feeling daffy

  

Daffodowndilly

She wore her yellow sun-bonnet,
She wore her greenest gown;
She turned to the south wind
And curtsied up and down.
She turned to the sunlight
And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbour:
"Winter is dead."

- by A.A. Milne, When We Were Very Young

 

 

Bits of found things

Our first daffodil of the year and a deer promptly trampled the poor little thing and bent the stem so it was left staring at ground rather than the sun. Happily I swooped in for the rescue and gave it a new home in living room where it gets lots of attention.

I heard this song on the radio yesterday afternoon as I sat parked outside the school waiting for the girls. "Me likey," I said to no one in particular and I wondered if it was Josh Ritter but the announcer didn't say. Found it online today and I was right — it's Josh, and I've been listening to it all day. Mighty fine tune.

I also found my favorite tea, Madagascar Vanilla Rooibos (red bush tea), after almost a year of looking. It was like the tea company quit making it for a while or maybe African red bushes had a year of terrible production. Who knows. But I was parched with thirst for it, living off the memory of that delicious brew . . . then I steering my cart around the Good Food Store and viola! there it was (and on sale no less). I snatched four boxes just to be safe, but now I'm thinking I should go back for a few more just in case it goes missing again. I started drinking it years ago when I was reading a lot of Alexander McCall Smith's The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books (his website - linked with his name here - is fun). I loved those books and the way Precious Ramotswe talked about her refreshing pots of red bush tea. All her yammering about it made me thirst to try it. So I did and I was hooked. It's naturally decaffeinated so you can drink it day and night, which I have pretty much been doing these last few days.

Just finished Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin and I really enjoyed it. I'd never read anything of hers before but I'm sure I'll read more now. Atwood's writing was lovely (and her vocab large, I grabbed a dictionary more than a few times). The story itself was very engaging. Hmmm, how would I describe it — part mystery, part tragedy, part romance, with a twist or two, and people and place I could vividly see in mind's eye. Yum, I do love a good book. 

Question: I'm looking for new linens for my bed. A summer quilt. Some pretty 100% cotton sheets. Shabby chicish, maybe white, maybe with tiny flowers. Anybody know of good online sources for bedding?

Happy midweek adventure to you all.

p.s.
Oh bother, I keep meaning to tell you that I've added a button so you can follow me on Bloglovin' now. I guess Google is eliminating their blog-following services in a few months. It's easy-peasy to set up an account with Bloglovin' and they even import all the blogs you were following with Google.

Purple Sun day

The crocus are
blooming

Squinting,
then unfurling
into the shy slant
of spring's pale
lemon sky.
Flocks of light blue
breezes migrating
from the south gently
mingle with warming
rays and I am
shivering from chill,
warmth, both at once.
My paper face
tilts, like purple crocus
to the western horizon.
Together,
flower and I, awaken
to the moment, fill
yawning lungs,
ready hearts with fragile
sunshine.


— Jenny Scheuch, 2013

Found: Happy Things

These are some of the hardest days for me. These weeks when, although the days are supposedly getting longer, I feel like the sun is never far enough over the horizon and my bones are in a constant state of chill. 
To combat the dark I am on a constant search for pinpricks of light — a sprig of green, a sunny song, a hopeful laugh.

Here's a little roundup of some things I recently discovered.

BOOKS ~ This site — bookcrossing.com — where you can send your books out into the universe and track their journey. A version of the elementary school "Flat Stanley" project . . . . for grown-ups! (Thanks to Danni of Silo Hill Farm for telling me about the site.)

TV ~ This list of feel-good documentaries from PBS.

SOMETHING PRETTY ~ This dress from Mod Cloth. I don't wear dresses often, but this one is divine. Maybe I should plan a fancy Valentine's day dinner and get this dress for the occasion? Except, dang, one of my words for the year is "simplify." Buying a semi-pointless dress doesn't really work into that plan.

READING ~ This book. I'd never read it and decided it was high time.

ART ~ This french artist's blog and artwork. And this one too. There are so many talented people in the world, aren't there? 

MUSIC ~ This documentary on Tom Petty. (Again with the talent.)

HOOKY ~ For all the crochet-crazed out there — this free baby bootie pattern. I think I know what I'll be working on next!

