Signs of Spring as I depart for Summer in the Southern Hemisphere

As I pack today on January 24, it is a glorious spring-like day with temperatures hovering in the low 60s....so before I leave here is what I found in the garden....

“Come quickly, I am tasting the stars!” ― Dom Perignon

Making champagne at RainSong Vineyard.....









...where champagne is drunk once the sun has sunk and the season of summer is alive in spicy bloom"  - Roman Payne

Last Fall at RainSong Vineyard the hills were cloaked in golden finery as the vines gave up their grapes for the harvest...

“Every season hath its pleasures,

Spring may boast her flowery prime,

Yet the vinyard's ruby treasures

Brighten Autumn's sob'rer time.”

Thomas Moore

The skilled harvesters of Oregon's wine country know how to cull these ruby treasures - the precious Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes come into the winery where the wine-master begins to prepare for the magical conversion to the heady pleasures of wine.  Into the barrels go the harvest to rest and dream and while away the cold winter days.....

Fast forward to June and now Summer begins to assert herself.  This week, on a hot afternoon in the Willamette Valley just north of Eugene, the crew is getting everything in order for the intense process of bottling up last year's harvest and is working up quite a thirst....so, it is time to bring out the beer, for, as they say at RainSong, "It takes a lot of beer to make champagne!"......

With the crew sufficiently hydrated we begin the process....first the sparkling wine bottles need caps that secure the wine during the fermentation in the bottle.....June 2013 will be a very good date.....

Next, the bottles are staged at the filler....a beer at the ready....

Then, they are moved to the filler station....

.....where six at a time are filled rapidly.  The station attendant has to look sharp and pull the bottles quickly or risk spilling the wine...

....on to the plugging, a temporary plastic cork is inserted....

...then the bottle is sealed with the temporary dated caps.....

...and carefully placed in storage as the fermentation begins......

....approximately 1380 bottles were processed that afternoon.  Here they rest until the wine-master considers them ready for the riddling rack...

.....where the sediment is observed and each bottle is carefully and lovingly turned by hand, before the temporary plastic cork is removed, and they are sealed and ready to consume......

Now the crew is ready to take a break and enjoy some of last year's vintage served up by Marcus, the wine-master.....

As the afternoon glow settles upon the weary but satisfied crew we enjoy the Summer's spicy bloom in each of our champagne flutes. Meanwhile, high up on the hill, the grapes are drenched in the setting sun, slowly swelling and preparing themselves for another Autumn harvest......

(Blogger's note: We have been very lucky to have made friendships with Mike and Merry, Marcus and Allie, and all of the great people at RainSong Vineyard. I hope that you have enjoyed this little slice of life from their piece of paradise in the Cheshire Hills of Oregon...here is a link to their webpage if you would like to learn more http://rainsongvineyard.com/ )

Cheers!

Instead of To Be Or Not To Be...how about, simply, To Be a Bee?

While thinking deep thoughts...one could easily miss the lovely details that rest on the surface of things, or that float by us, going about their daily habits....

Take the bee, for instance.....first a poem...

Bees and Morning Glories

by John Ciardi

Morning glories, pale as a mist drying,

fade from the heat of the day, but already

hunchback bees in pirate pants and with peg-leg

hooks have found and are boarding them.

This could do for the sack of the imaginary

fleet. The raiders loot the galleons even as they

one by one vanish and leave still real

only what has been snatched out of the spell.

I've never seen bees more purposeful except

when the hive is threatened. They know

the good of it must be grabbed and hauled

before the whole feast wisps off.

They swarm in light and, fast, dive in,

then drone out, slow, their pantaloons heavy

with gold and sunlight. The line of them,

like thin smoke, wafts over the hedge.

And back again to find the fleet gone.

Well, they got this day's good of it. Off

they cruise to what stays open longer.

Nothing green gives honey. And by now

you'd have to look twice to see more than green

where all those white sails trembled

when the world was misty and open

and the prize was there to be taken.

---

It turns out, that bees do have consciousness, so says the latest science.  Well, poets have told us this, there is nothing new here.  But, science can now confirm it according to the latest research on mapping the workings of the brain at the neuronal level...Science Friday on Decoding the Most Complex Object in the Universe.

From Ray Bradbury's lovely book Dandelion Wine, which celebrated the magic in the everyday comes this thought...perhaps bees also have a scent...

“Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don't they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers.”

Here are photos of bees hard at work last summer....I wonder what they were thinking on that day as they lined up to dive into the heady sensuousness of the garden of delight that the artichoke blossom offered?  Oh, to be a bee!

Artichoke blossom

Ponderings on the approach of the Summer Solstice....

"The days might seem long, but the years are short"

Gretchen Rubin - author of The Happiness Project

I've been thinking a lot about the paradoxes of life, how contradictions come together and startle us with the small quiet truths that reveal to us what it means to be here.  I'm reading a bit about the Buddhist concept of being in the "now".  I'm still not sure that I get it yet, but when I am in the garden, I feel that I am very close to understanding what I need to know. The summer solstice approaches and it has always meant something to me - resonating in a way that feels more like a part of my DNA than of memory.  Perhaps it is because it seems to represent one of the ultimate paradoxes of life....the beginning is the end.  

