Thursday, May 11, 2017

“Nothing is more wistful than the scent of lilac, nor more robust than its woody stalk, for we must remember that it is a tree as well as a flower, we must try not to forget this.”

~ Stevie Smith

The sun is shining and it’s calm–a beautiful spring morning. It’s hard to believe we’re under a weather alert for thunderstorms and heavy rain.

When we lived in Washington the weather prognosticators predicted when the rain would start in our area to the minute–and they were usually right. Here, weather forecasting seems hit or miss most of the time. Maybe the weather patterns are more unpredictable or maybe they have less sophisticated equipment. I don’t know.

I’m itching to put my tomato and pepper plants in the ground but am holding off a while longer, continuing to tote them outside in the morning, inside at night, and watching for excessive wind during the day so I can move them to a sheltered area.

We’re feasting on spinach from the garden–so sweet after a long winter without fresh greens. (I choose not to purchase things out of season if at all possible so we’ve been salad-starved since late last year.) There’s lots of green in the form of peas, radishes, turnip, kale, Swiss chard, lettuce, and garlic in  my garden plot.

Predictably, as I plan and plant, I find myself wishing I had more room and thinking about that little farm in Saskatchewan that we came so close to purchasing a few years ago, the one I called Manderly.

Meanwhile, magic is happening with the lone lilac bush in our back yard and the blossoms are finally starting to pop. Perfect.