And finally POETRY. This poem:

Winter-Time
Robert Louis Stevenson (from A Child’s Garden of Verses, 1885)


Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;
Blinks but an hour or two; and then,
A blood-red orange, sets again.

Before the stars have left the skies,
At morning in the dark I rise;
And shivering in my nakedness,
By the cold candle, bathe and dress.

Close by the jolly fire I sit
To warm my frozen bones a bit;
Or with a reindeer-sled, explore
The colder countries round the door.

When to go out, my nurse doth wrap
Me in my comforter and cap;
The cold wind burns my face, and blows
Its frosty pepper up my nose.

Black are my steps on silver sod;
Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;
And tree and house, and hill and lake,
Are frosted like a wedding-cake.

Wishing you a happy week. 

Oh - and don't forget to put your name in for a book drawing. I'll pick names on Wednesday (see previous post).

Sunflower

Goodmorning!

Happy music (click here) to accompany this photo I took the other day at Benson's Farm: "Sunflower" by Alice Peacock, from the "Because of Winn Dixie" soundtrack.

If you have little people in your life and you want to snuggle up on the couch and watch a sweet movie then "Because of Winn Dixie" is a fine choice. We still watch it once a year or so, just to be reminded . . .

Unexpected Visitor: Jack Frost

Criminy! I didn't pay attention to the weather guy and the temperature dipped below freezing last night, leaving a thin layer of frost on our corner of the world. My poor unexpecting tomatoes! Fortunately I harvested lots of cherry tomatoes earlier this week, but the larger ones (and there are lots of them!) were all still green, so I left them to keep on sucking up the sunshine. *large sigh* This gardening thing is not really a strong skill of mine.

The chilly air reminded me that I have been a little lazy about working on Emma's blanket. I started it early last spring but as the days warmed the urgency waned and I've all but ignored it now for the last two months. Time to get busy so my gal can snuggle up before the snow flies.

Kate is feeling much better and is putting in a full day of school today. Her neck is still a bit stiff but things improve daily. I told her no jumping on the trampoline for a while.

Tomorrow she and some of her friends are joining the middle school show choir ~ go Glee! Don't Stop Believin'! 


p.s. A couple business items: I've added a button on the right so you can "Join this site" and get updates through Google. Also, if you go to my Facebook page you can 'like' Audrey Finch there and I update my status whenever a new blog post uploads. 

As always, thanks for reading. 

Cattails & Chrysanthemum Tea

Iced Chrysanthemum Tea
(for sipping on a warm September afternoon)

• Bring one cup of water to a boil.
• Add one tablespoon of dried chrysanthemum flowers. 
• Simmer for 2-5 minutes (the longer it simmers, the strong the flavor and color). Add sugar or honey to taste (optional) and stir to dissolve. 
• Remove from heat, strain, and serve chilled. 

“September: it was the most beautiful of words, he’d always felt, evoking orange-flowers, swallows, and regret.” 

               - Alexander Theroux

 

My Hollyhocks

I never intended this blog to be some sort of catalog of all my encounters with flowers but somehow I seem to end up posting lots of flower pix. Hope you don't mind. Soon enough it will be Autumn and I'm sure I'll move on to other gifts of nature – fallen leaves, bare tree branches, endless mounds of snow. But for now I present hollyhocks, in whites, reds, and purplish-pinks.

Yards are hard

I had all sorts of summer plans for my yard this year. I was going to add on to my smallish garden by installing two or more large veggie beds and planting a huge row of raspberries. I also hoped to tidy some of the existing flower beds, expand the bed that runs along the road and pull some overgrown annoying evergreens from around the porch. Then life happened. It got hot. I felt more lazy than I anticipated. Then the dog ate most of my garden. Then it was August. Too late. Too dry. Too boring. I've moved on to other things like readying myself for Fall (whatever the heck that means). So, the yard has suffered another summer and slowly things will fade and fall, retreat into the earth, and prepare for the cold and long dark nights. Then some long evening in January I will start thinking about seeds and green sprouted things and the cycle will begin again.

Meanwhile I have a few bits of success and color to note – so much oregano I might have to start exporting to Italy, a few late-blooming flowers, a crazy tangle of promising tomato plants, and a lot of neglected cilantro that's gone to seed (which I think means I can pick off those little ball things and call it coriander? Is that right? Does anyone know?).

