Spring has been slow in starting this year in Northern Illinois. It has been quite cold these last several weeks, and a few days ago, we even had a little snow.
But, today, at last, we are having a warm, sunny and beautiful day, and the weather forecast looks like it will be relatively nice all week. I was finally able to do a little work in the garden this afternoon.
But despite the difficult weather, the show must go on, and the early spring flowers and plants have been doing their job in the first act of the yearly performance.
The crocuses dutifully announced it was Spring, and they were quickly followed by the daffodils.
But it looks like she has survived the winter and is starting to come back to life.
My aunt bought another rose for the other side of the front yard, but she does not look like much either yet. She is starting to come to life as well though.
However, the miniature rose that my grandmother left behind is starting to take off.
It looks like we will have rhubarb again this year.
As the perennial flowers and plants have been busy doing their jobs, I thought I ought to do mine. I have started the tomatoes and peppers indoors, and they are starting to sprout. Most of the sprouts are too small for a photo….except for this little precocious one, who started to sprout within a day or so of my planting the seeds.
Now, let’s hope the weather stays nice for a little longer.
I have always loved Spring, and I always considered Spring to be my favorite season. Even so, this has been the first year that I feel I have truly participated in Spring.
Fall – The oishii season
In the last year of my grandmother’s life, she taught me about the Fall. I learned about the harvest, and I participated in the abundance of Fall. I now think of Fall as the oishii season. (Oishii is the Japanese word that roughly corresponds to delicious in English. For more information, you can read an article written by a dear friend of mine here).
My grandmother passed right before Winter, and I think I learned a lot about Winter that year. Last year, I was not able to even think about the garden until around this time. There were perennials left by my grandmother, and my aunt planted some peppers and tomatoes. Except for a failed attempt with a potato that had started to grow in my kitchen, I did not plant anything.
Baby Popcorn
This year, I decided to plant my own garden. I thought about what I enjoyed eating, and I decided to try growing some popcorn. I did a test with my favorite brand of popcorn, which I think is Jolly-time from Walmart. To my delight, the popcorn seeds grew. I planted some tomato seeds, lettuce, radishes and carrots. I was given some baby cabbages by a friend.
My Swedish cousins came for a visit, and they pruned the raspberry and blackberry bushes, as well as the apple trees. They also decided that I need potatoes, so they planted some.
Baby Apple Tree
There was a baby apple tree that my grandmother was nurturing in obscurity in the strawberry plants by the garage. Last year, I had to rescue it from the grapevine nearby that tried to strangle it. (Who knew that plants could be so violent?) The apple tree could not be allowed to continue growing there for another year, so with the help of a dear, sweet neighbor, I transplanted it to a place where it could grow freely.
Before this year, I always thought Spring was simple. New life, new birth, a new start that would come into fullness in the Fall. What I never understood was how many mini life and death cycles occur during Spring.
The crocuses, tulips, and daffodils all bloomed and died in turn.
The apple tree blossomed beautifully for about a week or so. Then the blossoms fell and tiny apples began to grow in their place.
A veritable marching band of irises bloomed brilliantly, and then they too passed on, leaving the chore of cleaning the dead blossoms in their wake.
I also learned just how much of a fresh start Spring really is. The mistakes of the previous year are long passed, although, there may still be a bit of cleaning that needs to be done before new things can grow. Decisions about what to grow are re-made. Even perennials may be dug up and discarded. I have enough dried tarragon from the previous year than I will ever use, so I decided to dig up the tarragon left by my grandmother, and plant lavender instead. The rhubarbs were being smothered by violets and strawberries, and I lost the first harvest from it. I freed the rhubarb from them, and now it is growing well.
I also learned about many hidden blessings. For example, I have suffered from Spring allergies since I was about 16. It turns out that violets have medicinal properties, one of which is remedying Spring allergies. I started making what I have been calling “fairy tea,” using violet leaves, raspberry leaves, and whatever else I happen to harvest from my garden that day, such as rose petals, chamomile leaves, and peppermint. I have had the least trouble with Spring allergies than I have had since I was a teenager, and I think that it is thanks to my fairy tea.
In previous years, I have always felt a little sad at the end of Spring, heading into the Summer. I do not this year. I am a bit tired now, and I am ready to settle into Summer.
My garden is growing.
I have added some beauty and some magic to it.
Maria-sama’s GardenFairy Garden
Now, I can relax and enjoy some of the fruits of my labors.
It is Spring again. The Filianic and astrological new year has begun. This year began with a Lunar Eclipse, which on a personal level feels a bit appropriate. My usual joy at the beginning of Spring is dampened by the sadness of the passing of my grandmother last fall.
I think one of the difficult things about life in the modern West is that we have lost the notion of mourning periods. There was a time when there was a proper amount of time to be “in mourning,” and rituals for coming out of mourning, with periods of “half mourning” and “light mourning.” When reading modern wisdom about grieving, we are told that it is individual and different for every person and every relationship. Yet, I think that mourning is not really the same thing as grieving. I think that mourning is the pause we take in our lives out of respect for the person who has passed, and the ending of mourning is when it is right to “come back to life.”
With that in mind, with no modern conventions to fall back on, I decided that Winter would be my period of “mourning” and that I would try to “come back to life” in the Spring. I am still quite sad, particularly as my grandmother loved Spring, but I will always be sad from time to time. My grandmother was an important person in my life. It is funny, because she never really taught me (or her own children) much. She tried, but she had no patience. She would hastily explain things, and if you did not get it the first time, she would give up with a disgusted “Ach!” and take what you were doing and do it herself. Yet, despite this, I learned so much from her. There is very little that I do that I do not still hear her voice telling me stories or giving wise counsel.
Even now, in my front yard, I see a lesson that she left.
For the past several years, Mormor (“grandmother” in Swedish) and I lived in the same two flat, which was owned by my aunt. In the front of the house, there was a lamp post, which used to be a working gas lamp. Mormor thought it was ugly. She researched, and she found that it would be costly and perhaps dangerous to remove it, so she devised a way to make it beautiful. Last spring, she planted roses around it with the plan that they would climb and cover the post.
Throughout the Summer, she carefully tended the roses, and she made sure that they did not stray too far away from the post. This was an interesting lesson in itself. It seems in order for roses to climb, they have to be held close to their source.
By the time that Autumn came, the roses had covered the post and bloomed gloriously for Mormor’s ninetieth birthday.
Mormor passed a little over a month after that, right before the first snowfall.
The roses bloomed until that very day. They became covered with snow, and they left an almost magical image, as the petals could be seen on the snow.
Yet, time passes, and now it is Spring. As if the roses were left to teach another lesson, they are starting to grow back again.
I guess it is time to come back to life, as well as to honor and care for what Mormor planted and left behind.
For the past several years, Mormor (“grandmother” in Swedish) and I lived in the same two flat, which was owned by my aunt. In the front of the house, there was a lamp post, which used to be a working gas lamp. Mormor thought it was ugly. She researched, and she found that it would be costly and perhaps dangerous to remove it, so she devised a way to make it beautiful. Last spring, she planted roses around it with the plan that they would climb and cover the post.
