Happy Valentines Day

Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered

by imagination.

                                                                  ~ Voltaire

Pink Roses or Undies?

"Flowers really do intoxicate me." ~Vita Sackville-West

When money is tight, which is too often the case, tough decisions must be made. Like any red-blooded lady I love lingerie…pretty, lacy, satiny or utilitarian white cotton, when what lies beneath is new I’m giddy. Sure, I love the sweet confections Victoria Secret displays. Nothing says girlie like sheer pastel panties edged in frothy lace. Who doesn’t want a matching bra with just a touch of push ‘em up function? However, if I have to choose between new undies or roses, I’ll choose roses.

"Flowers are the sweetest thing God ever made and forgot to put a soul in." 

                                                                             ~Harriet Beecher Stowe

Over the years I’ve heard all the reasons why I should not spend money on fresh flowers. Flowers are a waste of money…They’re going to die in a few days…Flowers are frivolous and self-indulgent. If I can’t eat a plant, I don’t grow it or buy it. I wince every time I hear one of these joyless reasons why I should not sprinkle my life with flowers. Ok…point taken, but not entirely understood and I’m not planning to take any of these reasons to heart in the near future and probably not ever.

 “A flowerless room is a soulless room, to my way of thinking; but even a solitary little vase of a living flower may redeem it.” ~Vita Sackville-West

To counterpoint reasons offered I suggest a small experiment. Anyone who feels flowers on the table or desk where you spend your day are not worth the money, take a crowbar and pry open your purse for one small bouquet of flowers or even a single stem. Place the flowers where you can see them and enjoy them all day. Take them home with you in the evening so you can continue to observe the beauty. Did your spirits lift each time you noticed the colors? Did you wrinkle your nose with pleasure each time a breeze from unknown sources stirred the air, swirling fragrance about you? After a few days, tell me if you didn’t find even a shred of joy in that single rose.

“The Amen! Of nature is always a flower.” ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

It’s that shred of joy that awakens my spirit and causes a sigh that makes purchasing fresh flowers worthwhile. I wonder why fresh flowers are so important to one and not another. I wonder what gene pulsates through my body making something so beautiful, so ephemeral so important to me. Each time I walk past a bouquet of flowers I stop for a moment and I feel blessed to be in the presence of such splendor. I am overwhelmed by the miracle of such perfect imperfections of nature. Something stirs in my soul and I know without flowers that a little piece of my heart would die and fall into oblivion.

A profusion of pink roses bending ragged in the rain speaks to me of all gentleness and its enduring.”

~William Carlos Williams

I have no answers as to the why’s and perhaps it’s a waste of time to question, so I’ll continue to live as I always have under the mantra…I’d rather buy one single pink rose than a dozen pairs of pink silk undies.

"You love roses - so do I.  I wish the sky would rain down roses, as they rain from the shaken bush.  Why will it not?  Then all the valley would be pink and white and soft to tread on.  They would fall as light as feathers, smelling sweet, and it would be like sleeping and like walking all at once!"

~ George Eliot

Snow Dog Afternoon

It’s snowing!!!   Can you believe it??? SNOW!!! Yes I’m so excited that it’s snowing and…wait for it…blowing, that I can barely contain my excitement!” she said while raising her fist toward snowflakes racing the wind outside the window. Then she swore, “As God is my witness, they’re (snow and wind) not going to lick me (unless I venture outdoors, in which case, the wind won’t lick, but it will bite and the snow will definitely make me wet…kind of like a lick). I’m going to live through this and when it’s over, I’ll never be cold again (HA! Who are you kidding that pesky ground hog all ready told you….6 more weeks of winter!) Ok so I took a few liberties paraphrasing Scarlet from Gone with the Wind, but I don’t think she minds, although I did make the weather sound like a dog with all that biting and licking, but these are sure not the dog days of summer and I don’t think I can see the dog star sailing up there beyond the gray clouds. I think I’ll just call this…Snow Dog Afternoon or how about The Dogs of Winter?

Yes, I’m sure you can feel my passionate excitement for the white stuff that piles up and the wind that’s intent on stacking it up making it hard to get out of the drive. I’m surprised someone hasn’t come out with an exercise DVD that incorporates walking and running through snow, dancercizing to Baby, It’s Cold Outside, and shoveling to strengthen all those flagging body parts that grew weak from sitting by a window watching it snow.