August and Everything After

August? Already? My how the days fly by. The months speed past. The years evaporate into thin air. (The cliches spew from my fingertips.)

This month I will:

~ Celebrate my daughter's 14th birthday

~ Enjoy a day at the Western Montana Fair

~ Make a trip to Spokane, Washington for a soccer tourney

~ Do some Back-to-School shopping with the kiddos

~ Spend at least one more weekend at the cabin

~ Hopefully harvest some tomatoes from my shabby garden

~ Put my girls on the school bus and send them both off to Middle School (boo hoo, they just keep growing, don't they!)

~ Start thinking about Fall stuff like homework, packing lunches, jeans, flocks of geese, making soups, picking apples, college football and things involving pumpkins. *sigh* I love Fall.

Very Bad Dog

Tule is in big trouble and my "alreadyabitpathetic" garden now looks like a pile of dirt. 

I went out to water the garden boxes this afternoon to find she had somehow opened the gate (okay, it was probably left unlatched, but still...) and was busy helping herself to a berry and herb salad. She consumed every single one of my lovely strawberry plants! My first strawberry patch, gone – and just yesterday I'd been admiring the delicate little white blooms and tiny pink berries forming. And when I say she consumed them I mean she ate every single leaf, stem, bud, root (yes, not a root to be seen!). There was one lone sprig left in the dirt.

Plus she snacked on my thyme, basil and rosemary, leaving a mess of tattered roots. Apparently she's not a fan of cilantro, as those plants were standing in perky pristine condition. 

Grrrrr. Dogs. Hmmmpf.

So much for my small move towards sustainability. (I love it when I try to kid myself that growing a few veggies makes me part of the sustainability movement.) 

Simple Goodness

Ahhh. Smell those lilacs. There's nothing like them, is there? 

When I was in first grade I lived in Utah. The walk to school took me down a gravel road lined with huge purple lilac bushes. Even now, 30-something years later, that fragrance takes me right back to childhood and that road. I had a bob haircut, wore dresses and had a metal lunch box shaped like a school bus with Disney characters peeking out of all the windows. Isn't it funny how a smell can transport you through time? 

~

My garden is not great this year. Actually it's never that great. I always start off with gusto and then life gets in the way and the next thing I know it's the end of June and I haven't planted half of it yet and I keep forgetting to water stuff. But I do have a nice batch of different herbs going right now. Two kinds of basil, some cilantro, rosemary, and a TON of oregano. I'm rather pleased with myself when I make a meal and add some of my very own fresh herbs. Yay me!

~

Oh, look at this. I just found a photo of my exact lunch box. So sweet. I hated those old thermoses though – they always leaked milk all over the inside of your lunch box. So nasty.

New Color, Same Old Life

Lots of new flowers in the yard this week, which is happy. I'm especially glad to FINALLY have blossoms on my Lilac. It's a dwarf variety (Miss Kim) and seems to bloom about 2-3 weeks behind the larger varieties. There's nothing like the smell of Lilacs to lift my spirits. 

It's been a long few days. Some tense dealings with a few people have left me in a funk. I just hate conflict, so when it squirms its pesky way in to my life I get very anxious and overwhelmed. And just when I thought things were looking up the rain came back and soaked everything in a dreary light. I'm done with rain now. I really need sun, and lots of it or I fear I may mold. Plus the kids are feeling a little lumpy as well, doing lots of sighing and prone to turn on the TV if I don't keep my eye on them. I thought we might hit the theaters for a movie this afternoon but there's just nothing worth seeing out right now. So, now it's close to dinner time and I'm at a loss as to what to cook, which is always a very discouraging feeling. A few overripe bananas are staring at me from the fruit bowl so I'm thinking about Banana Pancakes. Emma isn't a fan of breakfast foods for dinner, but hey – you can't please everyone all the time. right? 

Sun in Montana & Monet in New York

The sun has returned and we are all busy as bees this week, the closing week of school for Emma & Kate. There are Track & Field Days and Rootbeer Float Parties, Field Trips, yearbook signings, and stacks of papers coming home in their backpacks each day. Whew! I'm struggling to keep in step with it all.

