Saturday, May 5th, at home
May 5, 2012
By Julie Kay Smithson propertyrights@earthlink.net
May 22, 2008. Lovely & fragrant iris!
Wow!!! Just saw two male Baltimore Orioles! Hadn't seen one since I was a youngster in the late 1950s, but these two were unmistakable, & if there are 2 males, surely there are 2 females somewhere nearby! How beautiful these birds are, strikingly marked with orange, black, yellow & white! Ah!!! I looked at Google Images, & found some photos. This one is from MacGardens "A gardener's world from the hill on Ball Road ... About (from 2008): This blog is meant to capture my observations as an itinerant gardener on 7 acres of stony hillside in mid-Maryland (Frederick County to be precise). We have a mixture of fields, overgrown orchard, & natural forest which has grown up over the last 30 years. In addition we spend a fair amount of time tending to perennials around the yard & a 5000 sq.ft. vegetable garden. Retirement has given me time to photograph the surroundings & to observe the healthy bird population that visits our mulberry & cherry trees. I continue to be fascinated by the things which have always been here (apparently) & are newly observed (like the orchard orioles this past year) and the things which are harvests from many years in one place (like the large clumps of daffodils in the woods that were planted decades ago & then forgotten until recently). Both my wife Beth & our offspring share our passion for gardening & nature, & I'm sure that our new granddaughter will be another convert. I began this blog two years ago & then got sidetracked. I hope this time to follow through with some of the photos & discoveries that the new year will bring. For a gardener at least, every year is a new beginning!" http://macgardens.org/?page_id=30
C.B. "Sully" Sullenberger has asked, "What do you think makes a good leader?" Here is my response: My belief, carefully formed from 6 decades of living, is that the best "leaders" are those that give God the glory, those that are humble in their gifts/skills/talents, those that do not seek to 'get rich quick' from sharing their knowledge, those that do not hold wisdom hostage, & those who are keenly aware that much can be learned each & ev'ry day, i.e., they do not 'know it all.' Sully and/or friends, you are free to disagree, because either of us could be right ... or wrong ... or most likely, some of both!
Hmmm ... no one drove by to see the workings going on in the yard this afternoon, but the result is: OVDM (one very dirty me). However, much weeding has been done, 2 bales of compressed sphagnum peat moss incorporated into flower beds ... and yours truly grew to resemble the little fellow from the Peanuts comic strip who had the cloud of dirt encircling him! Ah, but Good Boy still loves me!!! Perks to working in the flower beds: birds serenade you, the feral cats leave the birds alone, the iris put forth their heady fragrances -- each distinctive, from the 'grape' iris that actually smell like purple grapes to the more delicate perfumes of the reddish bearded and the violet & gold bearded iris -- and the workout is done with the breezes of spring to keep the brow dry! There's nothing like such measured & deliberate cardiovascular exercise to bring an appreciation to flowers that can come no other way. Thank you, God, for giving me this love of the soil & the miracles You call on it to bring forth! What a blessing!
It is my prayer that you each had a wonderful day, one that brings you to your bed with the nicest kind of tired, and that you are given pause to consider the multitude of blessings all 'round. It is a humbling thing, but one that brings such serenity of the heart and soul. I missed Wiggles Blue Heeler today; Good Boy stayed inside and enjoyed the air conditioning -- but so admired them both, each a sweetheart in his own way. Wiggles would have lain beside me as I worked, or perhaps breathed in the fragrance of the flowers he so loved. Good Boy is not at that point in his life -- perhaps that is not a place he will know, but we still expect miracles! -- though he is glad to have me nearby, and to enjoy our times together in the same room. So, I love them both, and both have special places in my heart.
Wiggles Blue Heeler with Red Flag daylilies, July 8th, 2007.
