Spring’s stutter steps

A pair of hanging baskets with pansies, or something like, have been added to the front stoop. Their hanging height, and the ease with which they can be brought into the house, should protect them from any frosty nights. The planting pots won’t get plants until sometime next month. Plus, this afternoon we actually started the lawn mower. We didn’t mow anything (yet) but it’s reassuring that it works. Maybe we’ll use it to capture the leaves in the dog run. The dogs are reaching a point where they need some time outside, off lead, to blow off some steam. One or both of the owners could use something similar I suspect.

bergamot seed trays in sunshine

Photo by J. Harrington

The bergamot seed trays got to spend a couple of hours in the sunshine today, before the wind got strong enough that I brought them in before they got blown over. Some cells have germinated well. Others show no signs of life. I may have made a mess of planting (too deep) or the planting medium just hasn’t been warm enough for long enough. Time will tell and the experience is helping me learn to forego expectations and live in the present. Better late than never, right?

We’re approaching peak woodland wildflower season over the next eight to ten weeks. I hope the weather gets more cooperative. But seasons change in stutter steps and temperatures rise and fall; precipitation comes and goes. As Lao Tzu is report to have observed: 'Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.’ That’s a lesson we all could stand to relearn each year at this time.

The peace of wild things

by Wendell Berry

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the Night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the Peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

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