Mixed Metaphors/Singular Delight

Visits to the gardens still include coats and sweaters, for this has been a chilly Spring. It hasn’t seemed to stop the march of the blooming things, though, for we’ve been through the regular yellow-season, pink-season, blue season down my paths …… the yellow being the forsythia and daffodils, the pink: the crabapples, flowering cherries, tulips and tree peonies, and the blue that is now upon us with the iris, allium, columbine, dames rocket, and – okay, the pink rhododendron.

I often wonder how others like to live with their flowers. Do they leave them all in the garden? Do they swipe some for the breakfast or the dining-room table? I only know what I do, and I thought I’d share my behavior…..just because.

There are certain spots in the house that we predictably settle in, and a bloom or two just tends to surprise and please us there. Sweet woodruff always seems to appear beside where Dave shaves every morning: it just fits. And a couple of stalks of iris stuck in a kensan (pinholder) bring living, changing sculpture to the table each morning. I’m sitting at the computer at one end of the livingroom, watching a mama feed her newly fledged baby on the back of one of the patio chairs, and a little vase of wild daisies jiggles as I pound on the keyboard…who know I was so heavy-handed?!?

The birds are flowers in my garden too. Along with the cardinals, blue jays, bluebirds, and goldfinch in their mating finery, I’m reveling in seeing rose-breasted grosbeaks this year too. And the Downy and Red-bellied woodpeckers dart in and out like basting-stitches in a scene that also includes wrens, sparrows, grackles, chickadees, nuthatches, titmice, catbirds, cowbirds, finches…… No wonder I’m birdseed-poor! Ah, but one reassuring coo from the mourning dove reminds me that it’s what I like best to hear around home. Soon, this morning, the crows will announce the arrival of the local hawk, and all the assembly of songbirds will retire into the holly and evergreens for a bit. The pattern holds as a satisfying symphony of movement, and I must remember not to clap in between each segment.

Down the back slope, a fish jumps in the creek but doesn’t seem to startle the egret on our downed tree in the water. She turns this way and that to find the perfect size snack for her taste.

This moment suits my taste just fine. Nice.