Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems. ~Rainer Maria Rilke

I’ve been so engrossed in my gardening, I nearly forgot it was Earth Day. Some images and quotes below to mark the day.

(My front garden in April. Virginia bluebells in the foreground. My dear grandmother gave me a start of these decades ago and they have thrived.)

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt. ~Margaret Atwood, “Unearthing Suite,” 1983  (I’ve certainly been covered in dirt lately)

I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden. ~Ruth Stout (I love this quote and greatly admire the wonderful Ruth Stout and her gardening wisdom.)

(Most mornings I wake up to geese in my yard and garden. How about you?)

In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours. ~Mark Twain (Yep. And this spring has been extra wacky)

‘Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.’ ~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke

Science has never drummed up quite as effective a tranquilizing agent as a sunny spring day. ~W. Earl Hall

(Another shot of the bluebells and tulips)

April is a promise that May is bound to keep. ~Hal Borlan

Every April, God rewrites the Book of Genesis. ~Author Unknown (I know what he means, new life and all that. Like the valley is recreated each spring)

Exciting spring smells waft through wide open windows… ~David J. Beard (1947–2016), tweet, 2009 March 7th

The window is open and a warm, delicious little breeze comes wandering in. It smells of magnolias and dogwood and it whispers in our ears enticing little stories of gurgling brooks and cool woods. Yes, we have got spring fever and got it bad. ~Country Life, June 1922 (Me, too)

(This deep purple lilac has been on the farm since long before my time. Does anyone not like lilacs? I love them.)

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day.
~Robert Frost (I do, indeed)
The sun has come out… and the air is vivid with spring light. ~Byron Caldwell Smith, letter to Kate Stephens

…the sweet wildflower breath of spring… ~Terri Guillemets (I have planted oodles of wildflower seeds. Pics to come.)

(Puffy flowering pussy willow)

April hath put a spirit of youth in everything. ~William Shakespeare

It’s spring! Farewell
To chills and colds!
The blushing, girlish
World unfolds
Each flower, leaf
And blade of sod—
Small letters sent
To her from God.
~John Updike, “April,” A Child’s Calendar, 1965

(My front garden in April. Note the much used wheelbarrow in back)

Spring: the music of open windows. ~Terri Guillemets

A little madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King.
~Emily Dickinson

The front door to springtime is a photographer’s best friend. ~Terri Guillemets, “Cephalophyllum,” 2007 (True)

(My back garden with cherry blossoms, herbs, flowers…preparing to bloom)

Spring in verses
Verses in spring.
~Terri Guillemets

The Darling Buds of May

A soft spring day in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia is scented with the sweetest blossoms. Many of our best loved flowers bloom in spring. Perhaps because they come after a long, cold winter, and are nature's reward. Or God's. Either way, I thought you might enjoy seeing some images my talented daughter Elise took of our garden(s) recently. I say gardens, plural, because we have many beds. Beyond the yard and gardens, we gaze down to the green meadow surrounding the pond like a gem from the Emerald Isles. And up above the glistening grass and green rye fields, are the wooded hills. Tender new leaves flushed with rose blend in with the many shades of green coloring the trees. Beyond the hills are the Allegheny Mountains. On a clear day, we can see the ridges tinged in green rising in the distance. Spring comes later in the mountains, but it comes in all its wealth and beauty. But back to the farm.

Below are some lovely quotes to accompany these images, with insightful commentary.

"I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden." ~Ruth Stout

I totally agree with Ruth Stout, and have her gardening book. A real treasure.

"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome." ~Anne Bradstreet

Amen, Anne Bradstreet. 

"Our spring has come at last with the soft laughter of April suns and shadow of April showers." ~Byron Caldwell Smith, letter to Kate Stephens

What a beautiful romantic thing to write.

"The year’s at the spring
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hillside’s dew-pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in His heaven -
All’s right with the world!"
~Robert Browning

Robert Browning is quite the optimist, which one can better aspire to be if one spends a great deal of time in a garden. The world has run mad, but love still shines brightly. And he was deeply in love with the talented poet who became his wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

"And Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth’s dark breast
rose from the dreams of its wintry rest."
~Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Sensitive Plant"

I do love the English Romantic Poets. Now, we must have some Keats.

"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing." ~John Keats

Why did Keats value quiet breathing? Because he died young of consumption. But he knew love, and was in love with a wonderful woman. He also deeply loved nature and flowers.

