Life in the Dark Days

The Winter Solstice has passed, and our days are now beginning the long, slow process of lengthening.  The darkest day is behind us.

Looking at the garden from a window, one would think that it is lying dormant.  Frost covers the ground, the trees are sporting bare, gray branches, the grass hasn't needed mowing in a few weeks and the colors all around are muted.  Left over perennials--still uncut, but brown and dead looking--definitely make the garden appear as if life has left.  But if you go outside and wander through the garden, things are very much alive.

Bright green spikes of snow-drops, crocus and grape hyacinth have pushed up through the earth.  Some of the early tulips and narcissus are showing themselves as well.  The early bulbs are slowing working themselves into flowers.  Buds are swelling on camellias and rhododendrons, tiny pale green leaves are opening up on hydrangeas, and the spidery blooms of witch hazels are unfurling some much needed colors.

Winter blooming plants such as sarcococca and winter jasmine are in full bloom though the blooms are small.  My mahonia 'charity' has bright yellow sprays of flowers.  The two Anna hummingbirds who have wintered over with us are no doubt getting some nourishment from this plant.  (That and fighting over the feeder when it isn't frozen!)  The little birds are actively flitting among the shrubs, the robins and juncos are finding food in the half frozen lawn, the eagles still soar overhead.

Life is very much happening in the garden, it's just a little more subtle and quiet this time of year.  And it's a good reminder that even in the darkest days of our season, even when everything looks half dead, life is bubbling away very near the surface.  We just have to look a little more closely.

Happy New Year!!

Christmas Goats!

Our little goats, who are normally so playful, are feeling the affects of the Winter solstice.  The darkness has pushed all of us into semi-hibernation.  They come out to play when the rain subsides, but otherwise spend a lot of time at their barn door looking at the weather, and then deciding to nap some more.  I watched our bunny emerge from his little den with a huge yawn and long bunny stretch.  It's definitely a napping and eating time of year for all of us!

A friend sent me a very funny video of goats playing set to Christmas music.  Even if you aren't a big goat fan, this will brighten your day!

Sunshine in Seattle

We have an overabundance of rain and clouds in the northwest.  And too many gray and gloomy days to count.  It's a fact of life here.  But when the sun comes out, I wouldn't want to be any place else.

The view from my "office" today?  Spectacular.  To my West, the Olympic mountains loomed large, covered in a fresh white blanket of snow.  The sky above was a brilliant blue, the foothills in the foreground our very own shade of evergreen.

To the East, the Puget Sound and the sky were a perfect winter blue mirror of each other.  For some reason, some trick of the light today, the Seattle skyline was etched against the sky, bright and beautiful. (My cell phone was hardly able to capture the beauty, but was worth a try!)  The sun is so far south this time of year that the light comes in horizontally, illuminating the details of every building.  The Cascade mountains rose up behind the city to complete the splendor.

This day was a gift, given to us so we maintain some sort of sanity through the stormy, wet, winter season we are in.  A shot of much needed light to combat the gray.

Seattle splendor in the sun.  

O Christmas Tree

Twelve days to Christmas and we haven't bought a single present.  We have, however, purchased sheet rock, trim, carpet and bathroom tile.  We are spending our pre-Christmas days rebuilding, which doesn't exactly "feel Christmasy".  Even though I know how blessed we are, how much goodness is in our lives, the storm, the subsequent flood and trying to put our house back together just isn't what I want to be doing.  I've been having the "this is just not what I wanted to do" style of tantrum.

But while I was working in the garden today, I asked myself what exactly I expect the days leading up to Christmas to "feel" like?  Having bought into the collective delusions regarding the holiday season, I like to think of the weeks leading to Christmas as being filled with festive shopping and baking, happy parties with friends, and quiet time to sit by our fire eating cookies and drinking eggnog, contemplating the beauty of our Christmas tree.  This would be a nice way to spend the advent season.