This morning Kate forget a bag of popcorn she wanted to take to school for "Movie Morning." She called home tearful, begging for me to bring it and I told her I'd try but I was trying to get a little work done for a client this morning. But after hanging up I decided to be a good mom and I raced out to the school, corn in tow.

The school is bustling and there's a hum of excitement – just one day until Summer Vacation! You can feel the electricity in the air. All that pent up childhood energy, forced into desks for nine months is about to bust into the warm air and grassy hillsides.

I was glad I had my camera with me. I stopped to snap a few pics of the school and the views that the children enjoy as they swing and run on the playground. They don't know how lucky they are to have views like this every day.

It's a beautiful time of year in Montana. The green of the low areas screaming Summer while the mountains are still just coming into Spring. When it rains in the valley, the evergreens in the mountains receive fresh blankets of light, Spring snow. The contrast is breathtaking.

As I drove home I heard a bit on NPR about a new exhibit at the New York Botanical Gardens. They have recreated Monet's horticultural work for an exhibit that includes photographs, videos, rare documents and two of the impressionist's paintings. The exhibit is meant to show visitors how Monet's love of gardening served as a huge inspiration for his work as an artist. 

You enter by stepping through a facade of Monet's house, with its salmon walls and green shutters, and out into a long corridor of flowers. All of the flowers, more than 150 species, will change as the exhibit runs through three seasons, now through late October. They've all been grown from seed by the conservatory's gardening team. 

You can read about it and see photos from the exhibit here. (Whoa - those delphiniums and the water lilies, and little old man Monet - adorable - painting on those really large canvases!)

Doesn't that sound DREAMY! I so wish I could see this in person (if not the real place in Giverny, France). *big sigh*

Flower Power

I took a trip to the nursery to pick up some annuals and more veggie starts for the garden. I was so glad to have my camera along because I knew all of you would love to see these pretty blossoms. Aren't the pink dahlias amazing?! And those little pink things in the top pic too – I can't remember what they're called, but they are such a bright pink. I've never seen the yellow flower before. Anyone know what it's called?

This is now the safe time to plant outdoors here, so I was hoping to get lots of stuff in the ground this weekend. Sadly, the weather was a bit damp for my style. I'm a fair-weather gardener. So my new plants are still awaiting their transplantings. Tomorrow sounds like a perfect day though so I'm hoping to some planting done in between edits on a design project I'm working on.

I did manage to bring a little color indoors when I found this broom at Pier One. Isn't it cheerful! I'm hoping it will make my kitchen sweeping chore a little more pleasant. I'll let you know.

TGIF! 3 Thoughts & a Poem

Thoughts today:

1. Check out the  pic of the bleeding hearts. Aren't they so amazing! So intricate and so pink! Although I feel a little disturbed that their name is "bleeding hearts." I understand why I just don't enjoy saying "bleeding hearts." It kind of gives me the willies. And it definitely reminds me that I would make a terrible surgeon. When Emma was two-years-old she fell against the coffee table and cut her gums. There was a LOT of blood, but she was ultimately okay. I was . . . I'll be honest here . . . I was HYSTERICAL. In the end she had stopped crying and was consoling me! "It's okay Mommy. See I'm fine. Calm down." No one wants a doctor who's more alarmed by your bleeding gashes than you are.

2. Aren't Tule and Izzy so cute out in the yard together. Izzy really wants to help chew on this stick, but she's too shy to ask. Tu's hoping Izzy will make a grab for it so she can start a big game of "chase."

3. It's a beautiful day outside and the sun is supposed to shine all weekend in Coeur d'Alene too. The lake will be a deep blue vision of beauty and boats. I will post photos so you can enjoy the view too.

With that said. I'd better go pack the bags and load the car. I'll leave you with a poem I wrote and wishes for a happy Mother's Day to my mom and all the mothers out there. It's the best thing ever – being a mom – isn't it? 

               ~

The Coming of Spring

A charming breeze delivered the bees

And a handful of wrens at my door

The afternoon sun made the creek waters run

And the crocus turn purple ‘til four

The brown hills did gleam with fistfuls of green

Uncoiling from Earth’s warming core

And in the dimmest half-light, a meadowlark’s flight

Whispers promises there will be more

copyright 2012 Jenny Scheuch