It wasn’t especially cold last week. The temperature hovered around freezing, sometimes just above, sometimes just below. We had rain, freezing rain, sleet, and snow. School was delayed two hours on Tuesday and Thursday because of icy roads. Friday it snowed. It was and continues to be cold and damp enough to be unpleasant, but I know it could be far worse. Some years by this point in the winter we are over knee deep in snow and shivering with sub-zero wind chills.
I received a catalog last week that set me to dreaming. It comes in the mail every year and every year I look longingly through its pages. It is a catalog of roses. I love roses. In my California gardens of the past, I took great pride in my roses. Here in cold Gold they are not so easy to grow. I’ve tried several times with little success. The only rose that grows in my garden now is a very old rose. When we moved here, there was a large, half dead lilac bush in the yard that I pulled out. When it was gone, I discovered a spindly rose bush that had grown, concealed inside its branches. With the lilac removed, the rose bush flourished. It blooms every June with fragrant pink flowers. I’ve planted other roses here over the years. The only ones hardy enough to survive our winters seem to be the rugosa roses. I had two pretty ones that grew well for years and then died suddenly. I never replaced them. So every year I go through that rose catalog page by page. I read the descriptions of the flower forms and scents – “perfectly quartered blooms with a fragrance of citrus and ripe raspberries,” “fully double blooms with a spicy clove fragrance,” “ruffled double blooms with an intense, true rose fragrance.” I highlight every rose that is hardy in Zone 4. I ponder over them. I am tempted. Maybe this year I’ll try again.
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| One of the roses tempting me to try again. |
I took a walk around the garden one gray morning last week. I needed to remind myself that there are things out there waiting. There are little patches of green in parts of the long border where the poppies sprouted last fall. They are very hardy and will stay small and green through the winter waiting for the days to lengthen and warm. And there are countless bulbs sleeping under the surface. A few of them, the muscari and the hardy irises, have sent up tentative shoots, testing conditions to see if the world is ready for them to emerge. It is too soon and I hope they wait. We are only thirty-two days into official winter. There are many weeks yet to go.
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| On my winter walk. |
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| The orchard. |
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| The garden. |
After placing my order for spring chicks last week, I’ve been thinking about adding quail to my poultry project. I’ve read several articles about Cortunix quail and I’m intrigued. If I decide to raise them, I’ll have to have a second coop for them – something small and secure near the house. I’d raise them for their eggs. I ate a lot of quail eggs when I was in Japan. They are popular there. I like them. They are bite sized and very nutritious. I’ll ponder on it longer before I come to any decision. Another winter dream to keep my mind occupied.
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| Cortunix quail. |
In my explorations of Italian opera last week, I came across some interesting articles. Some people say that Andrew Lloyd Webber, the composer of hit “modern operas” like Phantom of the Opera, Joseph And the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat, and Cats, is the Puccini of our time. Oddly enough, Lloyd Webber has been accused of, and even been sued for stealing some of his music from Puccini. Most notably, the song Music of the Night from Phantom of the Opera has sections that so closely resemble an aria from Puccini’s opera La Fanciulla del West, that the Puccini estate sued him. The suit was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. Music buffs say they can point out at least fifteen “borrowings” that Lloyd Webber has made from Puccini. I like many of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s modern operas, especially Phantom and Sunset Boulevard, but I doubt his music will have the endurance that Puccini’s music has. Will Cats and Phantom still be performed a hundred and fifty years from now as La Bohème and Tosca are today?
The opera I explored last week was Puccini’s Tosca. I knew a few of the most famous arias from the opera, but very little about the plot. It turned out to be quite a dark and dramatic story. Here is a brief synopsis with no spoilers for the ending.
“Tosca is a political thriller, set in Rome in June 1800 (during the Napoleonic wars and a time of great political unrest). The action takes place over less than 24 hours, making it an intense experience! The plot centers around three main characters – Rome’s diva Floria Tosca, her lover Mario Cavaradossi (a painter and republican), and the corrupt Chief of Police, Baron Scarpia. Scarpia has long lusted after Tosca, and when he suspects Cavaradossi of assisting an escaped political prisoner, seizes the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. He will manipulate Tosca into revealing the prisoner’s hiding place and Cavaradossi’s involvement, and have her for himself. When Cavaradossi is captured, Scarpia offers Tosca a horrific bargain – she must give herself to Scarpia, or her lover is killed … what will she choose, and who will survive?”