I'm starting to think that the days leading up to Christmas are not meant to be easy.  Or maybe this is just me trying to make sense of my own personal Christmas journey.  I'll be honest: I really can't remember many Christmases past that were relaxing and easy.  It always seems to be a somewhat stressful time.  I do think that Christmas can be all of those good things, but I also wonder if maybe some hardship and struggle is part of the season too.  Or at least a part that we need to allow.

Christmas comes to us during the darkest days of the year.  While our circadian rhythms are telling us to sit by a fire and sleep, our cultural expectations require that we run around shopping and baking and planning and decorating.  And seeing all of our family and friends, and finding the perfect gift for everyone on our list.....talk about a recipe for stress!  And good reason to drink too much eggnog and eat too many cookies!

I actually do enjoy the holiday, even if it sounds otherwise.  There is so much about Christmas to love.  I still love setting out our nativity, arranging Mary just so, and placing baby Jesus in his manger.  I love the smell of our Noble Fir tree.  I love the Christmas music.  I love watching our girls get excited about buying gifts for each other, and excited about seeing their own presents under the tree.  I love hanging our stockings on the mantle.  I love the lights in these dark days (which is so beautifully symbolic).  And I love tromping around the woods with my adventurous, funny husband and daughters to find our Christmas tree.

And that is where I find Christmas.  It's in the moments.  Not always the ones I expect, but in the little joys, the passing peace.  The traditions that are ancient and blended and wise, like bringing evergreens into our homes, I find particularly sacred.  We are of this earth.  It is very dark right now, but the light will return as it always does.  And in the meantime, we bring as much light into our homes and our lives as we possibly can.  We find peace in the quiet spaces of time that come to us, and that we create.  And we trust that we have room for all of the goodness, the stress, the love and frustrations that come our way.  And for our crazy times, we have cookies and eggnog.

Beautiful Callicarpa

When the weather chills and the leaves fall to the ground, I am full of appreciation for those plants that shine in the winter.  Plants with pretty berries are particularly nice to have in the garden.  Not only do the berries provide some much needed color and interest, but they also feed the birds who visit the garden.  And of these berried plants, my favorite is the Beautyberry.

For years I have admired the Beautyberry, otherwise known as Callicarpa.  I have planted them in gardens and recommended them to my friends.  Finally, two years ago, I bought a little gallon sized callicarpa for my own garden, and now it is big enough to see from my desk window.  It's not quite big enough for me to cut branches just yet, but I will at least add a few of the berries to our Christmas wreath.

The variety I chose, C. bodinieri 'Profusion', is absolutely loaded with bright violet berries.  The plant is a graceful, interesting shrub in the spring and summer.  But Fall is when this plant really shines.  The leaves turn yellow and orange and the berries begin to ripen and color.

And when the leaves fall and the garden has taken on the winter hues of brown, green and gray, the callicarpa looks almost tropical in bright shades of violet.

Back to the Garden

With the house in chaos from our flood, I have found some much needed solace in the garden.  I look at our family room--the carpet half cut out, and a wall cut down to the studs--and I don't really know what to do or where to start.  But I go out to the garden, and I know just what to do.

The storm ravished the trees and shrubs in the garden.  A mid-November snow makes a mess of a Northwest garden since our plants hadn't quite gone into full dormancy yet.  But this early wind and snow cleaned the trees of their last leaves and laid waste to the remaining perennials.

I've tended to all of the gardens I work in, and coming into a storm tossed garden doesn't even begin to stress me.  In fact, I love the work.  There is something deeply soothing to me about tidying up a garden and it's been just what I've needed.  Even though it was an act of nature that caused our trouble, it is nature that now comforts me.

That and chocolate.  (Oh, and maybe just a little gin!)  Tonight I am baking a batch of espresso brownies, and just the smell of melted chocolate mixed with butter and sugar is deeply peaceful.  A little peppermint schnapps, some Christmas music, a warm fire, my kids all doing their homework--my soul feels restored amidst the destruction.

Power FAILURE!!!

This past week has turned me into a new person.  Where once I despised generators, I am now the proud owner of a new crazy-quiet Honda eu2000 generator.  I used to enjoy the power outages, and the peace that came with them.  But this storm and the subsequent five days of no power or phone has broken me.