Sooo…it’s snowing in nw Ohio. I have plenty of things to do around here, but I’d sure like to be on a warm beach somewhere…soaking up the sun, digging my toes into a white sandy beach, sipping on an umbrella-decorated cocktail served by a Johnny Depp look-alike in Mad Hatter garb. (I just love Alice in Wonderland…don’t you?) Instead, I’ll go back doing what I was doing before I started writing this post…staring out the window at the snow while my hand turns the pages of the White Flower Farm perennial catalog.

All the photos today were taken by me at places like Craigville Beach and Provincetown on Cape Cod.  Sure looks inviting on a day like today.   

So what do you dream when the snow flies? 

Seeing Red

The color red fits into February like a Valentine fits into an envelope. Red flowers, red hearts, and today is the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women celebration. It’s a day to raise awareness of heart disease in women.

I'm wearing a warm, red turtleneck for Women Wear Red day and The Cottage on the Corner gives a nod to the day by sporting photos of all things red from tucked-away files.

Looking out the window on a cold winter morn...I discover the sun rising red and reach into memories of...

Red flowers seen while on a walk with a little boy's hand in mine

 

And oh what red flowers the summer did bring...

Lilies of all kinds...

The Queen of the garden... roses robed in red

Tight buds ready to unfurl in brilliant red...

Tears from the heavens shimmering on roses of red...

Dahlias dancing in red

And the trees...glorious dressed in shades of red

Reaching for red in the vegetable garden...

Red, hot  chili peppers...

Trees heavy with apples ripe for the pickin'...

It's a spectacular end to the day when the sun sets red

 

"We  never know how high we are till we are called to rise. 

Then if we are true to form our statures touch the sky."

~Emily Dickinson

Rosemary and Me

It started many years ago; I spied her sitting shyly in the corner at a garden shop in Shipshewana. She stood with limbs reaching out to me, begging me to give her a home. I picked up the plastic pot and placed it in a flat with other herbs and flowers. Together we drove back home with me breathing in her scent as the car whizzed passed farms and fields.

I gave her a home in a new pot, a fine terra cotta one, large enough for her to stretch and put down roots. I fed and sheltered her and she responded by growing and growing. Like the tree in Shel Silverstein’s book, The Giving Tree, Rosemary kept giving me fragrant sprigs for soups, stews, and grilling. I could almost see her quiver with joy as I snipped a tip here and there. She’d often produce new sprigs and I’d smile.

Fall came in all its vibrancy and frosted mornings. Rosemary stood chilled in her home in the middle of the old wagon wheel herb garden. I brought her in to warm her, but it was too late. My ignorance and the chill of autumn brought about her demise. That winter, I was without Rosemary.

Spring dawns anew and back I went to my favorite shop and found a more grown-up Rosemary enticing me with her piney fragrance. She flourished inside a huge terra cotta pot, anxious to fill the curved bottom. Again, the always-giving Rosemary showered me with sprigs for the kitchen, sprigs for bouquets, and filling my world with the remembrance of all things green and growing. Before leaves turned red, gold, and orange, Rosemary relocated inside the shop. She had grown to massive proportions during the summer and looked like a shrub perched on a large pot.

One day in December, gentle Rosemary gave up her long, needled stems to me. I gathered the bouquet in my hand tying a pink satin ribbon around the stems. I grasped the Rosemary bouquet tightly in my hand as I listened to the soothing words that told of quilts made, children loved, and a husband left behind to carry on. My daughter tenderly placed the beribboned rosemary bouquet next to my mom as I whispered a final good-bye. Rosemary, the herb of rembrance, was my mother’s favorite herb.

Throughout the years, Rosemary took the form of standards, triangular trees reminiscent of Christmas, and potted plants of all sizes. Until life took a turn and Rosemary was relegated to the dusty cobwebs of a former life.

The spring of 2009, I brought home Rosemary, once again. She grew outside all summer, content in her new clay pot. She grew taller and more beautiful. Fall came and it was time to bring in my darling of the plant world. At first, she dropped her needles, missing the sunshine that warmed her from the tips of her roots to the end of the top most tip. The memories of summer kept her fighting, reaching for the light, until one day there it was…new growth on the tip-toppiest sprig. Rosemary cradles babies up and down her branches, delicate green promises growing in the winter sun that shines through the window. And the lady was happy.