The last week has felt as if I am being drawn and quartered--no, make that drawn and thirty-seventhed--by frantic little shrews. Between the gmail meltdown, the torn-apart bathroom with the tub spout that rockets across the room every time the shower is turned on, and the general maelstrom of work deadlines, clutter, dogs, cats, checklists, shopping lists, to-do lists, and the like, there has scarcely been a moment to cook a meal from scratch, savor a sunrise, read a novel, or go for a walk.
So I can't say that stopping to smell the roses and all the other flowers now blooming that collectively turn the neighborhood into the startling Technicolor Munchkinland scene in
The Wizard of Oz manages to brush away all cares and reminds me to appreciate The Really Important Things in Life. But it's definitely a pause that refreshes.
 |
| Tangerine Geum in front garden. |
 |
| Flower in front garden whose name completely escapes me at the moment. |
 |
| Blossom of Japanese kerria, back garden. |
 |
| Wild bleeding-heart, which volunteers in shady spots of the yard. |
|
|
 |
| Lewis's clarkia, a flower native to California that really isn't a fan of Seattle's maritime climate, but which grows nicely if you give it a sunny spot and surround it with gravel. I grow it in a "pot" made of paving stones set on end in the garden, filled in with white pebbles, and it's survived not only the rain but also the dog periodically digging it up and burying bones in its microhabitat. |
 |
| A yellow clarkia, companion to the pink one. |
 |
| Closeup of tangerine geum |
 |
| Golden-flame spirea |
 |
| And, of course, rhododendrons--mountains of them, everywhere. |
