Stars of the Yard In Spring
Today was an absolutely beautifully cloudless, gorgeous day worthy of Spring...which, according to MY calendar, has not yet arrived. Mother Nature apparently has other ideas. She can be a fractious ol' Bitch...well, that's what I call her when she bitchslaps us back into the middle of Winter just after we have taken our tender seedlings out to enjoy the 'false Spring' and blasts bulbs and tubers that have joyfully welcomed warmer temperatures into mush. Since all the flowering trees are blooming like there's a party going on that the rest of us haven't been invited to, I suppose I can cautiously welcome Spring a whole three weeks early. After being outside the last couple of days, it's very hard to equate these beautiful days with the last dregs of Winter. I was shocked to realize the back yard needs mowing!
Before I mow the yard - and I've always done this, wherever I have lived - I go out and broadcast my intention to mow the grass. I pick up trash, rocks and other such items unfriendly to lawn mower blades and generally take time to appreciate what is happening in the green world before I go and alter it forever...okay, maybe just for a few weeks, but still. It's an act of stewardship to have a relationship with one's outdoors surroundings. Part of that relationship means you don't perpetrate what, for all practical purposes, is an assault on your area without communicating this intention to the plethora of organisms that exist therein.
Today I strolled around the backyard...very modest compared to the acreage we used to inhabit and woefully void of much of what gave me joy in living there. The topsoil having been removed for building and not replaced and landscaped, the 'yard' is basically red dirt with various and sundry bits of rock and other debris and various 'weeds' amongst what passes for 'grass'. One of the first things I noticed is my favorite color of spring...in fact I call it 'Screaming Spring Yellow'. That beauteous shade of yellow that daffodils, crocus, forsythia, etc. display that announce that Spring has finally arrived. There are even tulips that shade of yellow. It's more saturated than butter, certainly less creamy, and a dense hue of almost painful brightness, as though one was looking into the sun. Only in Spring do you see these shades that literally SCREAM that Spring has arrived.
Here is today's example, Wild Mustard (Brassica juncea), or possibly Rapeseed (Brassica napus), but I'm fairly sure it is in fact Wild Mustard:
This is another clump of the stuff with only a few petals opened. It was interesting that there were clumps of just leaves, clumps with leaves and buds, and also clumps with leaves, buds and fully opened flowers as well as fully expanded heads. Each stem has perhaps half a dozen or more flowers on it, so that from a distance, it looks like one large yellow flower. Up close of course, the truth of the members is revealed as a orchestrated symphony of flower partnership. A close botanical relative to the GMO Canola, Wild Mustard has a very high oil content, and this is probably some that has naturalized from a commercial crop somewhere near enough for the seeds to be carried by birds or wind. It is being researched as a possible source of bio-diesel, and is also apparently quite effective as a pesticide. I've only recently actually paid attention to Canola as a genetically modified version of Rapeseed, which IS a poison. There are two camps about its safety for consumption. I'm not taking any chances and am eliminating it from use in my kitchen...and am also just this instant wondering if this is the reason why my 'flares' or whatever you call them (depending on whatever autoimmune crap I have) have decreased in both severity and frequency. They haven't gone completely away...everyone eats processed food at some point and I'm sure those delicious chicken biscuits I devour on payday are probably loaded with it, even though they are cooked in peanut oil I believe. Who knows what goes into the breading? Anyway, I digress...the plant itself is quite handsome and the yellow gave me joy today as I watched it sway in the sunshine, of which there was plenty as there wasn't a cloud to be seen anywhere all day. Not one.
Among the other 'guests' in the yard were Dandelions (Taraxacum officinale)...also that "Screaming Spring Yellow" which I was unable to get a picture of because Bella, who accompanied me on this morning stroll wanted to be a camera ham:
See? The yellow just pops against her blue black coat. Her eyes are also golden, but, alas, I told her, they were no competition for the dandelion and wild mustard flowers.