On a different but slightly related subject:  The moments when I tend to "get" this, I can only describe as inspiring a feeling of awe - a chill, or a sudden welling up of tears.  Great music, a sublime piece of art - it is connected with inspiration and also with the recognition of the creative process at work.  I've often thought of this experience as being in the presence of pure truth.  

Birds in mind......

We've been doing a great deal of bird watching in the garden and down by the creek.  After the major restoration work was done to contour the creek bed, much of the vegetation had to be removed.  Mostly just grass, weeds and willows, but I missed it all, nonetheless.  And, the birds and wildlife missed it, too.  But now, they are returning.  Testing the waters.  Perching on the branches of the small new native tree plantings.  Nibbling at the ripened seeds on the wax myrtle shrubs.....and, the great horned owl gave us a brief sighting not too long ago.  As we sat down by the creek, on a rather chilly afternoon sipping hot tea, a winged form glided out from the woods, and perched on a Dug Fir snag.  He gazed at us....then flew away.  But we heard him that night....calling, and so this poem, of a different type of owl, really spoke to me......it describes so beautifully how it feels to be so transported by a bird on the wing.....

A Sighting

by Connie Wanek

The gray owl had seen us and had fled
but not far. We followed noiselessly,
driving him from pine to pine:
I will not let thee go except thou bless me.

He flew as though it gave him no pleasure,
forcing himself from the bough,
falling until his wings caught him:
they had to stroke hard, like heavy oars.

He must have just eaten
something that had, itself, just eaten.
Finally he crossed the swamp and vanished
as into a new day, hours before us,

and we stood near the chest-high reeds,
our feet sinking, and felt
we'd been dropped suddenly from midair
back into our lives.

Mostly poetry today....and a few recent photos as evidence of Spring....

I am reluctant to let go of the poetry just yet, although I'm turning my attention more to the outdoor pursuits of the garden....so, in this vein, a few selections from Mary Oliver's latest book A Thousand Mornings must be noted here.....

A THOUSAND MORNINGS

All night my heart makes its way
however it can over the rough ground
of uncertainties, but only until night
meets and then is overwhelmed by
morning, the light deepening, the
wind easing and just waiting, as I
too wait (and when have I ever been
disappointed?) for redbird to sing.

And, a photo from the garden to go with it....sword fern fiddle-heads, imitating little seahorses in the morning....

Next, the poem that created the special mood that I was looking for after an exhausting week...

Today

Today I’m flying low and I’m
not saying a word
I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.

The world goes on as it must,
the bees in the garden rumbling a little,
the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten.
And so forth.

But I’m taking the day off.
Quiet as a feather.
I hardly move though really I’m traveling
a terrific distance.

Stillness. One of the doors
into the temple.

An iris appears to inhabit stillness by the creek...

And, finally, 

The Moth, The Mountains, The Rivers

Who can guess the luna's sadness who lives so
briefly? Who can guess the impatience of stone
longing to be ground down, to be part again of
something livelier? Who can imagine in what
heaviness the rivers remember their original
clarity?

Strange questions, yet I have spent worthwhile
time with them. And I suggest them to you also,
that your spirit grow in curiosity, that your life
be richer than it is, that you bow to the earth as
you feel how it actually is, that we- so clever, and
ambitious, and selfish, and unrestrained- are only
one design of the moving, the vivacious many.

The creek on its way to the clarity of the river

Restorative musings as we approach the winter solstice...

On a rainy and chilly December afternoon, thoughts turn inward as we move to nature's cycles.  I'm doing more time looking out into the winter garden than spending time out there, and that is to be expected.  Cozying up by the fire, mug of tea warming my hands, I am feeling the deep peace of a restorative yoga session just completed at The Yoga Center in Corvallis.  Each year around this time they hold these sessions and I was lucky enough to jump into an open spot for someone who couldn't attend at the last minute.  Once again, the experience was heightened by poetry readings from Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry and others.  This one came to us today.....

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair grows in me

and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting for their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. 

Peace and our place in the nature of things is a key theme of my thoughts lately.  And, as I begin the process of creating the woodland garden, this feel right.  A quote from Ann Lovejoy's "A Year Along the Garden Path" sums it up...."We make gardens not just to embody our dreams but because our spirits are uplifted each time we touch the earth."

And, I would add, to find peace in the grace of the world.

On borrowed landscapes...and Sydney Eddison

Where to begin with how this book touched me.....I savored every chapter and came away wishing that Sydney was my neighbor.....such inspiration....











One of the last chapters discusses borrowed landscapes and has given me great motivation to begin the woodland garden process in earnest this spring.  One of her quotes, "What the eye can see, the heart can possess". 

Just a short post, with more to come as the woodland garden gets underway.  Today, I bought 75 daffodil bulbs...hey, it's a start!

