Greenery is spilling all over everything. Flowers are popping out and I will soon have hundreds of peonies. There are twenty-six peony plants, all bursting at the seams with buds; a few early bloomers are among them.
Everything is dripping wet from a steady rain yesterday and into the night. We've had very little sun for many days, even weeks. My gardens love it but surely they too must be wanting a little sunshine and blue skies. Ah well, who am I to say? Nature knows better than I.
Very early this morning, while walking around with Buddy, I realized several more irises had bloomed down in the hollow and they needed their picture taken. I was more than happy to oblige. Deer had walked through and left a few with heads bowed.
What got me walking further through the tall wet grass was this beauty who was attempting to steal the spotlight. Her bright buttery color called out to me. Yes, she is something, but I have to say, the quiet demeanor of the smaller irises are more appealing to me.
Buddy found some little lavender flowers that look very much like orchids on the bushes around the old greenhouse and he decided they looked good enough to eat. To Buddy, everything looks good enough to eat.
The rain continues. Life in my tree house feels really good. I sense the world expanding despite the jungle green closeness, expanding in ways I don't fully understand yet, but I will. All in good time.
"We are born to love as we are born to die, and between the heartbeats of these two great mysteries lies all the tangled undergrowth of our tiny lives. There is nowhere to go but through. And so we walk on, lost, and lost again, in the mapless wilderness of love."
~ Tim Farrington, from The Monk Downstairs
The photographs are mine.
Girl...your pictures of your yard and flowers are simply beautiful! What a joy... Can you imagine all this going on and someone living there who didn't appreciate it?
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the walk through your lovely gardens. Your rock garden is beautiful. Very lush. I've been enjoying the rain. The heat not as much, although today it's cooled a bit. The heat seems to make every plant flower out, and then the blooms are spent. Everything popped at once here...and now there is only green. All because of a few 95 degree days...but like you say...Mother Nature knows best. she has taught me to appreciate the green a lot more...and take note of the different leaf shapes. It seems much more calming after the colors disappear. I'm pretty grateful for whatever wants to grow...ever since my ash tree was attacked by ash borer beetles and up and died...it was at least 35 feet tall...and to see it slowly die made me have a better appreciation for what was still green.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed seeing your garden.
Hello Teresa:
ReplyDeleteYou do seem to have had an enormous amount of rain, but how good your garden grows because of it. Peonies are amongst our favourite flowers and you will surely have a most glorious performance when they all come into flower.
As for tree houses, we love them!
Lynn, Thank you. The last few days have been powerful reminders of how beautiful this place is and for how much I have to be grateful.
ReplyDeleteKarena, I just mourn over the loss of trees, I can well imagine your own sense of loss.It sounds like it was a magnificent tree. I was especially noticing leaf shapes recently, as well. There's a great deal of variation when one takes the time to really See. The rock garden section in the photo is one-third of that rock garden. I have two. I like rock gardens.
Jane and Lance. It dos seem to be a bit of overkill on the rain. I hope it decides enough is enough soon. Yes, The peonies are wonderful. I now have a bouquet in the house.
There are some wonderful tree houses out there now, all very usable spaces. I hope to make my own house even more one with nature as time goes on.
A beautiful post. I, too, write with a view from a second story window in our small house. I can see nothing but trees, vegetable gardens, and mountains from this elevated location.
ReplyDeleteSwiss Family Robinson was my favorite movie as a boy. I went to see in on my ninth birthday (I think). I loved the adventure and the close family and often wished it could be true for me.
Bill, Thank you. It might well have been about the same time I saw it and I'm entranced still. Along with that wonderful tree house, I recall the ostrich racing clearly. The sense of adventure was sewn into the fabric of my being, as it seems to have been for you.
ReplyDeleteI loved walking with you the wet, green abundance of early summer at your place. I too am writing in a high place, looking out onto the top of a tall oak, watching the early morning sky change from pink to grey. I am envious of your peonies. It is too warm here to grow them. What a picture they will be.
ReplyDeleteHi Joan, I just came in from staking a few heavy blooms in the rain. I'm sort of liking working in it for short periods. Yes, they will be a sight. I will post pics soon.
ReplyDeleteHej Teresa. I love those photos of the wet nature. The yellow iris. Dear lovely peonies, oh, the memory of grandma's garden... (we call them Bonderoser = peasant roses) The scent of lavenders, and I see a glimpse of Buddy behind the lavenders...he's busy!
ReplyDeleteI love tree houses, and every year I rent a tree house in my holiday(most holiday houses by the beach are tree houses, and I enjoy every minute there. I would love to live in a tree house all the time.
Grethe ´)
I live in a "tree" house too.. kind of. It's above the ground enough that I look out into trees from almost every window.
ReplyDeleteSummer brings dryness and a stark landscape... beauty of a different kind. Although I miss the rain already, I enjoy the fragrance of heat. Your photos are lovely.
