Green Again

 

It felt like spring last week, permanent spring, if such a thing can be said to exist. Spring is the most unstable and fleeting of the seasons. By permanent, I mean that at last I did not feel the threat of a return to winter. After all, it is almost May. 

The world seemed vigorous on Monday, full of sap and sudden energy. The first of the violets and dandelions had sprouted in the lawn. The grass was green and lush and ready for its first proper mowing. The maples began to bloom. Out in the orchard, the crab apples, pears, and plums, always the first, started to break bud with the apples not far behind. The apples make me worry. Nice weather can trick them into breaking bud too soon. I wish they'd wait another week or two. We may not get another snow, but there will be frosts and they are worse than snow when it comes to apple blossoms.

Plum blossoms.

The bluebirds have returned and begun inspecting my birdhouses. The robins have begun building their usual nest under the eaves of the back porch. The earliest spring flowers are gone, the snowdrops, crocuses, and squill. Only their leaves remain to mark their place, photosynthesizing and rebuilding energy for next spring's flowers. The daffodils that survived being crushed by the last snows are lovely. The hyacinths are at their peak. I love them, but I always grumble that they are too low to the ground to be enjoyed. I can't bend to smell them as well as I once could. I always make a note to plant them in pots next time so they can more easily be brought to the nose. I've made that same note to myself a dozen times over the years, and never remember in October my conviction in April.

White hyacinths and purple muscari.

More hyacinths.

I planted tulips again last fall, hoping they would escape the rabbits and the deer. This time, I put them in the bed at the head of the driveway nearer to the house thinking that would keep the marauders away. To make extra sure, I sprinkled the bed with cayenne pepper powder. It has worked so far. The tulips are in bud. I hope I haven't jinxed them by writing this.

Primroses at their prettiest.

One morning last week, while waiting for the day to warm a little before going outside, I sat thinking about words. I do that a lot. I puzzled over the words flower, and blossom. I use them interchangeably, but wondered if there is some difference I did not understand. It turned out to be a bit complex and inconclusive. Old English and its Germanic precursors used words related to "blossom" until the Conquest in 1066 began to Latinize the language. In the 13th century, "flower" simply meant "the best of something." "Flower of milk" was a term for cream. The finest part of milled grain was the flower, which became flour. The prime of life was the flower of youth. "Flower" traces its origins back through Old French to Latin. Flora was the Roman goddess of flowers. Thanks to the Conquest, English was bequeathed multiple ways of naming lots of things as Norman French and Anglo-Saxon got mashed and mixed into modern English. As to technicalities, it seems the flowers of fruit trees are always called blossoms. I didn't believe this at first, but then I tried saying "apple flowers" and it sounded wrong. Other than that, there is some disagreement over when to use flower and when to use blossom. I will just do as I please.

I felt emboldened by the mild weather and began moving things to their preferred spring places. I cleaned off the back porch and moved plants from inside the house out there to begin their transition to being outdoors for the summer. I moved the seed trays with more developed plants from the woodshed to the back porch shelves to start the hardening off process and to make room in the woodshed for new trays of later starts like tomatoes, zinnias, and cosmos. I have an electric heater in the woodshed to keep things above freezing at night. Now I have to keep the door between the woodshed and back porch open so the heater can warm both of them. I also brought the garden hose up from the cellar and hooked it up. I know there will be mornings when it will be frozen, but those days will soon be gone.

Plants on the back porch again.

My friend Pat, who has been raising chicks for me, told me it was time to bring me the first batch. These are the chicks she bought for me at Runnings. They are a month old now and have fledged and she needed to get her brooder ready for the chicks that are about to hatch from eggs I gave her. That meant I had to prepare the chick pen in the coop. I went down on Monday and spent several hours raking out old straw and manure, putting down fresh straw, getting a feeder and a waterer set up, and setting up a heat lamp. I also had to check the perimeter of the pen to make sure there were no gaps big enough for a chick to fit through. It was dirty work, but I got it done. Pat brought me the chicks on Tuesday morning. 

