In a conversation with my husband, I stated that we live on the ‘edge of wild.’ And we do. We have wooded areas bordering our property and on our property. Manicured lawns and weed free gardens are simply not in the realm of possibility. And at this time of year so many plants that would be called invasive or wild are blooming. It’s one of the delights of spring.
The pesky and prickly brambles are, for a short time, beautiful wild roses. The little white flowers are currently on display all over the property.
Rocket/wild phlox is blooming everywhere and, between the scent of the wild roses and that of the rocket, it’s smelling rather heavenly around here.
Behind the kitchen: wild roses and rocket.
And the black raspberries – also all over the property – are blooming, as well.
Thank you Mother Nature! Even though I have to cut back brambles and black raspberries, I appreciate the display you put on for us every spring.
I’m also looking forward to the raspberries.
In other areas of the garden:
Roses are about to bloom in the memorial garden.
And the climbing hydrangea is stepping up its game with more blossoms than ever. (It’s taken over 6 years to get to this point.)
I have to apologize to mama robin every time I head toward the shed or the trash can, because her nest is currently behind this climbing hydrangea. I always warn her that I’m coming and she flies out from behind the hydrangea, heading for a neighboring tree where she proceeds to chirp at me non-stop until I move away.
The other day, the UPS guy backed his truck up the driveway so that it was parked at the top of the drive. He handed over my package, I wished him well, and as he started to drive away, I heard the mama robin chirping. She was giving him the same warning that she gives me. I got such a kick out of it!
There are nests all over the property. Some I’m aware of; there’s one belonging to the brown thrashers that’s in the brambles right outside the kitchen window, there’s the nest behind the climbing hydrangea, there’s another one in the big bush that sits in the big garden bed (I see birds flying into the middle of that bush all the time.) And of course, there’s the nest in the boxwood, which has been repaired and made ready for more eggs. None so far.
I bought some mineral oil for cutting boards, per your advice. I cleaned the breadboard and then added two coats of the mineral oil. It’s looking beautiful!
Happy Sunday.
Thank you for the beautiful pictures and prose.
I am wondering what Caroline is up to in her house this summer?
We haven’t heard from her in a while and given the current state of
the country and world it would be a good and soothing distraction.
I haven’t been much in the mood for dollhouses lately. When my mood perks up, I’m sure Caroline will be happy to share with you!
I love spring….everything is so beautiful! We’ve had so much rain that everything is growing like crazy…..especially the garden. Loved your cutting board and I’m heading out today to get mineral oil. Cutting boards & bread boards are 2 of my favorite collections. I’m working on putting the craziness of our world on the back-burner and trying to enjoy the ordinary pleasures that summer can bring….my worrying doesn’t seem to be helping anyway. Have a wonderful Sunday!
I know what you mean. We need to take pleasure in our daily lives – that will keep us sane!
I’ve been watching too much world news on TV or online because I can’t do much else right now and sleep is elusive due to my car-wreck injury (neck). But the news is quickly driving me into too much preoccupation and just sheer anger which of course isn’t good for my health. But what I come away with, is this – – could wounded England/London be allowed some reaction time, to just try to process what has happened, before the talking heads/’experts’/DT weigh in? Trump can’t on the one hand say, “God bless England” or whatever the h*ll he said, and then slam the mayor of London. Thousands of law enforcement people behind the scenes are obviously scrambling for answers and evidence; give them a break! CNN deep in the night/wee hours had these two terrorism ‘experts’ onscreen, one of whom apparently worked with the Israeli army and while I could appreciate what they were saying about quick action of a police force, I didn’t like that they were so quickly criticizing the London police for taking 8 mins to respond when ‘they’ felt it should have been 2 mins.
I just pray that the benefit concert (guestimated 50,000 concert-goers strong) with Coldplay et al goes without incident. Londoners need some healing; it’s all so heartbreaking. It’s been a long, long time since I was in London and other parts of England but I remember a lot, and how ‘at home’ I felt there. I am not surprised to hear about compassionate Londoners taking shocked/scared and no-doubt disoriented strangers off the street in the dark of night in the hours after the attacks (when so many people near the scene were cordoned off for hours or told to run; no way to get home), offering them tea and shelter, a meal and a hug. Comfort amid chaos and crisis.
I’ll step away from it in my mind, my thoughts…and ask you, are those raspberries edible?
He is so inappropriate on every level. Every tweet has to be about him or a cutting remark about a perceived enemy, like the Mayor of London, who is Muslim and who has spoken out against Trump’s bigotry.
And yes, there are too many talking heads making pronouncements about things they really don’t understand. I don’t watch CNN anymore. They fall prey to the ‘there always has to be two sides represented’ trap. No, there doesn’t, especially if one side is just plain wrong. They have more talking heads on that network than they have sense.
Yes, the raspberries are edible. They’re delicious and we ate a bunch of them last year.