Of course, Dandelions have another form, not as stridently noticeable, but still beautiful in a dainty, lacelike way:
I am struck by the difference in the fleshy stem and the lacy fringes of the seeds. Susun Weed's book Healing Wise has a very humorous passage about Dandelion. I've mentioned it in an entry here at least once. Very versatile 'weed' is the Dandelion. In the fall I usually make Dandelion tincture. It's a useful kidney tonic and urinary cleanser. But today, I was just interested in marking the lace-like beauty of it's seeds. Tomorrow I will go and pick the seed pods so they don't scatter all over the yard. I will take them and put them in a specific spot, nurture that soil with bits of compost from time to time and when fall comes, have some nice juicy Dandelion roots. I'm not too keen on using the leaves and flowers for salad just yet, as I don't know what's been applied to the ground hereabouts. I know across the street in the vacant lots, some sort of herbicide was broadcast during the last year or so and stunted the growth of the dandelions over there. Usually they will only produce one flower and lots of greens. The plants across the street have multiple flowers and very few small, stunted leaves. A warning of deficiency perhaps? In any case, I will not be using those. I would like, however, to have some to make tinctures with in the fall. We'll see, shall we?
The other color I love in nature, as far as flowers go, is Blue. Cornflower, Centaury, Chicory, and today...I love Bluets.
Small, delicate, and invasive, Bluets (Houstonia caerulea) are now, as we see here among the first wildflowers to welcome Spring in East Tennessee. Most books list them as 'late spring bloomers' but there they were. Soon as it dries out from the spring rains though, these little guys will pretty much disappear until about September when some of them will bloom again just before the first frost. There were little puddles of blue all over the yard, like the Goddess had played hopscotch, leaving the flowers in the wake where Her feet touched.
The other 'star of the yard' was Dead Nettle ( (Lamium purpureum), so thick in places there was a purple sheen over the ground.
The tops and leaves of these are supposedly edible and full of trace vitamins and minerals, if just a bit on the unappetizing side. The scent has the pungent lower tones of most in the mint family, but lacking the sweeter higher notes most mints are noted for. To me they just smell very GREEN...especially when mowed.
So, all of these jewels will be no more come tomorrow when I mow. I noticed and appreciated each one in its turn, also noting that it had to go, but that at least someone noticed they were there, appreciated their beauty and would remember them.
Speaking of remembering drove past the old house the other day, actually I visited the old house. Said hello to all the friends...the trees there, and I committed what I believe might be a misdemeanor, but I'm not going into it here. The house doesn't mean anything to me, I don't miss it. It's the land that calls to me, that reaches out to me with the green tendrils of love of place. It KNOWS me ...it RECOGNIZES me..and I return in kind. Am I surprised to be remembered? Am I crazy to believe the land does remember me? Am I crazy to miss the trees as I would any long time friend that I had moved away from? Perhaps. But no, I am not surprised, and I don't feel my emotions cast out for naught. There is something very healing about being friends with Trees. There is something very satisfying in the call of perennials, placed with love, that will go on after I am long gone. The camellia bush was in full bloom. The hemlock we planted showing tiny buds of new growth. All the hyacinths, daffodils, tulips, daylillies and irises were also up and the daffodils, and hyacinths were mad with blooms. So were the forsythia bushes we planted. Who knows what the next homeowners there will think of the henge built out of landscape timbers and the rocks lining the circle with the bulbs that bloom every year? I just know, that for seven years this place was home and it cradled my soul in love, in belonging. I am not quick to abandon or forget such a favor. There are days when I miss that small tract of land like I would a lost lover.
I really hope the next stewards of that land appreciate it. It deserves to be loved. I am grateful that I have a nice, safe, comfortable, home, with a great kitchen and no moldy air that makes me sick. In a perfect world, I would pick this house up and put it on the property we had. In a perfect world, there would not have been a reason to leave, there would be no crazy, psychotic person in a prison pulling strings that cost us money and time and trouble and dischord at home. But it is not a perfect world, but I am grateful that in a world that is not perfect, I still have everything I need and quite a few of the things I want. I am loved, by the person I love, and that is no small thing in these weird times.
