Alison Hodgson

Expert on the etiquette of perilous times.

Bouquet of the Day

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Almost every mom has been handed a squashed clump of weeds that only a mother could love, let alone take the time to put in a vase and call a bouquet.

Eden has been gardening for several years and picking flowers since her (then) chunky legs could toddle out to the nearest blooms. From a very early age she was able to make a genuinely beautiful arrangement. She has an innate gift, that particular eye which can make all things lovely and pleasing.  I have always given her free rein, since the very reason I garden is to assuage the flower loving girl I was once upon a time.

True story: when I was six our family drove down to Florida in a motor home. On the way to Disney World we stopped to visit one of my mother’s friends from college, Lou. Lou’s husband Chuck is an extraordinary gardener and was in charge of the landscaping for a college. He took us on a twilight tour of the grounds. As we walked, he gathered an enormous bouquet which he gave to me.

I have no memory of our later trip to Disney World but I will never forget the moment I understood that astonishingly beautiful bouquet was mine. “For me?”

Eden has been gathering lovely little bouquets for years and I want to start cataloging them here. The above is from several weeks ago: the last of the redbud blossoms, a late lilac and a bare twig.

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Ren’s here today and the kids are all playing upstairs.  I have been outside working in the gardens.  I am exerting a lot of effort just to stay on task, that being getting plants that I recently bought in the ground.  Unfortunately this requires moving around and dividing some existing plants, some of which are in the sun, that is quite bright today, so I am trying to work in the shade, where I have good ideas of other projects and next thing you know I’m tempted to start painting the house again.

Not good.
On the upside, it’s gorgeous out.  The light keeps changing as the sun shifts and moves throughout the trees.  No gardener is ever satisfied, and it is a practice to focus on the beauty that is, rather than the weeds, the bare spots where plants didn’t make it and all the projects that are, by default, being pushed off until next year.  Although I am tired and slightly overwhelmed, I have been continually struck by the loveliness surrounding me, so much of which is the fruit of my labor.
I need to get back to work, but I wanted to write this down, because it is a record of my own growth, as much as my garden’s.

http://alisonhodgson.com/2008/09/386/

Would whoever took June tell me what you did with it? I don’t want it back, I just want to know where it went.

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This was taken several weeks ago.  Don’t you love all the pinks and mauves?  This is why I garden: so that little girls can pick and pick and pick to their hearts content.

Here are the little crazies who did the picking.  Ren is wearing Eden’s bikini.   The bum needed to be rolled up to keep it from falling off hers.

The pool wasn’t open at that point so we turned on the sprinkler.

Wowza!  Look at that mouth.  
Mothering, wifeing, aunting, sistering, gardening, pooling and reading (always!) have trumped blogging for a while.  With the holiday, birthdays and a workshop I’m attending, posting will probably be light for a bit, but I will when I can.  I still owe Canada pictures of the Wizzle stealing popcorn.  I remember.

A little of this, not much of that

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We’ve been gardening today.  Lydia took over on a small plot outside our deck with Eden assisting and I began to clean up the 80 foot long bed that borders our back yard.  Christopher hauled the leaves and weeds in the wheelbarrow.  We got about 30 feet into it before Christopher took a promised computer break and I collapsed on a blanket with head rush.  Now we’re twenty minutes from needing to take Lydia to the dentist, so there isn’t enough time to get back at it.

Christopher is slumped at the table overcome by boredom.  It’s tough being a kid, sometimes.
I would love to pass out, for a few minutes as I awoke at three this morning because I was too warm.  I’m only 37, but that waking in the middle of the night has an ominous ring, as any middle aged woman would tell you.  I don’t know what to do with myself.   
I’m making headway with my whole “inch by inch…” while it hasn’t exactly been a cinch, it’s better than trolling the internet avoiding my work.  Paul has been a champ taking over on laundry while the kids and I are cleaning up all of the yards.
No fires, no explosions, no calls to government agencies…a good day.