New chicks in their carrier.

The arrival of new chicks is a Big Event in the coop. My old hens gathered along the pen fence to watch me take the chicks out of their carrier. There was quite a bit of commentary going on among them. Month old chicks are not cute anymore. They are at an awkward teenage sort of stage. I imagined my old biddy hens passing judgment and making snide comments about the newcomers. "Oh, isn't she a homely thing!" "Well of course, she's one of those Barred Rocks, pretty common stuff." "I expect those Speckled Sussex chicks will be putting on airs soon enough." "Yes, they always think they're special." "Ooo, that one's got the legs of a magpie, poor thing." Maybe I spend too much time with chickens. I'll keep the new chicks sequestered for a month so the old flock gets used to them. Even then, there will be a ruckus when I merge them into the main flock and the pecking order has to readjust. Chickens are interesting society.

New chicks in their pen.

It rained hard on Monday night and the garden was pretty soggy on Tuesday morning, but I didn't let that stop me. After spending an hour with the chickens, I went to work in the flowerbeds weeding. It was a little chilly at first, but the sun was shining and the day warmed. I pulled up buckets of weeds – dandelions and chickweed, corn speedwell and cleavers, burdock and sheep sorrel. I have a wide variety of very vigorous weeds in my garden. I try to be positive as I pull them up by reminding myself that some of them are medicinal, some are edible, and some are both. In the event of some unimaginable extremity, these weeds could save us. But I still don't want them in my flowerbeds.

I took a break from weeding to sit and bask in the sun for a few minutes that afternoon. There was a cool breeze blowing, but the sun was warm and felt good on my face and arms. I thought, as I was sitting there, about the relationship between the sun and the Son of God. Etymologically, they are not related. "Sun" traces its origins back through Middle English sonne, to Old English sunne, to Proto-Germanic sunna, and finally to the Proto-Indo-European root *swen meaning the star that gives our planet life. "Son", on the other hand, follows a similar trail back through Old English sunu, to Proto-Germanic sunus, and the Proto-Indo-European root *sunus, meaning offspring. But symbolically, they are very connected. Our star, the sun (called sol in Latin , hence the word solar) is the source of all life on our planet. It bathes us in its energy. It brings us light. The scriptures are replete with references to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as the light and life of the world (John 1:4,9; 8:12; 9:5; Doctrine and Covenants 45:7; 93:2,9). It's just a happy coincidence that in English and German and a few other Germanic languages, sun and son sound alike and allow such a beautiful symbolism. Other languages are not so blessed.

Language
English	Son of God	Sun
German	Sohn Gottes	Sonne
Dutch	Zoon van God	zon
Danish	Guds søn	sol
Frisian	Soan fan God	sinne
French	Fils de Dieu	soleil
Italian	Figlio di Dio	sole
Spanish	Hijo de Dios	sol
Japanese	神の子 Kami no ko	太陽 Taiyo

Wednesday morning, it looked like the sunrise might be pretty so, in spite of the 26° temperature, I set out on a walk. It had been a while since I last walked the road along the beaver pond. There were geese, mergansers, wood ducks, and mallards on the lower pond that all took flight as I walked by. I headed west up the road toward Burrell's and couldn't believe what I saw. I guess I don't pay close attention when I drive by, but on foot I saw that the upper pond, which used to be the smaller of the two ponds, has expanded dramatically. The beavers have been busy. The upper pond is now larger than the lower and has two lodges on it. The sunrise did turn out to be pretty. And I didn't mind the cold too much. It turned out to be a very nice day. I spent the day weeding flowerbeds. And I worked in short sleeves for the first time this year.

The lower pond.

The upper pond.

