Categories
Plants

By any other name

I do love roses. I know that the orchid is more exotic, and the daffodil more egalitarian; the tulip more proud, and the sunflower more bold; the daisy is more shy and the iris much sexier, while the carnation fills buttons the world over. And how can I forget the buttercup and dogwood, or the rhododendron that provides the only color in areas bleak and gray. There are a thousand, thousand other blooms to choose from, and the rose so ordinary…but I do love its promise.

O my luve’s like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly played in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun:
O I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve,
And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my luve,
Though it were ten thousand mile.

Hee. Who else? Robert Burns

Categories
Plants Weather

Summer in April

We’ve had an unusually warm Spring this year. The temperatures yesterday and today are close to breaking record highs, and I think today we’ll actually make it. That means over 90 F (that’s ‘hot’ in Celsius). This combined with the rain we’ve had has led to an explosion in growth, and even people who have lived here for years say they don’t remember when we’ve had a finer Spring.

Too hot to focus on a couple of projects I’m working on, and that includes writing: professional, weblogging, and some new tutorials for WordPress. I think tomorrow I’ll get up at dawn and find some place by one of the rivers to spend the day. This is one of those times when I wished I had a kayak or canoe to actually take out on the water.

I was driving in the hills last week when something hit my windshield, sounding like a chalk bag hitting the floor. It was a pollen or small seed bag of some kind that had fallen from the trees, and there was this circle of light green dust on my windshield. It reminded me of Tinkerbelle in Peter Pan, and her bag of magic pixy dust. I continued to get hit while making my way through the trees, and by the time I got home, my car looked like it had been attacked by an army of mad Tinkerbelles.

I just now looked to my left at my dark gray slide scanner and noticed it was dusty again, but when I run my fingers across its surface, they come away coated with that same light green fine dust. I’ve been leaving the windows open, and the place is covered with pollen. I have no idea what it will do to electronics. I know that I’ve been taken over by a strong desire to just find a cool green field somewhere and lay down in it.

It’s just now gone on midnight, and from the street below, I can hear laughter from a balcony, mixed with the sound of our wind chimes. “Let’s go to the park, throw around the football,” I hear one voice ask, to a chorus of laughing assent, and then gradual fade to silence as they start to walk away. The voices aren’t all that young, either.

Categories
Photography Plants

Day at the Gardens 2

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Categories
Photography Plants

Day at the gardens

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Categories
Books Plants

Of found gold and ghost orchids

After the orchid photos last week, a friend recommended that I check out the The Orchid Thief, by Susan Orlean. As serendipity would have it, Mike Golby just wrote a fascinating essay on the movie version of the book, Adaption, and the topic of passion, Gibson and otherwise:

We all have our desired Ghost Orchids and, damn it, we need them. I’m all for orchids. But the stronger our passions, the more we project them and the larger our shopping baskets become. Sometimes, we’re given opportunity to fill them. But I sometimes find myself hoping that, if confronted by one of my Ghost Orchids, I’d duck and run. Well, maybe not run; I’ll just play things cool… thinking things through, you understand.

There is beauty in the Ghost Orchid; beauty that can act as both impetus and anchor, and there’s only a thin fragment of self separating the two. As for me, I’m not sure that I am that passionate, about anything. I think, though, if I did come face to face with my Ghost Orchid, knowing who I am now, I would be content to look and not own. Regretfully.

Returning, though, to more mundane matters in passionate absentia, I was able to find The Orchid Thief at my city library, and the movie Adaption at my county library, along with a much desired documentary film on James Agee. I feel like a woman who has discovered gold coins when putting her hand into a seemingly empty satchel, and I will now indulge in an unseemly fit of gloating.

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