Not this June. At least, not so far. We had an absolute downpour late last night, pounding the skylights so hard with rain that the noise woke me up. And this afternoon? A hailstorm. Brief, yes. Hailstones only the size of M & Ms, but impressive nonetheless. Mornings have dawned cloudy and chilly for the last week, and the temperature hasn’t climbed above 70 degrees for days. DAYS, I tell you! If this is global warming, I’m confused.
The garden has come to a standstill; it’s too cool for most things to grow. The tomato plants are about 18″ high, and some have tiny little Superball-sized green tomatoes on them, but that’s as far as they’ve gotten. The first wave of roses is done with and dead-headed. Not much left but brown, papery petals on the ground. I even fertilized to encourage new growth, but so far – bupkis. That doesn’t mean nothing is blooming. Au contraire.
There are lilies, both Oriental and Day varieties:
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And the agapanthus are gearing up to reveal their spidery heads:
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Oh, and these lavender beauties, the name of which I can never remember:
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I am a floral mandala…
stare at me long enough
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Every year I wonder if it will get too hot too soon for the peonies to bloom – it sometimes happens just that way in our arid little microclimate east of Berkeley.
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Before leaving town, I pulled out the decrepit, white-fly-infested plant specimens that had wintered over, and then replanted the pots by the front door with some fresh and colorful summer things: namely coleus, pelargonium, and impatiens. Coral with burgundy and chartreuse is a color combination that sings, to my mind.
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I am so proud of the bright and beautiful young woman she has become, and when I look at her it is difficult for me to believe, sometimes, that she was once tiny enough to lie across my lap – no bigger than our cat (in fact, at birth she weighed only slightly more than half what our cat does). Although she has some maturing yet to do (and what eighteen-year-old doesn’t?), she is independent, spirited, curious, and friendly. She is organized, thoughtful, and persistent. While I didn’t always appreciate these qualities when she was younger, today I realize that they will stand her in good stead as she embarks on her college years and her adult life. Already she is far more willing to ask questions, and much more assertive about getting the help that she needs from teachers and other adults than I was at her age.
Adolescence has not always been easy for her. She has never been what you’d call one of the “popular kids,” although she has always had a few close friends. Watching her go through various social tribulations reminds me that I would rather watch my entire yarn stash be consumed by ravenous wool moths than be a teenager again. Having been a victim of “mean girl syndrome” in middle school taught her compassion for others, and showed her the importance of reaching out to other kids who seem shy or uncomfortable in unfamiliar settings. She has had more than her share of sad and lonely days, and it wasn’t always easy to parent her without sounding like a platitude-spouting helicopter mom. It has been a source of great pride for me to see how in her senior year she has developed a philosophical bent, and with it an awareness that if one group of friends proves fickle, there are others out there who are ready to befriend her if she extends herself to them.
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I am grateful that she has reached eighteen, and wish her a life full of good things, with only enough heartbreak to keep her compassionate, and enough challenges to keep her working hard to achieve the things that are important to her. I hope she finds love with a partner who respects her and is kind and devoted to her, and if she wants one I hope she’ll have a family of her own someday so she will appreciate all that remains unwritten in this post, but is there nonetheless.
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For you, a bouquet of the garden’s finest: .JPG)
For all the tears, noses, and bottoms you wipe (even when you catch yourself thinking, “Hooee, this is one stinky little rugrat!” and then catch yourself because it is, after all, YOUR stinky rugrat):
For all the stories you read aloud (over and over and over again, until you’ve memorized the entire book…) and the reading you teach:
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so all the parents, friends, and significant others of our favorite singers can hear their progress. It is always an enjoyable event, but today’s was bittersweet because Rachel is heading off to college in the fall and this was most likely her final recital with her teacher, Jonathan Nadel. Although she already had a naturally sweet soprano voice, Jonathan’s instruction has helped her achieve vocal maturity and depth.
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munching and scavenging their way around the hills just before the entrance to the Caldecott Tunnel on our way back home. Goats are so darned cute! At first we thought there was just the usual traffic back-up near the tunnel entrance, and then we realized all the rubbernecking was due to the official Weed Control Goats on the job! Keeping the Berkeley hills weeded and the grass short is their raison d’etre, apparently – they all seemed perfectly content to graze their way across the hills in full view of and close proximity to the freeway traffic.
She’d tiptoe out of her dorm room at four in the morning with a pair of sharp scissors in her back pack and a basket handle over the crook of her arm. Dressed all in black and padding quietly out of the quad in her sneakers, she’d slink over to the residential neighborhoods that flanked our campus in order to 
Back in her dorm room an hour later, she’d fill small glass jars with these unique bouquets, wrap a wire handle around the lip of each jar, and – still before sunrise – quietly hang her May Day floral arrangements over the doorknobs of her friends’ dorm rooms. These utterly charming nosegays were what we’d find when we first opened our doors to greet the day. And I’ve never forgotten them, even years later.
In the spirit of May Day, thought I’d share a few more beauties from my garden. It’s really outdone itself this year.
The shaping idea was a detail I’d seen in an old issue of Interweave Knits, and the Dot Stitch texture on the bodice is straight out of the Barbara Walker Treasuries. That picot edging around the neckline was a simple but elegant finishing touch where a collar would have been too much. The goal here was feminine, fitted but not too, enough coverage for a cool summer evening. A little romantic. A little dressy. A little old-fashioned. You get the idea.
Alas, I fear this may be my final NaKniSweMoDo project until the end of the summer. I hate to wimp out, but my left hand in particular has been in terrible shape. It feels as if the fingers are sprained in spite of the cortisone injections I recently had. Work on the computer doesn’t help but – Gasp! Hard to believe – has to be my priority until the end of July when I have a major deadline. Asking me to choose between knitting and writing was like asking me to pick a favorite child, but nonetheless the choice had to be made. It’s a temporary setback, but these hands need a break. I’ll still knit – it’s like breathing, after all – but not at the pace I kept up for the first quarter of this year. I’ll still have show-and-tell, but the going may be slow.
Forget eating out of her hand, I want to nibble her lips! Squawk!
This was no ordinary bird – it could bark like a dog, which was most confusing to the various canines promenading along the pier. Made me wonder what else it could say…