I am no longer the girl who loves a few power-less days to live a simpler life.  I am also no longer the girl who trusts that our utility will restore power to us in a timely manner.  No longer do I want to be reliant on PSE's power grid for our power.  I'd like some solar panels, a generator, a windmill--whatever we can do.  (This may tie closely into my wish for chickens, and is probably a backward slide of some sort.)  What can I say, it's been a long week.

We lost power shortly after my snow post, and though the snow was pretty and we had fun sledding and playing in it, trying to live 'Little House on the Prairie' in a modern house has its limits. Thanks to our stove, we stayed reasonably warm, and our gas cooktop served us well, but things got very cold and dark in our home.  On Wednesday morning we woke to a freezing 46 degree house!  Not surprising since it got down to 17 degrees that night.

Losing power doesn't frustrate me so much, but dealing with the local utility was very frustrating.  Kitsap County got hit pretty hard with power outages and I've heard that Bainbridge Island probably had it the worst, but our neighborhood was completely forgotten.  I understand the need to restore power to the most people first, and I completely agree with this approach.  And we are frequently some of the last people back on line.  BUT, this time we had a spaghetti tangle of power lines down across our easement road, and laying over several of our neighbors driveways and trees.  The only way in and out of our neighborhood was to drive over the power lines--not a particularly good idea.

I could write pages about our attempts to get help from the customer service reps, but I don't think it would make for pleasant reading.  My 9 year old reads my blog and I don't want to add to her vocabulary with my choice of words.  She heard plenty when we woke up Thanksgiving morning to another cold and dark house after we were promised power no later than late Wednesday night.  With the assurance they gave, and knowing that most of the island was back with power, I charged ahead with Thanksgiving plans, brining the turkey, making the jello (in the snow!) and getting the table cloths and silverware ready.

All of that committed us to Thanksgiving dinner.  So when we woke to no power, we were in the worst of moods, and thinking we would need to cancel Thanksgiving.  Fortunately our guests rallied us, and insisted that a "no power" Thanksgiving could be fun, and if nothing else, memorable.  We cooked our turkey on the BBQ (it was delicious), and used the cooktop and wood stove to prepare the casseroles.  We used paper plates and plastic glasses and it all worked.  The kids even played a huge game of Risk by lantern light.  And it will indeed probably be our most memorable Thanksgiving.

So after Brian talked with our utility again (he may have been more 'assertive' this time), we finally got our power back on around 2 AM Friday morning. It was so nice to wake up to a warm house.  With lights.  And internet.  It was good to be back.

The bathroom after we pulled up wet, ruined floor

Until I went upstairs to grab some laundry and discovered that we had a major problem.

The garage ceiling after Brian pulled out the wet insulation and sheet rock

Our house had been very cold during the week.  We kept our main living area warm, but didn't venture upstairs to the family room above the garage.  Little did we know that the water heater fittings in the bathroom got partly frozen during so many cold days. When the power came on, the relief valve was frozen open and hot water poured out of the tank in the wee hours of Friday morning.  LOTS of water poured.  All over.  In fact, I cannot believe how far water can travel and how much damage it can do.

I can tell you that right now, we have a house that sits partly in ruin.  The bathroom, Em's bedroom, our family room and storage closet are all going to need new floors.  Brian is amazing at demolition (totally a firefighter thing!) and pulled up sopping wet carpets, and ruined pieces of wood floor in record time.  We hauled out damaged artwork, clothing and things we were saving for I don't know what, from the storage closet.  It looks like Emily will be bunking with Sophie for quite some time.

So, now we are embarking on an unplanned remodel project.  Having built our house and remodeled parts of it through the years, we are comfortable with stud walls and carpet-less rooms.  And we know that in the end, we will have a more organized, comfortable space.  The shock, anger, and utter paralysis that overcame me on Friday have subsided.  And now we get to rebuild and move forward, as always.

Snow!!!!