Looking for inspiration in deep December....

Just discovering Andy Goldsworthy, a English born artist, now living in Scotland, who works in large site specific sculptures and what is called "land art"....today I finished watching the mesmerizing documentary of his work,  "Rivers and Tides" and am now thinking of creating something in the garden that evokes the concept of portals....but, I haven't filled in any of the details, yet, and am making this post just as a memory jog.  Here's the link to the documentary online...Rivers and Tides.

The question is, how does he get such a deep black for the center of the portal?
What if you were to use a mirror to create the same effect?

Risking a tired cliche...life is a garden...

Some random thoughts have been rattling around and ready to spill out.  No "drop the chicken" moments happening (thank you to a fellow writing classmate for that handy metaphor...Kristina is a talented young writer and you can follow her blog here  Kristina's writing blog Bird Droppings).....just recurring minor observations.  Hanna Rion has written, "The greatest gift of the garden is the restoration of the five senses"....and this is so true.  But, it occurs to me that there are so many other "senses" that also awaken in the garden.  The sense of anticipation, the sense of wonder, the sense of accomplishment....well, the list goes on. 

Plants make it to wish list after visit to Dancing Oaks

Well, the wish list just got longer.  A visit to Dancing Oaks in Monmouth, Oregon, revealed these lovelies that now must find a place in the garden.  I was also happy to find the botanical name and tag information for a ground cover plant that I bought at a recent local plant sale which came with scant to no information.  Turns out it could be a pretty good score for that blasted slope which is plaguing us.

Heuchera Plum Pudding....love the foliage color

And, another "must have"...a sizable plant, Crambe cordifolia....this one easily topping 5 feet.  It is also known as Colewort, and said to easily grown to 8 feet.  Whoa!

For some time I've admired this plant and now I finally have a source...it is a Sambucus, possibly Black Lace cultivar.  Also, known as an elderberry.  Another statuesque specimen from 4-5 feet.

This is the mystery plant...turns out to be a creeping raspberry.  Who knew?

A few things that are working for me right now......

One or two parts of the garden are beginning to sing.....one is this Stipa Gigantea ornamental grass that I caught in the act of being backlit by the setting sun.

The thrill of plumage on grasses starts at this time of year (and I admit that I am a complete sucker for plumage).  And, so abrupt....only a few days ago it looked like this.....

Granted this is photographed from a different angle and time of day...but, you get the idea.

So much can change so rapidly at this time of year!

I'm also really beginning to like how the front foundation planting is coming along.  It consists of Moon Bay Nandinas, Japanese Forest Grass, Carex morrowii, one Skimmia and one vine maple in the corner with Christmas ferns at it's base.  The red blooms are Girard's Hotshot azaleas...the only blast of relatively short lived color amongst a green palette of foliage which I find a soothing place of welcoming to the side gate.

And, one last thing...this is an unusual color combination but I'm beginning to find it quite fascinating.....a vine maple and an artichoke wrestling to see whose foliage will get the upper hand....stay tuned!

Reusable, recylable....Trader Joe's in the garden!

The edge of the grass we wanted to keep was chiseled out with an edger to form a small trench, into which the bags were tucked.

Well, today was a busy day in the garden, so here is a snippet from the activities.  Trader Joe's paper bags come with suggestions on how you can reuse or recycle, but this was not on the list.....how about using them to reclaim some grass for a planting area? 

Let's say you have too much grass.  Want to get rid of it and create a nice planting area?  Don't dig up the grass....nature put too many goodies in there to discard!  Just paper over, with handy Trader Joe bags (or newspaper, or cardboard, also work well), spray with a bit of water to get 'em nice and soggy, and then cover with bark mulch or any other organic material.

Once you get the paper bags in place, spray with water and top dress with mulch, and they will stay in place (try not to step on them too much for the first couple of weeks).

In a couple of months the grass will have died back, lending all that good natural nitrogen and other organic elements to the soil underneath  (and, I can attest from my own observations that the earthworms just go crazy under that cozy layer of damp material, giving the soil a lovely texture). Then you can start gently digging and planting whatever suits you.  Meanwhile, you have a tidy mulched area, and the best part....no mowing or watering!

Here is a larger view of the more of the planting area created in the last couple of days.  All of the mulched area (reddish brown in color, as our local mulch here in the Willamette Valley is a deliciously aromatic mix of chopped Douglas Fir wood) has been treated in this way and was previously lawn area....very tedious to mow.

There is quite a slope to this section, which made mowing downright treacherous...a terrace will go in to provide easy planting and maintenance, as well as a small rocky path to climb the slope.

And now, Oh, the possiblities!  The summer will be spent designing the planting for this new area and in the Fall when the rains begin again to provide water to the new plants, the digging will begin.  What fun!

It begins.....starting from seed

So begins the first post....May 7, 2012, and the sunniest morning yet here in the early Summer of the Willamette Valley in Oregon.  So, what am I doing sitting at the computer when I should be out madly working the garden?  I ask myself this, and other questions.....more to come.....