"Every spring is the only spring — a perpetual astonishment." ~Ellis Peters

This is so true. I never weary of the delights of spring.


"The naked earth is warm with Spring,
And with green grass and bursting trees
Leans to the sun’s kiss glorying,
And quivers in the sunny breeze."
~Julian Grenfell

I can't say it any better than this.

Flowers in order are bleeding heart, tulips in front of the old red barn, Virginia bluebells, violets arranged in an old bottle we found on the farm that turned lavender in the kitchen window, cherry blossoms, and a bouquet of lilac beside the large potted geraniums on our sunspace. Elise made the arrangements and took all of the images herself.

For more on me, please visit my blog at:  https://bethtrissel.wordpress.com/

‘As Rosemary is to the Spirit, so Lavender is to the Soul.'

 ‘Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram;

The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun,

and with him rise weeping.’ ~Shakespeare, Winter’s Tale

‘If you set it,
the cats will eat it,
If you sow it,
the cats don’t know it.‘
~Philip Miller, The Gardener’s Dictionary, Referring to Catnip

‘Salt is a preservative. It really holds flavor. For example, if you chop up some fresh herbs, or even just garlic, the salt will extract the moisture and preserve the flavor.’ ~ Sally Schneider

‘The Herbs ought to be distilled when they are in their greatest vigor, and so ought the Flowers also.’ ~Nicholas Culpeper

‘The intense perfumes of the wild herbs as we trod them underfoot made us feel almost drunk.’ ~Jacqueline du Pre

‘I plant rosemary all over the garden, so pleasant is it to know that at every few steps one may draw the kindly branchlets through one’s hand, and have the enjoyment of their incomparable incense; and I grow it against walls, so that the sun may draw out its inexhaustible sweetness to greet me as I pass ….’
-  Gertrude Jekyll

“There’s fennel for you, and columbines; there’s rue for you: and here’s some for me; we may call it herb of graceo’ Sundays. O! you must wear your rue with a difference.  There’s a daisy; I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died.” ~Shakespeare, Hamlet

‘Thine eyes are springs in whose serene And silent waters heaven is seen. Their lashes are the herbs that look On their young figures in the brook.’ ~William C. Bryant

Waters are distilled out of Herbs, Flowers, Fruits, and Roots.
~Nicholas Culpeper

“We have finally started to notice that there is real curative value in local herbs and remedies. In fact, we are also becoming aware that there are little or no side effects to most natural remedies, and that they are often more effective thanWestern medicine.”  ~Anne Wilson Schaef

‘The basil tuft, that waves
Its fragrant blossom over graves.’
~Thomas Moore, Lalla Rookhm, Light of the Harem

“The herb that can’t be got is the one that heals.” ~ Irish Saying

‘See how Aurora throws her fair Fresh-quilted colours through the air: Get up, sweet-slug-a-bed, and see The dew-bespangling herb and tree.’ ~ Herrick, Robert ~Corinna’s Going a Maying

‘As for rosemary, I let it run all over my garden walls, not
only because my bees love it but because it is the herb
sacred to remembrance and to friendship, whence a
sprig of it hath a dumb language.’
-  Sir Thomas Moore

‘Eat leeks in oile and ramsines in May,
And all the year after physicians may play.’
(Ramsines were old-fashioned broad-leafed leeks.)

‘My gardens sweet, enclosed with walles strong, embarked with benches to sytt and take my rest. The Knotts so enknotted, it cannot be exprest. With arbours and alys so pleasant and so dulce, the pestylant ayers with flavours to repulse.’ ~Thomas Cavendish, 1532.

‘When daisies pied and violets blue, and lady-smocks all silver white. And Cuckoo-buds of yellow hue, do paint the meadows with delight.’ ~ William Shakespeare, 1595.

‘Women with child that eat quinces will bear wise children.’ ~Dodoens, 1578.