The snow has arrived!  We were not supposed to get this--just some cold temps.  The snow was supposed to be south of Seattle and into the Portland area.  But the snow doesn't read the weather reports, and is falling softly down on our island.

Grace is home and suited up in her snow clothes ready for some sledding.  Emily and Sophie are still on the bus trying to get home, and it will probably be a while as the roads are getting slippery.  We all love the winter wonderland, but I will be happy when everyone is safe at home.

The little birds are flitting between the shrubs and I'm glad I've left all of the seedpods on my perennial plants.  The creatures will do just fine in this weather.  The goats love the snow, but not the actually snowing.  They have been out playing when the snow stops falling, but as soon as they feel any wetness on their very thick, winter coats, they run for the barn--being the skittish kids that they are.

Strong winds are forecast to be moving in soon, so things could get even more interesting for us.  We lose power easily in our neighborhood, so I'm guessing we will be using candles and trying to stay warm tonight.  For now,  I am gazing out at a beautiful white garden.

Almost First Frost

The girls are abuzz with the hope of a snowy winter.  You all know I'm a huge Cliff Mass fan, and according to him we are going to have a colder, wilder winter.  He has lots of charts and graphs to support this, but even though he hasn't said we are going to have snow exactly, the girls are ever hopeful.

We haven't had our first frost yet, but when I stepped outside a couple of mornings ago, it felt wintry.  The water droplets on the each plant looked a little icy.  Almost sparkly.

And I am just as hopeful.  I love a winter garden with icy branches, frozen berries, and a bit of snow on the ground.  In the northwest we so frequently have a winter of gray, rainy skies--completely depressing.  So, I too hope that Cliff is right, and we get a real winter.  For now we at least have the hope of snow.

Rainy Days

I am stuck inside today.  I don't know how many inches of rain have fallen, but every time I look out the window it is not just raining, but pouring.  And it's cold.  So, I have wisely given myself the day off.

Sometimes I spin my wheels on days like today.  I look for breaks in the weather and fret about the work I am not getting done.  But not today.  I haven't gotten much done inside either, and that is OK too.

I have, however, taken some deep breaths, and as a working mom of three, that is a very good way to spend time.  As we head into the dark and rainy days of winter, I will find myself with days like this.  And it is part of the way I manage this job.  As a gardener, I live by the seasons.  In the Spring I knock myself out working at Spring's frenetic pace.  I don't sleep.  I'm consumed by the garden and my family begins to think that I am bipolar.  By the end of summer, the craziness of the garden and my personal craziness is subsiding.  And so I don't feel guilty at all diving into the slower, darker days of winter.  My psyche needs the rest.

Besides, now I get to read my gardening magazines, and daydream about new plants that I will want to try out in the spring.   And give my back a much needed rest.  A day like today can be depressing, but only if you have to be out in it.  For us gardeners it is a gardener's renewal.

Charlotte's Web

At the risk of freaking myself out every time I look at my blog, I'm posting this spider picture.  I've already written about my spider fears.  But this particular variety, the brownish ones that are so common in our area, I can deal with...kind of.

This particular spider and I have had a lot of contact.  I am not exactly on friendly terms with her, but she built her web next to the goat yard gate.  So every morning for the past couple of months, whether I want to or not, I see her.

And then a few days ago, her web was gone.  My hope was that the disappearance of her web meant we were finally through the dreaded spider season.  I don't know where they all go, nor do I really want to know, but out of sight is better for me.  The appearance of this egg sack, however, is something new.   And kind of creepy.  My spider didn't go very far though as she is right next to it!   She decided to create this on the gate right by the handle.

And now it's all Charlotte's Web for me.  All I can think about is what a good mother spider she is.  She is on her second day of just hanging out next to her future children, and I am being really careful when I open the gate as I would feel awful if I hurt her or the egg sack.

Before too long I am going to start imagining the sort of relationship the goats have developed with her and wondering if I've missed any web messages!

