had not suggested it because there are all kinds of other ways I'm obliged to tweak his sense of doing things as he feels things ought to be done just so we can get them done.   And so there we were.  Figuring it out based on J's formulated ideas morphing into a few degrees of winging it.

Don't have to say, as I often do, that I took direction well.  It was more a morphing physical and mental process of my own.  The fence was like doing yoga in tandem with an energetically and physically oppositional Force.  Intuitively I understood a form of movement practice I've never experienced.  Just knew how to be with it - moving only as need be and focused in an almost binocular way on Jim's task of tacking the fence gauge to the wooden posts.  He also created half of something I call a temporary gate-fold right where the fence gate will be.

Through all of this I literally shouldered the fencing's weight in the place he'd asked me to stand.  This took me places I've never been/seen/imagined before.  Just in terms of learning what my body's capable of at an intuitive level right there in the moment.  If I hadn't focused on that specific slant I might have spent most or even all of the time making a silent mantra out of i can't do this.  Having accomplished most of the best so far all the while telling myself I couldn't accomplish diddly - well.  I thought with everything else that's changing and re-arranging itself in these times I'd upgrade and discard as many I can't programs as possible.

Shallots are up enough that they must have a bit of topsoil hilling provided by day's end.   Also watering.  At the moment that's kind of faraway on a list of things for doing far later in the day.  Am still sore and slow from yesterday's work.  J cut himself prepping vegetables last night so we'll leave the construction project off-burner for a few days while the cut heals. Can definitely get the tomatoes planted a bit at a time over the next few days.  But just for today I have a single - albeit three-fold - gardening goal in mind:

In keeping with this season's theme of sacred pairings - I'll be planting a pair of blue vervain plants in three locations.  It wouldn't be right to let it go at that  because -

This is the arrangement the plant's medicine spirit sought before the physical plants had even arrived.  My brain couldn't make the jump so it stuck.  I'd get to yes okay I see and I understand.  It will be fine.  Convince myself I felt a few molecules lighter and more crystalline.  And then my brain and intentions would jump backwards. 

it wasn't so much I balked at the direction.  Was my ingrained attachment to planting in Groups of Threes.    I traced the roots of this - the way they traveled almost endlessly back to the neighbor lady who allowed me to become a fixture in her garden when I was four years old. Our relationship and her tutelage developed throughout the next decade.

always plant your tall mainstays in groups of three.

The larger co-creative theme of this growing season is definitely sacred pairings.  This has been confirmed in emails from my vibrational/energetic/intuitive gardener's network.  Sacred pairings have shown up in other ways as well.  This isn't about moving numerology forward it's about getting the duality of polarity held in balance right in the here and now.  Or so it seems.

eta: as of early afternoon I've planted two of the three pairings.  am anticipating no problem getting the third pair done after a bit of rest.  Oak pollen is swirling all around and I wound up leaning into an allergy caplet.  Third such choice in the past eleven days. 

additional edit:  J has in fact got the proper fence clips.  He explained some other Thing involving a tool he doesn't have but has since discovered he doesn't need.  For reasons he has definitely explained but I don't remember specifics.  Seems like there's so much to keep straight about this garden enlargement and all the many different Things it's proving to involve.  Plus there have been snafus aplenty as with anything you suddenly decide must be done three months before everything involved needs to function.   

Mainly it boils down to everything happening at a slower pace with plenty of cogitation in between.  What is happening is good and a very positive hint at how total enclosure might feel from the inside.  Had been a bit concerned the space surrounded by wire would feel cut-off from the established field energy.  But nothing of the sort occurred.  This time of year J. stops mowing around the fire pit.  Many of the medicinal herbs I wildcraft for tinctures, blended herbal teas, and oil infusions grow there. 

clarity & focus

Unexpected yet incredibly well timed - was called to prepare a flower essence around noon today.  Above shows the bowl shortly after settling it in perfect suspended balance between two of the repurposed field rocks.  It contains three vibrant blooms from the largest surviving Montana Blue Centaurea. This flower essence is all about vision that's both crystalline and comprehensive.  Can think of no quality more relevant to these times. 

***

one of the fleece flower's stalks topped by an exploding baseball-sized sphere of still tightly budded flower panicles.  the Fair Maiden lives!  holding breath a bit waiting to see if she blooms as well.

Took this documentation just prior to 'staking forward' per the plant's suggestion.

Discovered the echinacea that's appeared utterly eclipsed by the foxglove has managed to thrive enough to produce a side-shoot clump of itself.   This was completely concealed and utterly unknown to me before the staking.  Have spent some high octane quality time in this general portion of the evolving sanctuary bed today.   The energetics feel good.   See below the rough facsimile of an isosceles triangle formed by the three vibrant blooms that offered themselves for the essence bowl.