Thursday was a perfect spring day. It was 40° when I set out on my walk at dawn, but as soon as the sun came up, it was warm and was altogether lovely. It almost qualified as a summer day. The temperature at noon hit 78°, which is abnormally warm for spring, but normal summer weather here in Gold. I spent the morning planting. I planted peas, carrots, and bunching onions out in the vegetable garden, and a tray of cosmos in the woodshed. I mowed the lawn, the first real grass cutting as the grass was tall enough to tell it had been mowed. The smell of cut lawn added to the summerishness of the day. The warm sunshine coaxed the trees further into leaf. The wild cherries unfurled their bronze-green new leaves. The crab apples already had tiny, bright green leaves but now there appeared tiny clusters of flower buds in their centers. The plum tree bypassed leaves and went straight into bloom. Some of the early apples, Duchess of Oldenburg and Sops in Wine, began to leaf out in earnest.

The rhubarb is coming along nicely.

I needed to till up my old raspberry patch. It was overrun with weeds – goldenrod, devil grass, and thistles. I dug up some of the raspberries and transplanted them into the new bed out in the big garden. Kurt brought over the tiller and I tilled it up. Then I laid weed barrier landscape cloth over it. It will lie fallow for a year and hopefully the weeds that had infested it will be gone and I can plant something else there. I'm thinking maybe a row of blueberry bushes. To round out a perfect spring day, we had a nice sunset and it rained a little that night. Perfect for all the newly planted seeds and transplants. April days don't get much better than that.

Where the old weedy raspberry bed used to be. I hadn't finished with the weed barrier yet.

Sunset on Thursday.

On Friday morning I drove up to Genesee to get a haircut. As I drove north along highway 449, I noted how, as if in just a day, the world had changed. A few days of warm, sunny weather, and the hills have gone green – the maples with their chartreuse flowers, the bright green willows along the Genesee stream, the verges of the road green with grass and spangled with coltsfoot and dandelions. The edges of the woods are frothy with the flowers of the juneberry trees. The world is awake again. Just as I don't regard being asleep as the normal state for a human being, I don't see winter as the normal state for the world. Sleep and winter might be necessary for the health of the creature, but to be growing, flowering, multiplying, and being fruitful is the world awake and aware and as I like it.

That evening we had dinner at the Sarah's. Kurt and Julie came too. Sarah made sourdough pizza. After dinner, Stacey and I went into town to a movie. We're at that time of the year when, at night, there are lots of frogs on the road. I don't know why they love the road so much. Maybe because it's warm and they are cold-blooded. Anyway, driving home from the movies was like running a frog obstacle course. Stacey is pretty good at dodging them, but sometimes hitting them can't be helped. Sad.

Saturday morning, Stacey and I ran errands. We went up to Wellsville and cleaned the chapel. We went to Runnings to buy chicken feed. We stopped at the library to return books. On the way back, we went by the Amish feed store for scratch and sunflower seeds, then to the Amish dry goods store for some groceries, and finally to the creamery for milk and yogurt. It was lunchtime by the time we got home. And by then it was raining, so I didn't work in the garden at all that day. I was behind in watching Gardeners' World, so I spent the rest of the rainy day getting caught up. If I can't be in my garden, I'll watch Monty Don in his.

After a wet Saturday, the Sabbath dawned bright and beautiful. I took a stroll around the property before church. It was chilly, but everything looked fresh and vibrant. I made note in my head of the things that needed to be done, but on another day. The Sabbath is a day of rest. Church was good, good talks, good lessons. Now we are home. Lunch will be ready soon. The day has warmed a little and the sunshine and green of the world are beckoning to me. I might forego a nap and take a walk up to the woods instead. Or maybe I can do both. Yes, both.

This bright Sabbath afternoon.

We are leaving on Tuesday to go out west. Our niece, Elisabeth Shillig, youngest and only daughter of John and Mindy, is getting married in the Oquirrh Mountain Temple on May second. A lot of family is gathering for the event. All of my children will be there. All of my siblings except Jaynan will be there. There will be aunts and uncles and cousins galore. We'll be home again late Saturday night. I'll tell you all about it next week – lots of fun and photos.