And, thanks to E.B. White's classic story about Charlotte, I also know that she is probably dying.  I think it is incredibly sweet that she is spending her last days hanging out with her egg sack, in such close proximity of us.  Part of me wishes to tell her thank you for taking care of our future spider population--who we gardeners desperately need.  The other part of me just shivers.  Either way, if I just think of Charlotte, I feel like I have a nice garden story playing out on our gate.

My favorite Season

Fall is my favorite season.  I love the wind that comes through, cleaning the leaves off the trees, and blowing in the freshest of air.  I love the party colors so many plants wear.  And most of all, I love that after all of the various disappointments of the summer season, Fall offers hope.

Yes, hope.  In the Fall.  I think that some people feel hopeful in the spring.  Or at least I think that spring is traditionally associated with hope.  But for me, the spring is so full of frenetic energy that I end up feeling tired and overwhelmed.  I do like the spring, but it is non-stop 15 hour a day energy.  The birds and the plants barely sleep, and neither do I.

Fall on the other hand, is refreshing.  It is dark enough that there are plenty of hours to sleep.  And there is a feeling of winding down as the plants go into their dormant season.  The earth takes deep, easy breaths, and I feel myself unwinding too.

And I feel renewed Hope.  For at this time of year, it doesn't matter how bad the summer weather was.  It doesn't matter how many insects descended on the broccoli, or why the squash got blossom end rot.  It doesn't matter because next year is a whole new year, with new possibilities.

As I put goat manure on the now empty vegetable beds, I can day dream about what I will grow next year.  I envision a row of purple carrots, and heirloom tomatoes.  And in my day dreams, the sun shines all summer, the insects don't eat too much of my crops and fungus' never materialize.  In the whirling wind and falling leaves of Fall, I weave delicious dreams of next year's garden.

Pumpkin Patch

We finally got to the pumpkin patch!  We are lucky to have a beautiful farm, Suyematsu Farms, only a few minutes away from us.  And lucky they had some pumpkins left for us to look at.  Our unusually cool summer wasn't the best for growing squashes of any kind, let alone giant pumpkins.  Thankfully the farmers are much better at growing vegetables than I am!

A basket of funky looking squash

A beautiful cinderella pumpkin

A bright orange harvest

Grace and Emily

Sophie 

Fog Cathedral

Yesterday morning, I was given a view that was so beautiful, it literally stopped me in my tracks.  We've been having some gorgeous Fall days this week.  Foggy mornings that burn off to crisp, blue sky days, and nights resplendent with a full moon and bright stars.

I was working down by the water and most of the fog had burned off.  But as I walked up the drive to the upper garden, the sun was shining through the woods and the last bits of mist.  With the sun as a backlight, the tree suddenly looked luminous, with the rays of sunshine dispersing around it like a star. I didn't have my camera, so my cell phone picture, though poor in quality, will have to do. But even so, I'm not sure I could have captured the beauty or the peace of this fog cathedral.

Spider Season

Water droplets illuminate this web in my garden

I am terrified of spiders, which is really inconvenient as I'm a gardener.  I've worked hard on overcoming this fear, and I don't freak out about them quite like I used to, but still, spiders give me the heebie-jeebies.

Rationally, I know they aren't going to wrap me in their webs and suck my blood, but still, I feel that they would if they could.  And I know it's completely irrational to be afraid of something that is so much smaller than I am.  But then again, these types of fears are rarely rational.

I do OK with spiders in the spring time.  They just aren't as "in your face" as they are right now and they seem to be smaller. Throughout the spring and summer, we get along fine.  At least outside.  Spiders in the house, or heaven forbid, on my clothes or bedding, literally make me shriek and call for help. But outside, I see them as part of the whole garden and I politely work around them.

Come August and September, the spiders get bigger and build their webs seemingly overnight.  And frequently they hang their webs right outside my front door, between paths, on my car--pretty much every place where I run right into them! Each year, I have to mentally work myself into this spider season. I remind myself of the good they do and their right to spin webs where they like, even as I shudder and shriek when I walk into one of their webs.