Love the fact that one of the flowers is completely red violet.

crowning glories

It could just be me but I'm so moved and inspired by the giant fleece flower's architecture.  At the moment she's about 18 inches wide.  Her flower stalks will eventually add another two to four feet to her diameter.  She has 17 stalks this year.

When her flower stalks are fully extended and in bloom they will look like exploding baseballs made of highly luminous silk chenille sprays of light. 

The volunteer foxglove is a bit smaller by comparison but not by species.  This is another thriving plant - already 16-ish inches tall.  She has a few main flower stalks and a few more secondary side-shoots.  Beneath her copious leaves lies a red echinacea that flatly refused my rescue services.  It was so nonsensical to me that I kept insisting on speaking of my intentions to separate the pair.  But since we've unearthed a mind-blowing rock pairing from the middle of our field I've gained an enhanced take on the sacred nature of Things unknown to me. 

  we will be fine if we're left to do our work.  stake generously and with a forward slant.  cut away biggest leaves to use for printing in the special book.   The two plant spirits seemed to be joined in a single voice.  Co-creation in which my biggest part is letting it happen without imposition or interruption.

much tinier but HUGELY joy inducing - at least one of the five bronze fennels I planted last year has survived the wet bare-earthed winter.

In the field I've managed to overwinter two green fennels I grew from seed last year.   But in terms of pics let's stick with this one small area:

Would love a few hours of J's muscle-time to move at least two of the three visible Stella D'oro daylilies.  But I'm willing to be patient because it's officially fence-making weekend.    A few hours from now I'll be as immersed in it as he's been for the past day and a half of planning and measuring and double/triple planning. 

This prostrate oregano had been on my wish list for years.  For the brisk competent Mistress of the House that i am not and do not aspire to become but have always loved and admired the garden spaces of such women - and them within their spaces - bustling here and there amidst the plants with a clear head and inviolate sense of competency and verve.   Meanwhile ...

  Grew the oregano in a tallish pot last year and presumed I was only achieving a few notches above heeling-in - for overwintering only.  Then realized I could create a rocky terrain for it to grow into over the next few months. using some of the scale-proportionate rocks we pulled from the ground.  Started towards the field with a wheelbarrow.  J, who had just told me he was done for the day and was heading in to compose for a few hours.  But then he saw me through the window of his office, got curious, and wound up tagging along.  Was appreciative he was willing to heft the rocks in and out of the wheelbarrow plus push it.  I took the pictures of my first rock-introduction before I had the thought of grooming the plant to look pretty.

Have got a good feeling about this and surrounding plants seem inclined to agree.  There will be more rock placements. 

Montana Blue Centaurea is the original medicine spirit of the Evolving Sanctuary before that's what it was.  At first it was a painstaking perennial bed planted to be in bloom in every portoin of our growing season.  Its evolution began with the owners between those who built the place and us left it to fend for itself for seven growing seasons.  To this day I'd give a lot to have a look at the original plans - plus just a few pictures of how it looked when it was loved and doted-over.

  In flower essence realms Blue Centaurea offers long range clarity of vision.  Over time I've found this can mean any number of things depending on the person's specific healing/illumination needs.  I intend to re-seed this space with replacement crowns as and when.

And crowning just a few steps away - but in the presence of a whole other vibe and eco-system - the snowball viburnum beside the frog pond has begun to leaf-out.  I'll do some pruning before the weekend's over.  IF there's time.   Better do it in the next few hours - along with a few other pruning tasks.  J's currently picking up an augur he's rented for the weekend - plus the additional (wooden) posts he'll need to make the fence.  By this evening or tomorrow morning he'll need me on deck to hold the fence in place as need be.   Am a little nervous about it.   There's nowhere to lay the fence flat on the ground to the west.  Any available choice risks considerable damage to the recovery work I've been doing in the transplant garden.

yesterday afternoon he staked out the positions of both metal and wooden posts.   we are both a little overwhelmed by what we've set in motion with this endeavor.  the sheer physical size of the space - made all the more tangible by the nuts and bolts dimension of what's entailed in getting this new thing properly enclosed. 

***

on a whole other page of mandatory gardening to-do actions I need to start putting some of the basement seedlings into transplant pots.  A few of the second-hand six packs I needed to use right at the last moment have split their seams.  Need to protect the exposed roots n-o-w.  Am not overwhelmed simply because all of This keeps me from focusing too much or too deeply on all of That.    that which IS just like the individual pockets of beauty and sanity we're all doing our best to maintain.

never understood people who dealt with anxiety and the unknown by staying busy busy busy.  have always felt they were primarily afraid to sit alone in their own mind EVER and perhaps that's true.  but it wouldn't necessary mean their soul and spirit lacked depth or an ingrained ability to persevere on terms as real and valid as my own.  far from it, is what I'm learning first hand.

it's a good thing to realize.

have YOU realized anything that shifts you frame and widens it a bit?