This is my Montmorency Cherry tree in full bloom. It's beautiful and fuller every year.
The good news is--the tree is thriving. The bad news (for us) is that the birds are still smarter and faster than we are, so I don't get much in the way of cherries. lol
It's that glorious time of year when the world is waking up from it's long winter slumber. The lilies are pushing up through the rich black midwest dirt. The lilacs are full of heavy budded limbs that will burst forth any minute with their symphony of smell. The Canadian geese are coming in and laying their eggs across the pond...every morning like clockwork they show up circling and honking and scaring the chickens with their big-ness. And everywhere you look, the largess of Mother Nature abounds. And I, for one, feel so thoroughly gifted by her bestowal, as if these irises bloom just for me. That this lilac offers up the heady aromas, just for me. That the new growth of blackberries and raspberries and asparagus in my garden are here, just for me.
It's a good day to be alive.
I have been trying to get back to a little more organization in my life. It feels as though I have been on a massive landslide the past year and a half. And now here I am, at the bottom, and as that miracle of survival always does, I feel energized and elated by the very fact of my survival. I want to do everything. I want to do nothing. I want to read more and whine less. I want to cook--COOK !! And I want to get my garden going and have all kinds of free fresh organic foods to COOK! and eat. lol In a moment of desperation, the other night I made sweet buttermilk biscuits to cover with fresh cut and lightly sweetened strawberries and called it shortcake like grandma used to make. It was delicious...not as delicious as it will be in a month or two when the strawberries don't have to be trucked in from Florida or Mexico or somewhere equally exotic. But it surely did taste good nonetheless.
I was able to mow my front yard (most of it) for the first time this week and I think it has been almost 2 years since I was able to do that. It was wonderful. Lots of folks don't like mowing (my husband) but I love it. I love the smell of cut grass, I love a good looking yard. I love where I live, and in a month or so, my yard will look like a private park...completely surrounded by trees and honeysuckle hedges, blackberry brambles and sassafras. And I will sit out there in the middle of it and wonder at the beauty and read my books and eat my lunch. Or have my morning coffee. Or pray. There are lots of areas not filled in quite yet in front, but the ones that are were getting high, so I pulled out the mower and went to it. I cut the old wisteria all back too. Here's where she stands right now...
Feeling grateful today for the little things in life... hens that are laying, family that cares and blue skies and sunshine.
Namaste.
The weather has been pretty up and down...beautifully sunny or bleak and rainy. Warm as all get out or so cold the heater keeps kicking on. We were supposed to have a hard freeze last night, but it was really a light one with temps down a little under 30. It's crazy, but probably typical for April. I feel lucky that I haven't put anything in the ground yet...lol
I have finally passed that healing point where my knee and leg are not hurting all the time. Thank God..it was getting old. It's only been a month and a half since the surgery. Saw the doc, he said I'm right on track and he's pleased. That relieved a lot of my anxiety about the muscle pain and looking at the x-rays helped too. Both knees looks awesome. yay me.
Today , through the thoughtfulness of a friend, the help of another friend and the generosity of a new friend... I got hooked up with a woman who is selling her mother's house (she passed away in January) and had a cellar full of canning jars. She boxed them up, drove an hour and a half to meet us in the middle and sold me 16 dozen quart jars for 3 dollars a dozen and 13 dozen pint jars for 2 dollars a dozen. With lots of decent rings too. My friend from here drove me to St Louis in her SUV which we packed them all into...the 4 of us had lunch and then we came home and unloaded close to 350 jars into my garage. What a deal. What a day ! I feel so blessed by the love and friendship of the women in my life.
The pollen count around here is through the roof and something is killing me. I have not had allergies in my life, but every few years HERE something comes around that knocks me for a loop. I cannot imagine people who have to live with this every year !! My nose is runny, my eyes watery, my throat scratchy and I am sneezing like crazy. My head feels like it's stuffed with cotton. I stopped at the Walgreens and picked up some allergy stuff and just took one. Some of these things knock me out, but I only took one and I guess we'll see. lol If suddenly I'm not making sense, you'll know why. :)
I got to go to a book release party tonight for a young man I know and it was so cool...He's not very old, maybe 30...and you couldn't ask for a more humble nicer guy. The book is about the heroin epidemic and his life story in all that. Especially close to my heart since I had a great nephew die of an overdose a couple of years ago and another one (nephew) that may be dead any day because he thinks it will never happen to him. Kids are dying every day, all over this country...and I hope that his book does well and maybe even saves a life . You never know. It takes a lot of courage to recover from heroin addiction and even more to tell about it. and talent enough to write it. He has also done a play about it all and it played once and will be presented again at the local junior college at the end of the month. I can't wait to see it.
I am starting to get really excited about this years garden. Lots of work to be done out there before planting, but still--it's early for us. Thankfully we have such a long growing season. I have high hopes for a serious abundance of crops this year.
OK...I'm starting to feel drowsy...
Time to finish up the odds and ends and head for bed. Hopefully (except for one small errand) I will get to stay home all day tomorrow. I have 3 bd cakes in a row to bake this weekend Fri-Sat-Sun. I will bake them with love. One is a pineapple upside down cake. One is a cheesecake, And one is a coffeecake. Some kind of fun, huh ?? I have kinda been on the run this past couple of weeks and I am tired... time for some r&r...
Namaste