This entry was my attempt to remind myself that in spite of what I have lost, I still have much to be appreciated and much for which to be thankful. I know in time that all things change and for everything that is lost, a space is created for something new to be manifested. Such is the Magick of Life.
Before I mow the yard - and I've always done this, wherever I have lived - I go out and broadcast my intention to mow the grass. I pick up trash, rocks and other such items unfriendly to lawn mower blades and generally take time to appreciate what is happening in the green world before I go and alter it forever...okay, maybe just for a few weeks, but still. It's an act of stewardship to have a relationship with one's outdoors surroundings. Part of that relationship means you don't perpetrate what, for all practical purposes, is an assault on your area without communicating this intention to the plethora of organisms that exist therein.
Today I strolled around the backyard...very modest compared to the acreage we used to inhabit and woefully void of much of what gave me joy in living there. The topsoil having been removed for building and not replaced and landscaped, the 'yard' is basically red dirt with various and sundry bits of rock and other debris and various 'weeds' amongst what passes for 'grass'. One of the first things I noticed is my favorite color of spring...in fact I call it 'Screaming Spring Yellow'. That beauteous shade of yellow that daffodils, crocus, forsythia, etc. display that announce that Spring has finally arrived. There are even tulips that shade of yellow. It's more saturated than butter, certainly less creamy, and a dense hue of almost painful brightness, as though one was looking into the sun. Only in Spring do you see these shades that literally SCREAM that Spring has arrived.
Here is today's example, Wild Mustard (Brassica juncea), or possibly Rapeseed (Brassica napus), but I'm fairly sure it is in fact Wild Mustard:
This is another clump of the stuff with only a few petals opened. It was interesting that there were clumps of just leaves, clumps with leaves and buds, and also clumps with leaves, buds and fully opened flowers as well as fully expanded heads. Each stem has perhaps half a dozen or more flowers on it, so that from a distance, it looks like one large yellow flower. Up close of course, the truth of the members is revealed as a orchestrated symphony of flower partnership. A close botanical relative to the GMO Canola, Wild Mustard has a very high oil content, and this is probably some that has naturalized from a commercial crop somewhere near enough for the seeds to be carried by birds or wind. It is being researched as a possible source of bio-diesel, and is also apparently quite effective as a pesticide. I've only recently actually paid attention to Canola as a genetically modified version of Rapeseed, which IS a poison. There are two camps about its safety for consumption. I'm not taking any chances and am eliminating it from use in my kitchen...and am also just this instant wondering if this is the reason why my 'flares' or whatever you call them (depending on whatever autoimmune crap I have) have decreased in both severity and frequency. They haven't gone completely away...everyone eats processed food at some point and I'm sure those delicious chicken biscuits I devour on payday are probably loaded with it, even though they are cooked in peanut oil I believe. Who knows what goes into the breading? Anyway, I digress...the plant itself is quite handsome and the yellow gave me joy today as I watched it sway in the sunshine, of which there was plenty as there wasn't a cloud to be seen anywhere all day. Not one.
Among the other 'guests' in the yard were Dandelions (Taraxacum officinale)...also that "Screaming Spring Yellow" which I was unable to get a picture of because Bella, who accompanied me on this morning stroll wanted to be a camera ham:
See? The yellow just pops against her blue black coat. Her eyes are also golden, but, alas, I told her, they were no competition for the dandelion and wild mustard flowers.
