Tag: Garden

OCCASION OF CELEBRATION

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

As I posted in a poem back in April, spotting a hummingbird is an occasion of celebration. They’re so tiny and so fast you’re likely to dismiss one as a dragonfly or as some other large, speedy insect if you’re not paying attention. Sometimes you notice more the irregular angles of their zig-zag flight, the motions no other flyer can manage, rather than the bird itself, and then you start observing closely. And sometimes you just happen to look out when one’s hovering nearby, say at the blooming azalea in front of the bay window.

I hadn’t seen any this year until a few weeks ago, when I glimpsed out from our kitchen and noticed one working its way through our stand of burgundy-color bee balm. I called for my wife to come look, but by the time she came over, it had vanished behind the asparagus, and that was it. You have to be quick. And now those blossoms are gone by.

I’d also remarked that we hadn’t seen all that many goldfinches this summer. Sometimes we seem to have thousands, but these things can go in cycles, so I just figured it was an off year.

And then, late yesterday afternoon, I sat down in the far corner of our yard simply to enjoy a cold beer and regard our garden and house from that perspective. Since this is also the glorious time of year I consider high summer, what I viewed was a culmination of so much that had been building up. Everything was quite green and lush, of course, and the garden was punctuated by the red of tomatoes, the yellows of squashes and peppers, and the incredible purples of eggplants, even before I got to the flowers. As I settled in, after admitting to myself the grass needs to be mowed again, I realized this was dinner rush hour for the birds. Who knows why, but they do seem to eat in spurts, at least when it comes to populating our feeders. And here they were, far more than I could count (after all, they’re constantly flitting from one place to another). Not only that, but many of them were goldfinches, perhaps attracted by our sunflowers that have finally started blooming. Mourning doves landed in the grapevine and wild-rose covered branches of the black walnut tree before looping down to the ground under the main feeder, littered with birdseed as it is. Along the tree I could see just the gray flickers of squirrel tails as they raided the ripe nuts from the branches. In short, it was lovely. And the grass seemed to be just the right depth for many of the smaller birds to go grubbing.

That’s when I caught the distinctive flight of the hummingbird, which then did something I’d never before seen: it actually landed on one of those branches, where it quickly became a camouflaged bump on the distant limb. Soon there were two, and I don’t ever remember seeing two at once. (Well, maybe once in Maine, at a friends’ feeder outside their kitchen slider door?) Still, a first, as far as our yard and garden go.

Minutes later, I spotted one working its way through the zinnias about a dozen feet from me. How meticulously it hovering above a single flower and vacuumed each petal. Next thing I knew, it was gone and then one followed by a second came shooting inches past my head, even as I ducked instinctively. Well, that was the second … and third … time in my life I’ve had to dodge that bullet! They certainly seemed to having fun, as birds and bees are said to do.

It’s been said that meditation may have originated in the art of hunting. That is, in learning to sit very still for extended periods of time and just let the wildlife come to you, if you’re worthy. So I sat very still, the way I would in Quaker meeting for worship or in a half-lotus position on my meditation cushion. Over time, I saw at least four hummingbirds working their way around the yard, swooping from the trees to the Joe Pye weeds, the sunflowers, the zinnias and cosmos, and somewhere behind me, before landing repeatedly in the trees.

All of what was happening could be considered as an epiphany, those special moments when the Holy One appears or becomes manifest in an individual’s life. No, I’m not suggesting that the hummingbirds are divine or even angelic, but this was clearly a reminder of the times and ways we are blessed. You can’t just go looking for it and expect it to happen. You can only be receptive and grateful when it does. You also have to know what you’re seeing and be able to name it, knowing how rare and wonderful it is. Along with the simple pleasures of having everything momentarily perfect. Isn’t that a definition of miracle?

Soon, of course, the hummingbird sightings became fewer and fewer. The ones in the yard were probably already migrating from further north and bulking up for their long flight in a few weeks across the Gulf of Mexico. Their season here is nearly over. The finches, meanwhile, will be around longer before donning their gray traveling cloaks, as one friend says, and then heading south.

On our part, all this was soon followed by our own time for dinner with its fresh sweetcorn, tomatoes, and basil eaten al fresco in the golden rays of the setting sun.

What was I saying about an occasion of celebration? Indeed.

SMOKING GARDEN

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment
At night these strands twinkle.

I’ve mentioned the space we whimsically call the Smoking Garden – the funky patio, as it were, beside the barn.

It’s great for late afternoon and evening dining all summer, or parties ringed by Tiki torches, though it’s been a while.

Even so, here it is.

LION’S TOOTH SALAD

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Maybe it was simply a day of firsts.

