Renewal
Although much of the U S is still in the grip of winter, we are less than a month from the official beginning of Spring. As remembrance mentioned in yesterday's KTK, we here in coastal California are experiencing the change of seasons unusually early. This is not necessarily a good thing because at this time of year we should be experiencing cold winter storms and many inches of rain. But you go with what you got, and especially as a gardener I have been noticing the renewal provided by nature as in a normal Spring.
A number of weeks ago I photographed my brussel sprout bed which had been devastated by birds.
Hoping for the best, I covered the bed with a hardware cloth screen and, low and behold, the plants renewed and restored themselves and it looks as though I'll get brussel sprouts after all.
Buds have started breaking on my newly planted (3 years) dwarf nectarine.
The Santa Rosa plum is in full blossom. Way early but in this case the lack of rain is a blessing. It is full of bees furiously pollinating which ensures a good crop this year.
This rosemary was planted from a 4 inch pot when we moved here. Now it's 15 feet by 15 feet and blossoming furiously. It, too, is covered with bees. Note the new burn pile in the background, all from last week's storms.
It is cooler on my hill than at sea level so things are later here. We finally got bud break on the grapes.
A lovely peony about ready to burst. When we sold flowers at the San Francisco market (now the Ferry Plaza) one woman used to get there very early for the peonies. When we'd ask her how many she always said "all of them."
My favorite poet is e e cummings, and so many of his poems reflect upon Spring. This is what I think of this early in the season, when Spring is appearing in the anticipated and barely manifested future.
Spring is like a perhaps hand
E. E. Cummings, 1894 - 1962
Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and
changing everything carefully
spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there)and
without breaking anything.
Copyright 1923, 1925, 1951, 1953, © 1991 by the Trustees for the E. E. Cummings Trust.
I don't mean to tease you folks for which Spring is only a promise. But the promise is there, and it will come. Look around and you will see it.
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