Again, I did some research. I read about the background, the history of its performance, the plot of the three acts. It premiered on 14 January 1900, in Rome. It had a mixed reception from the music critics, but the audience loved it and it went on to a run of twenty sell-out performances. After my research, I went to YouTube and watched a filmed version with the amazing tenor Placido Domingo as Caravadossi and Raina Kabaivanska as Tosca. The music is beautiful, the filming very dramatic. It was filmed in Rome, which set me dreaming about our adventure there five years ago. The soprano aria ‘Vissi d’arte’ (‘I lived for art’), sung by Tosca during Act II is amazing. The aria ‘E lucevan le stelle’ (‘And the stars shone’) that Caravadossi sings in Act III while he awaits execution is one of my most favorite arias in all of opera.
ed olezzava la terra and the earth was scented.
stridea l'uscio dell'orto. The gate of the garden creaked
e un passo sfiorava la rena. and a footstep grazed the sand.
Entrava ella fragrante, Fragrant, she entered
mi cadea fra le braccia. and fell into my arms.
mentr'io fremente While trembling I stripped
le belle forme disciogliea dai veli! the beautiful form of its veils!
Svanì per sempre il sogno mio d'amore. Forever, my dream of love has vanished.
L'ora è fuggita, e muoio disperato! That moment has fled, and I die in despair.
E muoio disperato! And I die in despair!
E non ho amato mai tanto la vita, And I never before loved life so much,
tanto la vita! Loved life so much!
Next week I’m going to pick a happier opera – if there is one.
Last week, my pink amaryllis finally opened. The white ones were done and drooping and I was feeling sad that they were gone so soon. Then the pink ones opened and they made me happy. I think I will get some more amaryllis bulbs in other colors so that next year during the dark days I will be flush with flowers.
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| My pink amaryllis. |
Every week, when I write this blog/essay, I have to come up with some sort of title for it. After reading through what I’ve written, I try to select a word or phrase that sums it all up and ties it together, something to pique the interest of whoever reads it. This week I chose to title it Winter Dreams. After selecting that title, it seemed to me that I’d heard it somewhere before, so I went searching. Oddly when I put the phrase into a search engine it came up with a German reference, Winterträume. The Germans, true to form, have a single word, Winterträume, that means “winter dreams.” I love German. I took four years of it in high school and a year in college and I can hardly remember any of it, but I love it. It is a great language for amazing compound words such as Kühlschrank (cool cupboard), a refrigerator, or Ohrwurm (ear worm), that catchy song that gets stuck in your head, or Kummerspeck (grief bacon), the excess weight put on by emotional overeating, or one of my favorites Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzungen (speed ability limitations) that means speed limits. Anyway, the Winterträume reference online turned out to be the German title to a story by F. Scott Fitzgerald (of Great Gatsby fame) called Winter Dreams. So I’d come full circle through an odd journey back to English. And I realized that I’ve never read that story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, so now it’s on my Winter Reading List, which can easily be made into German as Winterleseliste.
Some animal has moved into the woodshed. Last week I found that a lid to one of the buckets that I store sunflower seeds in had been chewed into and seeds eaten. Yesterday Stacey said she heard something skittering around when she went into the woodshed. This morning I heard it too. I suspect it is either a chipmunk, a red squirrel, or a field rat. I’ll be working on catching it this week.
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| Pest damage. |
On our way to church today, Stacey told be about plans she is formulating for a trip to Europe to visit places in Germany that her ancestors came from. She talked about flying in to Paris and spending a few days there and then taking a train east to Southern Germany. At this point it is all talk, but immediately my daydream mode kicked in. All through our church meetings I kept thinking about it – which was not a good thing since I was in charge of the meetings. Now I sit here writing about Winter Dreams and there is a whopper of a dream floating around in my brain. Nothing may come of it, but for now it is a great distraction from the gray and gloom of winter.
So we are home from church. We saw a bald eagle on the drive home. We’ve already eaten lunch – leftover fettuccini Alfredo and garlic bread from yesterday, still delicious. I’m about ready to head down to the barn to do the chores. The chickens are waiting along the back fence for me. Then I hope to take a short nap – or a long one if I can manage it. And then I’ll be ready, almost, to face another week of winter.