‘Gardening with herbs, which is becoming increasingly popular, is indulged in by those who like subtlety in their plants in preference to brilliance.’
-   Helen Morgenthau Fox

‘And because the Breath of Flowers is farre Sweeter in the Aire (where it comes and Gose, like the Warbling of Musick) than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for delight, than to know what be the Flowers and the Plants that doe best perfume the Aire.’ ~ Francis Bacon, 1625

‘Caesar….saith, that all the Britons do colour themselves with Woad, which giveth a blew colour… ‘ ~John Gerard, 1597

‘You have got to own your days and live them, each one of them, every one of them, or else the years go right by and none of them belong to you.’~Herb Gardner

‘Once you get people laughing, they’re listening and you can tell them almost anything.’~ Herb Gardner

‘Would You Marry Me?
“According to old wives’ tales, borage was sometimes
smuggled into the drink of  prospective husbands
to give them the courage to propose marriage.’
-  Mary Campbell, A Basket of Herbs

‘As Rosemary is to the Spirit, so Lavender is to the Soul.‘-  Anonymous

‘As for the garden of mint, the very smell of it alone recovers and refreshes our spirits, as the taste stirs up our appetite for meat.’ ~   Pliny the Elder

‘How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers?’
-  Andrew Marvel

‘There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance;
pray, love, remember; and there is pansies,
that’s for thoughts.’
-    Shakespeare, Hamlet

‘The first gatherings of the garden in May of salads, radishes and herbs made me feel like a mother about her baby – how could anything so beautiful be mine.  And this emotion of wonder filled me for each vegetable as it was gathered every year.  There is nothing that is comparable to it, as satisfactory or as thrilling, as gathering the vegetables one has grown.’
~  Alice B. Toklas

‘How I would love to be transported into a scented
Elizabethan garden with herbs and honeysuckles,  a knot garden and roses clambering over a simple arbor ….’ ~Rosemary Verey

"I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year." ~Charles Dickens

“I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”  ~Charles Dickens

“I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month.”  ~Harlan Miller

“Christmas is the day that holds all time together.”  ~Alexander Smith

‘Twas Christmas broach’d the mightiest ale;
‘Twas Christmas told the merriest tale;
A Christmas gambol oft could cheer
The poor man’s heart through half the year. ~Walter Scott

“Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.”  ~Laura Ingalls Wilder

“May Peace be your gift at Christmas and your blessing all year through!”  ~Author Unknown

“It came without ribbons!  It came without tags!  It came without packages, boxes or bags!”… Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before!  “Maybe Christmas,” he thought, “doesn’t come from a store.  Maybe Christmas… perhaps… means a little bit more!”  ~Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

“At Christmas play and make good cheer,
For Christmas comes but once a year.”
~Thomas Tusser

“Sing hey!  Sing hey!
For Christmas Day;
Twine mistletoe and holly.
For a friendship glows
In winter snows,
And so let’s all be jolly!”
~Author Unknown

“To perceive Christmas through its wrapping becomes more difficult with every year.”  ~E.B. White, “The Distant Music of the Hounds,” The Second Tree from the Corner, 1954

“Oh, for the good old days when people would stop Christmas shopping when they ran out of money.”  ~Author Unknown

“May the spirit of Christmas bring you peace,
The gladness of Christmas give you hope,
The warmth of Christmas grant you love.”
~Author Unknown

"Christmas is the gentlest, loveliest festival of the revolving year - and yet, for all that, when it speaks, its voice has strong authority."  ~W.J. Cameron

Who Doesn't Love Ducklings?

I'm excited about all the migrating ducks on our farm pond this spring. And, once again, I'm debating the possibility and advisability of mail ordering some garden friendly ducklings and raising them to be my garden pals. Some varieties eat grubs and other pesky insects while not destroying the plants. But ducks need a pool of some sort as they love water, so I must provide that while figuring out a way to keep them from heading down to the 'big water'--our pond. I also envision the need for a pen for their protection, and am pondering where it might be located, who would build it, plus how to care for them in the winter....Meanwhile, here's an excerpt from my nonfiction book about gardening and country life, Shenandoah Watercolors, available at Amazon in kindle and print with lovely images of the valley and mountains. (*A 2012 EPIC eBook Finalist)

~When the world was new and I was young, I ordered a dozen Rouen ducklings (resemble large mallards) from a game farm and began my love affair with ducks, blessed by its moments of joy and cursed with inevitable tragedy.  The box of downy babies was delivered directly to my door much earlier in the day than our mail normally comes as the mailman had wearied of their incessant peeping.  I took the new arrivals from the grateful carrier and transferred them to a corner of the family room under a warm light bulb.  My two oldest children, in grade school then, were delighted with their new playmates, but soon joined me in the discovery that these tiny creatures were incredibly messy.

