Thinking of summer

Some people call them "ditch lilies," but to me they signify welcome.  The front bank of my parents' home is covered with a thick sea of common orange day lilies in the summertime. And I've started transplanting some of them into our back yard, bringing some old familiar friends to the new house...

"The Ubiquitous Day Lily of July"
by David Budbill

There is an orange day lily that blooms in July and is
everywhere around these parts right now. Common.
Ordinary. It grows in everybody's dooryard—abandoned
or lived in—along the side of the road, in front of stone walls,
at gas stations and garages, at the entrance to driveways,
anywhere it takes a mind to sprout. You always see them
in clusters, bunches, never by themselves. They propagate
by rhizomes, which is why they are so resilient, and why
you see them in bunches.

There is an orange day lily that blooms in July and is
ubiquitous right now. The roadside mowers mow a lot
of them, but they don't get them all.

These are not the rare and delicate lemon yellow day lilies
or the other kinds people have around their places. This one
is coarse and ordinary, almost harsh in its weathered beauty,
like an older woman with a tough, worldly-wise and wrinkled
face. There is nothing nubile, smooth or perky about this flower.
It's not fresh. It's been around awhile and everybody knows it.

As I said, it's coarse and ordinary and it's beautiful because
it's ordinary. A plant gone wild and therefore become
rugged, indestructible, indomitable, in short: tough, resilient,
like anyone or thing has to be in order to survive.

A few things

1. Today I found out a friend is divorcing, divorced, and it made me cry for his sake, for her sake, and for their children.



2. These images are from around the web. Abstract expressionist painter Elaine de Kooning made a series of Bacchus paintings in the late 1970s and early 1980s. When I say "series" I mean more than 100 paintings. I am finding them very inspiring lately, especially the one in the top left corner. Elaine's inspiration for the paintings was Jules Dalou's sculpture "The Triumph of Silenus" created in 1885 and located in Paris. I don't care much for the statue with its leering nudist Santa.

3. Home ownership is throwing up some speed bumps for us lately: ants, plumbing, lawn mower, air conditioning. I am hauling 5 gallon buckets from the back yard to the front to keep the new shrubs watered in.

4. The 17 year cicadas should not be here since we saw them last in 2004. But here they are. Sukey was happily gobbling them up this morning, tail wagging and nose to the ground. Nature's buffet. One made me drop my camera in the driveway this morning.

5. Mo's still napping, so I'm going to go paint now.

Spring harvest

Photo taken on Tuesday, June 26th. That's right, we were eating ripe tomatoes off our plants a full week before the 4th of July. That's an all-time early tomato record for me. And I totally beat my neighbor Sharon this year in the tomato race! Except Sharon has no idea that there is any sort of contest going on. She's just a really good gardener, and I'm always measuring my success against her. In other food news our early figs are rolling in. When fig trees are happy the produce a late spring crop and a late summer crop. In the past we've seen a handful of early fruits, but this year we have a substantial early harvest. And the figs are huge. Previously our fruits were about the size of chicken eggs; now they are nearly baseballs. I've been collecting the ripe ones in the cool of the morning before the birds come and peck them to pieces. There are so many though. I might have to make jam. Oh, and lots of wildflowers around this year. I'm loving the queen anne's lace.