The quote is absolutely wonderful.
Thanks for a lovely post.
Yep, it's beautiful all right. I didn't realize that Minnesota is also getting the West Coast cool and wet spring. Hopefully soon now, the sun will be so bright, with everything so lush, we'll think back to these days with nostalgia...
ReplyDeleteHi Grethe! Yes, my grandmother had some lovely gardens, too. I especially recall the sweet faces of the pansies.
ReplyDeleteBuddy has decided he's a goat - everything is edible!
A tree house by the beach sounds absolutely enchanting. Yes, I could live in one all the time, too. Wouldn't that be magical fun?
farmlady, Your tree house sounds like my tree house. I've liked that quote for a long time and now the time was right.
ReplyDeleteDJan, A friend who now lives in the desert SW reminded me this morning that June can often be like this. odd how we forget from year to year. I trust July will come out swingin'.
Ah yes, no where to go but through.
ReplyDeleteTeresa, you live in a beautiful area and have such a great piece of the earth. Buddy and you have such fun it seems. Deer also abound. A tree house is a good thing. I had one when a boy. It was more of a platform high in the oak tree, but it was mine. I love your photos.
ReplyDeleteso beautiful and green - we're far past that now in California where things are drying brittle and brown - and quickly. Oh, I love the green you're having, even though we had it much earlier. I wish there was a perfectly green and lush place all year long... hmm maybe that's coastal oregon. ?? Thanks for the breath of moisture.
ReplyDeleteThis is the one thing I have learned from peonies: you have to seize each day and each moment and pluck it right up and enjoy it because life, like a peony, is fragile. I've learned this because right after a peony blossoms, it will surely rain. Not a soft gentle rain, but a downpour and the poor blossom will sag for the weight of the drops. So, now, when the peonies open I make a bouquet to bring inside!
ReplyDeleteYour pictures are beautiful, Teresa, and your walkabout lovely. We are just a few weeks ahead of you and so I get to live it all over again. I really appreciate your quote as well. Enjoy.
LINDA, Yes. Exactly so.
ReplyDeleteJACK, Thank you. It is a beautiful place. A lot of work sometimes, but it's what I chose and is before me, so.... Buddy is a good companion. Right now, I'm looking forward to getting through the chewing stage, and the recalcitrant adolescent stage. Like that. He's a sweet boy.
My tree house was a platform in a white pine. It spoke. I listened. I can just imagine us, each in our tree houses, looking out at the world.
Neighbor, I love the lushness, but I could use some sun right about now. A couple of days from now we might see some sun. We shall see.... It is laden with moisture, that's for sure. And you're welcome.
Penny, You're so right. I've picked one bouquet and will again tomorrow. A few early bloomers are already sagging despite the wire "cages." Many escape its confines. Glad you enjoyed the early morning walk. It's nice to be out there with all the birdsong, too.
ReplyDeleteThe natural bounty of summer is wonderful to see, and I can imagine how it would look, viewed from a tree house. Beautiful photos, especially the magnificent rock garden!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Montucky, I am very grateful for the lushness. It goes all too soon. I like rock gardens; the distinction between the plants and rocks is interesting and easier to weed! :)
ReplyDeleteVery nice, the rock garden a favorite. I built a few treehouses, they were always going to be more than what came about.Tarzan was my first inspiration.
ReplyDeleteSteve, OOTP
In an old treehouse
ReplyDeleteI once lived until the squirrels
Took over, I left.
Steve, All my forts, including tree houses, were never quite what I imagined. Perhaps that was part of the fun, the eternal planning.
ReplyDeletePaul, That's squirrels for ya.
What a lovely quote by Tim Farrington. First time for me. Your photos are so beautiful; I gazed at each one for a long time.
ReplyDeletegigi, I'm glad you like that quote, too, and thank you for the kind words about my photos.
ReplyDeleteLove that rock garden. And wish that we had another tree house here at the new place. B built one for the twins when they were young and it was so much fun for them. Maybe I can talk him into building one here for the two granddaughters now. They would enjoy it eventually.
ReplyDeleteWhat a glorious season when all nature is bursting to strut it's stuff. That yellow iris is stunning. Buddy has good taste. Ha. Cody took a nap in the poppies. Maybe she got high. :) But they are all broken down.
ReplyDeleteYour view from the tree house is inviting.
Manzanita@Wannabuyaduck
One wonders about plumbing in a treehouse Teresa ... :-)
ReplyDeleteTeri, Or, talk him into building one for You. :) although you do have a very nice tree house style view from your own writing space.
ReplyDeleteManzi, The old nap in the poppies... perhaps he dreamed of Oz, the place where dreams come true! :)
Paul, Every problem has a solution....
Thank you for sharing the beautiful pictures of your gorgeous woods.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Ms. Sparrow, for stopping by my woods. It's always nice to "see" you.
ReplyDelete