The ducklings reveled in their food, spewing a mixture of feed and water on themselves, the box, and the walls.  This led to their speedy removal to an unoccupied rabbit hutch in an outbuilding.  Here they grew in sheltered bliss until we deemed them ready for life on the pond, unaware that our charges needed parental guidance. The unchaperoned youngsters soon slipped under the fence and lost themselves in the neighbor’s grassy meadow.  We tracked their frantic quacks and carried them home, only to have them forget and stray again and again.

Sadly, unwary ducklings do not know to be on guard against snapping turtles, something their mama would have taught them.  By summer’s end, just two grown ducks remained and were fondly named Daphne and Darlene. They were inseparable and divided their day between the cows and geese in the barnyard and forays to the pond.

(*Our pond, calm on this day but often filled with ducks and geese)

The next spring Daphne and Darlene built a mutual nest inside a clump of gold-button tansy at the edge of the garden and patiently sat on the eggs that would never hatch.  It was time to find them a suitable spouse.  One fall evening “Don” arrived in my hubby’s pickup truck.

(*Little creek that meanders through our meadow and under the fence to the neighbors)

The girls took an instant liking to the handsome drake, and he to them, though he showed a slight preference for Darlene.  As spring neared again, we noticed a wild mallard drake observing our little band.  He would dash forward for a bite of grain at feeding time, only to be driven away by Don.  We pitied Dwayne, as he soon became known, and tossed a handful far to the side for him.  Besides the free lunch, it seemed that Dwayne was attracted to our Daphne, much to Don’s strong disapproval.

The small male was undeterred and eventually won acceptance, amusing us by his attempts to mate with Daphne, twice his size.  Persistence won out though.  That year the girls had separate nests, Darlene at the base of a bittersweet vine, while Daphne went back to the tansy.  Don and Dwayne bonded, swapping stories as they awaited imminent fatherhood.

The ducklings hatched in late spring and grew quickly.  All survived with excellent care from their mothers.  By fall we could see Dwayne’s influence on the flock.  His offspring were considerably smaller. It was a golden, happy time. Late afternoons we quacked loudly, calling our ducks for feeding.  Heads popped up from the seeding grass and they answered back then waddled single file behind Don, their noble leader.  If we were late with dinner, they gathered to complain about the lack of service and were not averse to heading up to the house to fetch us if necessary.

Autumn in all its splendor passed into a winter that was our most severe in years.  We tromped faithfully through the deep snow every day to scatter feed on the frozen pond.  Then one morning after fresh snowfall we could not find a single duck.  Our anxious calls came back to us empty on the wind…searching revealed spatters of blood and dog tracks in the snow, the silent witness to their grim fate.   Still, we hoped that some birds had escaped the attack and combed the neighborhood, finally locating a pair of Dwayne’s offspring.  Only the smaller ducks could fly well.  We had unwittingly fed the others up to be “sitting ducks,” an expression I understand too well now.  A week later Dwayne returned on his own, but it was a bleak time.  How empty the pond seemed without the gang.

That May, Betty, our lone remaining female, hatched a fuzzy brood.  Familiar quacks again filled the air and gladdened our spirits.  It just isn’t spring without ducklings.  ~

All of this took place eons ago, but we still have ducks on our pond and an ample flock fussy barnyard geese who make daily visits down to the water. The small town of Dayton, Virginia, not far from us, has a lovely body of water called Silver Lake (the size of a large pond) and a stream that attracts so many ducks the town has installed a duck crossing sign.

*Pics of our farm and ducks, also my mom and dad’s ducks…it’s a family thing this love of ducks. *Images by my mom, Pat Churchman.  *The one of the creek by daughter Elise.

*This story about ducklings is the one that really got me started in writing. It was ‘almost’ published in Southern Living Magazine and that editor gave me much encouragement about my writing, then she referred me to an editor at Progressive Farmer who accepted it and several more nonfiction pieces about rural life, but their free-lance column got axed before publication.

(Tame duck swimming in 'duck weed' in my parent's water garden)

"How I would Love to be Transported into a Scented Elizabethan Garden..."

 ‘Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram;

The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun, and with him rise weeping.’ 

~ Shakespeare, Winter’s Tale

‘If you set it,
the cats will eat it,
If you sow it,
the cats don’t know it. ‘
~ Philip Miller, The Gardener’s Dictionary, Referring to Catnip

‘Salt is a preservative. It really holds flavor. For example, if you chop up some fresh herbs, or even just garlic, the salt will extract the moisture and preserve the flavor.’ ~ Sally Schneider

‘The Herbs ought to be distilled when they are in their greatest vigor, and so ought the Flowers also.’ 