The ironic part of my spider fear is that even though they absolutely terrify me, I actually don't like to hurt them.  The truth is that I'm strangely fascinated by them.  I watch them weave their webs, and wonder at how they seem to know exactly how long to make each strand of web before connecting it to the whole piece.  Their webs are nearly perfectly symmetrical.  An engineering marvel.  And of course the gardener part of me is thankful to them for the work they do.  I am happy they eat their way through annoying flies with their delicate but strong traps.

But until this spider season is over, I will continue to walk around the garden with my hands in front of my face, shrieking if I end up with a spider on my shoulder.   And, entranced by the beauty of a web lit up with rain droplets.

Goat Wisdom

A day in the sunshine.  And I should clarify, a warm day in the sunshine which is a bit rare for mid-October on Bainbridge Island.  It was a gorgeous day today and because we know we are headed into the dark and rainy days of winter, it can be easy to spend a day like this "getting something done".  But the goats showed us today that we don't have the right idea at all.

The goats know exactly how to spend a day in the sunshine.  Around lunch time we found them all snoozing, sound asleep.  Sweet Pea was sleeping standing up, with her head pressed against the tire for support.  Silver was cashed out on the upside down metal feed trough, with sound asleep Lily cuddled next to him.  And Blackberry had a coveted spot on the goat version of the sun porch.

The goats don't think, they just do.  The sun warmed up their fur until they felt nice and drowsy, and so they dozed.  Right where they were.  They looked so peaceful and happy.  And once again, I found myself thinking that they are very smart creatures.  I still have a lot to learn from them.    

The Most Amazing Music Teacher

We have the most amazing music teacher.  She comes to our house.  She is young.  She is fun.  She is a fantastic teacher.  The kids love her.  And she is completely OK with the chaos of our home.

For our first lesson with her, which was over a year ago, I made sure the house was somewhat orderly.  I did the dishes, tried to move the stacks of homework and mail into a corner, and made sure the family room couch was cleared of toys.  This was so new to have our piano teacher come to us, and of course I wanted her to feel like a guest.

By the next lesson, my veil of "cleanliness" was already slipping.  The dishes were all over the counter and I apologized for the mess.  She insisted that she didn't mind and actually felt most comfortable in houses that were messy.  She said the really clean houses freaked her out a bit--they weren't normal.  I loved her even more.

And by the third lesson, my charade was done.  Not only did we have boxes stacked in the hallway as a result of trying to sort out the girls' clothes, and stacks of paper everywhere, but we now had the look of construction too.  We are finally done with our big remodel project (and she missed the phase where we had a huge hole in our house) but for the past year, she's seen a lot of projects in process around here.  In fact, she comes each week and says she looks forward to seeing what we are working on.

And now today, as she arrives for Grace's piano lesson, Emily and Sophie are in the midst of trying to fix the computer problem that Sophie created on Emily's computer.  They aren't arguing exactly, but our house of three girls is about as noisy as they come.  Our music teacher, as happy and positive as always, stands in the doorway, sees our chaos and says with a smile that she loves our noisy family.  She comes from a big family and says that she feels at home around families with at least three kids.  How could I love this girl more?  Not only does she share her knowledge and love of music to our kids, but she also manages to put a smile on my face as I look around and think yes, this is all good.  It truly is.

Bad tempered Bunny

He looks like such a sweet bunny.  So cuddly.  And also so quiet.  In fact, bunnies have this reputation for being quiet and calm--at least among people who have never kept rabbits.  And when you see rabbits at the fair, all in small cages, all sitting very quietly, that stereotype holds true.

But rabbits kept in cages aren't behaving normally.  That quiet pose is somewhat deceiving and might make you think that rabbits don't have much personality.  That would be a misguided perception.

Our current bunny, Parsley, is almost two years old, and he doesn't live in a cage.  He has a rabbit hutch with a very small rabbit sized door--designed to keep curious goats out.  He gets to roam freely around the fenced-in yard and go into his hutch when he feels like it.  So he leads a pretty good rabbit life.  And he communicates with us and the goats very well.