Of course, Dandelions have another form, not as stridently noticeable, but still beautiful in a dainty, lacelike way:
I am struck by the difference in the fleshy stem and the lacy fringes of the seeds. Susun Weed's book Healing Wise has a very humorous passage about Dandelion. I've mentioned it in an entry here at least once. Very versatile 'weed' is the Dandelion. In the fall I usually make Dandelion tincture. It's a useful kidney tonic and urinary cleanser. But today, I was just interested in marking the lace-like beauty of it's seeds. Tomorrow I will go and pick the seed pods so they don't scatter all over the yard. I will take them and put them in a specific spot, nurture that soil with bits of compost from time to time and when fall comes, have some nice juicy Dandelion roots. I'm not too keen on using the leaves and flowers for salad just yet, as I don't know what's been applied to the ground hereabouts. I know across the street in the vacant lots, some sort of herbicide was broadcast during the last year or so and stunted the growth of the dandelions over there. Usually they will only produce one flower and lots of greens. The plants across the street have multiple flowers and very few small, stunted leaves. A warning of deficiency perhaps? In any case, I will not be using those. I would like, however, to have some to make tinctures with in the fall. We'll see, shall we?
The other color I love in nature, as far as flowers go, is Blue. Cornflower, Centaury, Chicory, and today...I love Bluets.
Small, delicate, and invasive, Bluets (Houstonia caerulea) are now, as we see here among the first wildflowers to welcome Spring in East Tennessee. Most books list them as 'late spring bloomers' but there they were. Soon as it dries out from the spring rains though, these little guys will pretty much disappear until about September when some of them will bloom again just before the first frost. There were little puddles of blue all over the yard, like the Goddess had played hopscotch, leaving the flowers in the wake where Her feet touched.
The other 'star of the yard' was Dead Nettle ( (Lamium purpureum), so thick in places there was a purple sheen over the ground.
The tops and leaves of these are supposedly edible and full of trace vitamins and minerals, if just a bit on the unappetizing side. The scent has the pungent lower tones of most in the mint family, but lacking the sweeter higher notes most mints are noted for. To me they just smell very GREEN...especially when mowed.
So, all of these jewels will be no more come tomorrow when I mow. I noticed and appreciated each one in its turn, also noting that it had to go, but that at least someone noticed they were there, appreciated their beauty and would remember them.
Speaking of remembering drove past the old house the other day, actually I visited the old house. Said hello to all the friends...the trees there, and I committed what I believe might be a misdemeanor, but I'm not going into it here. The house doesn't mean anything to me, I don't miss it. It's the land that calls to me, that reaches out to me with the green tendrils of love of place. It KNOWS me ...it RECOGNIZES me..and I return in kind. Am I surprised to be remembered? Am I crazy to believe the land does remember me? Am I crazy to miss the trees as I would any long time friend that I had moved away from? Perhaps. But no, I am not surprised, and I don't feel my emotions cast out for naught. There is something very healing about being friends with Trees. There is something very satisfying in the call of perennials, placed with love, that will go on after I am long gone. The camellia bush was in full bloom. The hemlock we planted showing tiny buds of new growth. All the hyacinths, daffodils, tulips, daylillies and irises were also up and the daffodils, and hyacinths were mad with blooms. So were the forsythia bushes we planted. Who knows what the next homeowners there will think of the henge built out of landscape timbers and the rocks lining the circle with the bulbs that bloom every year? I just know, that for seven years this place was home and it cradled my soul in love, in belonging. I am not quick to abandon or forget such a favor. There are days when I miss that small tract of land like I would a lost lover.
I really hope the next stewards of that land appreciate it. It deserves to be loved. I am grateful that I have a nice, safe, comfortable, home, with a great kitchen and no moldy air that makes me sick. In a perfect world, I would pick this house up and put it on the property we had. In a perfect world, there would not have been a reason to leave, there would be no crazy, psychotic person in a prison pulling strings that cost us money and time and trouble and dischord at home. But it is not a perfect world, but I am grateful that in a world that is not perfect, I still have everything I need and quite a few of the things I want. I am loved, by the person I love, and that is no small thing in these weird times.
This entry was my attempt to remind myself that in spite of what I have lost, I still have much to be appreciated and much for which to be thankful. I know in time that all things change and for everything that is lost, a space is created for something new to be manifested. Such is the Magick of Life.