~Nicholas Culpeper

‘The intense perfumes of the wild herbs as we trod them underfoot made us feel almost drunk.’ ~Jacqueline du Pre

‘I plant rosemary all over the garden, so pleasant is it to know that at every few steps one may draw the kindly branchlets through one’s hand, and have the enjoyment of their incomparable incense; and I grow it against walls, so that the sun may draw out its inexhaustible sweetness to greet me as I pass ….’
-  Gertrude Jekyll

“There’s fennel for you, and columbines; there’s rue for you: and here’s some for me; we may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays. O! you must wear your rue with a difference.  There’s a daisy; I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died.” ~Shakespeare, Hamlet

‘Thine eyes are springs in whose serene And silent waters heaven is seen. Their lashes are the herbs that look On their young figures in the brook.’ ~William C. Bryant

Waters are distilled out of Herbs, Flowers, Fruits, and Roots.
~Nicholas Culpeper

“We have finally started to notice that there is real curative value in local herbs and remedies. In fact, we are also becoming aware that there are little or no side effects to most natural remedies, and that they are often more effective than Western medicine.”  ~Anne Wilson Schaef

‘The basil tuft, that waves
Its fragrant blossom over graves.’
~Thomas Moore, Lalla Rookhm, Light of the Harem

 

“The herb that can’t be got is the one that heals.” ~ Irish Saying

‘See how Aurora throws her fair Fresh-quilted colours through the air: Get up, sweet-slug-a-bed, and see The dew-bespangling herb and tree.’ ~ Herrick, Robert ~Corinna’s Going a Maying

‘As for rosemary, I let it run all over my garden walls, not
only because my bees love it but because it is the herb
sacred to remembrance and to friendship, whence a
sprig of it hath a dumb language.’
-  Sir Thomas Moore

‘Eat leeks in oile and ramsines in May,
And all the year after physicians may play.’
(Ramsines were old-fashioned broad-leafed leeks.)

‘My gardens sweet, enclosed with walles strong, embarked with benches to sytt and take my rest. The Knotts so enknotted, it cannot be exprest. With arbours and alys so pleasant and so dulce, the pestylant ayers with flavours to repulse.’ ~Thomas Cavendish, 1532.

'

‘When daisies pied and violets blue, and lady-smocks all silver white. And Cuckoo-buds of yellow hue, do paint the meadows with delight.’ ~ William Shakespeare, 1595.

‘Women with child that eat quinces will bear wise children.’ ~Dodoens, 1578.

‘Gardening with herbs, which is becoming increasingly popular, is indulged in by those who like subtlety in their plants in preference to brilliance.’
-   Helen Morgenthau Fox

‘And because the Breath of Flowers is farre Sweeter in the Aire (where it comes and Gose, like the Warbling of Musick) than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for delight, than to know what be the Flowers and the Plants that doe best perfume the Aire.’ 

~ Francis Bacon, 1625

‘Caesar….saith, that all the Britons do colour themselves with Woad, which giveth a blew colour… ‘ ~John Gerard, 1597

‘You have got to own your days and live them, each one of them, every one of them, or else the years go right by and none of them belong to you.’~Herb Gardner

‘Once you get people laughing, they’re listening and you can tell them almost anything.’~ Herb Gardner

“According to old wives’ tales, borage was sometimes
smuggled into the drink of  prospective husbands
to give them the courage to propose marriage.’
-  Mary Campbell, A Basket of Herbs

‘As Rosemary is to the Spirit, so Lavender is to the Soul.‘
-  Anonymous

‘As for the garden of mint, the very smell of it alone recovers and refreshes our spirits, as the taste stirs up our appetite for meat.’ ~   Pliny the Elder

‘How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers?’
-  Andrew Marvel

‘There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance;
pray, love, remember; and there is pansies,
that’s for thoughts.’ ~Shakespeare, Hamlet

‘The first gatherings of the garden in May of salads, radishes and herbs made me feel like a mother about her baby – how could anything so beautiful be mine.  And this emotion of wonder filled me for each vegetable as it was gathered every year.  There is nothing that is comparable to it, as satisfactory or as thrilling, as gathering the vegetables one has grown.’
~  Alice B. Toklas

‘How I would love to be transported into a scented
Elizabethan garden with herbs and honeysuckles, a knot garden and roses clambering over a simple arbor ….’ ~Rosemary Verey

Royalty free images