We feed him some rabbit chow and one yogurt treat in the morning and the evening.  But it is the yogurt treat that most interests him.  When we go into the animal yard at feeding time, we practically trip over the crazy rabbit because he hops so close to our feet!  It's his way of telling us that he is hungry and please not to forget him even though he is smaller and quieter than the goats.

Last week we ran out of yogurt treats.  And our bunny went without treats for a few days because honestly, buying rabbit treats fell down to the bottom of my "to-do" list.  Parsley was angry about this development and we all knew it.  Every time we went into the yard, he would hop around our feet and make growling sounds.  He was harassing the goats too, hopping around their feet and maybe even nipping their ankles.

Because of his behavior, buying rabbit treats moved up on my "to-do" list, and now he is back to being a somewhat sweet rabbit--as long as he gets his yogurt treat.  But he is not above being a bad-tempered bunny when he needs to tell us something.

Rainy skies/Sunshine plants

I'm not even sure what season it is.  I know the calendar says September, but the weather is so far away from our norm, that it just doesn't feel right.  The rain showers have felt more like spring, the sky looks more like November and the humidity doesn't feel normal for us in any season! All in all, this weather is throwing my natural sense of the seasons.

I've just read Cliff Mass' post on the rainfall records we have broken over the past few days, and though it's amazing to read the data of our weather, I'm not reading anything I couldn't have guessed.  Deluges of rain are just not normal for a Northwest September.

Yesterday afternoon, after watching Sophie and Grace play soccer games in intense humidity on very muddy fields, the sky darkened and the rain fell.  Oddly, the temperature was still close to 70 degrees and the sky took on a strange orange/green/gray color.  In fact, the sky looked so odd that we had to go outside in the rain just to see it.  And I'm so glad we did because the garden took on incredible shades of red.  Every plant that is naturally red in color looked particularly bright; almost as if the plants decided to glow with sunshine.

Blackberries!

 For eleven months of the year, I curse the invasive blackberry plant.  It is ugly.  It is predatory.  It climbs native trees, and smothers native shrubs.  It is a runaway plant which takes over our woods and road sides and I spend hours pulling it out of flower beds and woodland gardens.

But come August and September, I am drawn to the blackberry thickets that dot our island.  The sweet, juicy berries hang on the branches and are free for the taking.  The taste of one sweet berry takes me back to my youth where I would play with my brother and neighbors, and graze on the bountiful blackberries--a sweet, free snack.

I love to eat them sun-warmed right off the canes, but they are particularly good in jams, smoothies, cobblers and sprinkled over vanilla ice cream.  So this time of the year, when we are wanting a dessert, all I have to do is send the kids to the end of the road to pick a few cups of blackberries, and within an hour we will have a delicious blackberry dessert.

My favorite is blackberry cobbler and the recipe I use is easy and delicious.

Blackberry Cobbler

Step 1:  Send the kids out to pick blackberries (3 cups will make a nice size dessert for a family)

Step 2:  While the kids are out, mix the batter together:
 1 Cup flour
 1 Cup sugar
 1 tsp. baking powder
 2/3 Cup milk

Step 3:  melt 1/2 stick margarine or butter and pour into the bottom of an 8" square baking dish.  Next pour the batter into the butter, stirring it until almost mixed.

Step 4:  when the kids get back with the berries, pour them on top of the batter and place the cobbler into a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes.
(*If you are having company, double the amounts of berries, butter and batter and use a 9" x 13" baking dish.)

Step 5:  Enjoy!!

Earth Day Sunflowers

Last Spring, the children of Wilkes Elementary on Bainbridge Island gathered together on Earth Day to plant sunflower seeds along a narrow strip of soil near the parking lot.  All of the kids, from Kindergarteners through fourth graders, planted seeds, watered them in, and then wished them well.

It's a sweet tradition and gives the kids hands-on science and the school a beautiful parking lot.

Gracie in front of Sunflower Row!!

I shouldn't be surprised by how big the plants get, but every year I am just as amazed as the kids to see the towering row of sunflowers!

The row of giant, golden flowers looked particularly happy in the sunshine today. And I can't think of a better back to school welcome.