As I was lunching al fresco for the first time this year, having savored our first asparagus of the season (which I’d sautéed with minced garlic leaf in olive oil and then fried two eggs atop the mixture), I realized I was still hungry. So glancing up, I noticed a sprout of dandelion, got up, plucked a leaf, brought it to the table, wiped it in some of the remaining egg yolk, and … it was good. It was very good. Somehow, the yolk overcame whatever bitterness I expected at the end of the bite.

So I harvested the remainder of that cluster (which also doubled as weeding, let’s be candid), went indoors to rinse it and fry another egg to serve with it, covered the resulting salad with salt and coarse-ground fresh pepper … and it was still good. Very good.

So for dinner, another round, this time with a fresh mustard vinaigrette my wife had just made … and it was still good. Very good.

Maybe I’m hooked. Yes, we’ve read some fine food writers who’ve extolled their pleasure in fresh dandelion every spring, before the leaves turn too bitter and too tough. Until now, though, our dandelions were treasured only by our pet rabbits.

Not anymore. Another first.

Now, to see how it works blanched. Or maybe as a spinach substitute, say in a Florentine-style dish.

Not that I have any intention of turning the Red Barn into a food blog. Oh, no. I know my limitations.

ALL HAIL THE DETERMINED GARDENER

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Although I do my share of the weeding and much of the spading, I’m not the gardener. My wife is the one who studies the varieties of plants, selects and orders, fusses and sows, evaluates soil and sunlight, while I’m more likely to mow, do the composting, construct the raised beds, and transport ferns, Quaker ladies, and ox-eye daisies from the wild. In recent years, our elder daughter has taken delight in getting seedlings started and transplanted, especially, as well as making jams from the fruit we harvest. (The younger one could care less.)

While my dad, mainly, raised vegetables and tomatoes behind the garage when I was growing up, and my mother fussed over flowers that generally failed, and despite my later experiences living on a hippie farm and then the ashram as well as my first wife’s efforts in Ohio, Indiana, and the fertile desert country of Washington state, my perspectives on gardening center on Rachel and her world. Everything before was simply preparation. Little did I suspect, when we set out to buy a house as part of our marriage, how much she was calculating garden opportunities; many of the urban New England properties, surprisingly, have little usable space for raising plants. Only after bidding successfully on the house we now inhabit did we learn that it included not just a small but manageable strip beside the driveway but a half-lot on the other side of the house, as well – the side we’ve come to call the swamp.

But that’s the beginning of another story.

EPHEMERALS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Much of the delight in life comes as surprises, especially when you’re paying attention. Moreover, they’re often of a very short time, a fleeting breath. Even when you’re anticipating an event, a certain unpredictability remains. You might be watching the sinking sun along with a bank of clouds, for instance, but a slight shift in conditions can spell the difference between a spectacular sunset and a dull glow in a woolly pile. And that glorious sunset, when it arises, changes second by second before dimming within five minutes.

The same can be said of family life or even a party or artistic endeavor. Much of the time, though, we’re too engaged in other matters to revel in the brief thrills. We need a bit of openness — what some call margins — in our daily activities to allow for such curiosity and wonder.

After the long, slow months of winter where I live, signs of quickening are appearing. In the early morning, the male cardinals, who have been singing defiantly from mid-January, now erupt with an insistent joyfulness, inciting other birds to join in, with hints of what’s just ahead. I haven’t been out in the woods after dusk, but any day now, the peepers will begin their sparkling chorus in their vernal ponds — the pools that will shrink to nothing by midsummer.

In our own yard, the first of the spring ephemerals (how I love that word, as well as the phrase “vernal pond” — they’re such fun on the tongue!) are now blooming, however timidly, even though most of the yard’s still covered in six inches of snow or more. (And rapidly melting.) I could present a checklist of what I expect will follow, but there are no promises — winter takes its toll, after all.

For me, this has been the first winter in a long, long time in which I can admit to suffering cabin fever. I’d have to go back to my “sabbatical” of writing more than a quarter century ago, or the ashram a decade-and-a-half before that, to find a stretch in which I didn’t have the demands of an office away from home weighing upon me. That is, requiring me to leave the house daily for hours on end. Admittedly, this winter hasn’t been completely job-free: November and December were still quite busy on that front. But the New Year turned toward retirement and new focus. What I’m experiencing is not boredom — far from it. I’ve had a full plate of writing and reading, for one thing, and I’ve enjoyed more evening and weekend social activities than I’d been able to attend in, well, it seems like forever. Rather, this strain of cabin fever feels like a time of recharging, getting ready to burst forth with the warming weather, in any number of surprising ways, if I’m lucky. So you see, this affliction is actually a kind of luxury. For now.