Summer berries; must be wonderful. I’m going to do some needed mental imagery and envision a bowl of beautiful fruit, maybe with a dollop of cream, warm summer night, sitting under the stars; soft sounds in the garden…could be here, could be anywhere; the lovely moments we need to savor…
I don’t like that Trump uses a tragedy to push his own agenda (the travel ban). He’s like the person at a party who just keeps saying the wrong thing and alienating everybody there, with horrible timing, no manners, poor etiquette; that kind of person who has no social graces; boorish; inelegant; zero sophistication; the one you want to quickly move away from and leave him on the other side of the room. He doesn’t represent us with any kind of eloquence. It’s like a bad relative in your family that you find yourself making apologies for…because they’ve embarrassed you. He doesn’t seem to care that he embarrasses HIMSELF and how it diminishes him with other world leaders. His behaviors don’t change (this ridiculous tweeting) and it quickly makes people lose respect. It was too much to expect that anything WOULD change with him. But there was always a tiny bit of hope that maybe once in office he’d clean up his act, show some leadership qualities, lose the ego. All he does is make hope fade.
He was never going to change or ‘pivot’ – I never once entertained that idea. New Yorkers have had his number for years. He’s as corrupt as they come.
Glad to hear that you used the mineral oil and like the results. I use it on a chopping block my husband built about 35 years ago (can’t believe it’s that long) and it still looks great even though it’s used all the time.
Thank you for the valuable information on what to use and what not to use, Dot!
I came over yesterday to warn you against the olive oil but saw other folks had also warned you. I am glad to see you switched. I have several bread boards and they are my favorite things to use when I entertain . They add such warmth to any display.
I have watched a pair of large black birds trailing HUGE lengths of straw and such material behind them as they fly up my side yard and over the house behind me> Wish I knew where the nest was that is under construction.
I wonder if you’ll ever find out?
your garden sounds so beautiful, but then you put a lot of work into it. Our ‘garden’ is getting over its first blush of bloom and there is a lot of cleanup that needs to be done, but I am lazy and I wait until the bulbs have died back before I get out there and clean up the mess. Lots of Siberian Irises, though.
Irises are beautiful flowers!
I like your interesting assortment of wild plants. All I get are weeds, since the development is landscaped so heavily. Nesting season seems to be a little late this year? I saw a brown towhee picking at the pine needles and thyme twigs in my backyard. It was funny to watch her pick one up and discard it when she found a better one, over and over again until she found the perfect one. I couldn’t tell the difference, but apparently, she can. I was excited to see honeybees yesterday, in the nasturtiums. I usually see the bumble bees, but these were definitely honeybees…the first time I’ve seen them in my garden since I relandscaped last year, but maybe I haven’t been looking. There are quite a few home beekeepers in my town, and many keep hives that make enough honey for the beekeepers to sell at the small independent markets and farmers market.
Everything is a little late here, but maybe the towhee is making a new nest – moving on from another one?
We have honeybees living in our catalpa tree. They’ve been there most every spring for years. And we take heart that they’re there. Glad you’ve seen some on your property!
The wild flowers (weeds) in upstate NY are fabulous, for sure. They are the first things that caused us to fall in love with our camp. The weeds where I grew up were ugly and brown, mostly, so it seems like a fairytale to have beautiful green and blooming weeds in both of our yards. And you can tell the seasons here, by which ones are blooming at the roadsides…phlox gives way to daisies, then daylillies, black-eyed susans, and late in the summer, Queen Anne’s Lace! And your wild roses are exquisite!
The roadside lilies aka tiger lilies are growing by leaps and bounds. Soon there will splashes of orange along the road!
Oh, and the raspberries, even though they are wild, will give more berries where you can cut them back to about three feet high in the very early spring—like late March. My Mom, who grows raspberries, told me this and it really did work for our wild berries, too. Unfortunately, the last couple of years we haven’t been here to do that, so we don’t get nearly as many berries now.
It’s hard for me to truly cut them back because they are not always easy to get to. Last year, we had a bumper crop. Hopefully, we will this year, too.
I love that you live on the ‘edge of wild’!! It’s beautiful to me. All that natural growth, flowers, birds and critters (as we say here in the south). It is raining today so I’m doing bits of things inside and maybe start a new book. Hugs!
It started raining here this afternoon and we’re in for about four days of it. Sigh.
I love your term “the edge of wild”. I live there too and love it. I hope you don’t mind but I’m going to start describing where our house and garden in exactly the same way! <3
You are welcome to use those words, Betsy! Have at it!
The cutting board you purchased at the fair is lovely…mineral oil will do nicely. The sky is bluer here…..the colors brighter…but I still can’t get away from the news. The attack in London happened extremely close to where my DIL works….and she frequents that market. Thank goodness she and my son were safe with me. Your wild flowers are wonderful and a great reminder of a more simpler time to me….they evoke happy emotions. Stay well and keep those pics a comin’!
Thank goodness they were with you. Too much worry these days!