March 7, 2013 -- daffy-down-dilly

Many nice encounters with daffodils today. First there were the old-fashioned, naturalized ones blooming outdoors. I picked some to drop into this test tube container, then laid some green chopsticks along the top of the wood base. That addition helped ground them.

While cleaning out files today, I also came across this illustration I'd once copied from a Mother Goose book (I think it was a Mother Goose book). I've always loved the illustration and the rhyme that accompanies it. 

"Daffy-down-dilly is now come to town

With a petticoat green and a bright yellow gown."

March 6, 2013 -- snow shoes

This is what happens when you're snowed in and don't have power. (I'm posting this from my iPad.) I spent the morning cleaning out closets and ran across this pair of shoes I'd been saving thinking one of my granddaughters might use them for dress-ups. I wore them to a rehearsal dinner over 40 years ago! Anyway, I had decided it was past time to get rid of them, when, because they were purple (and so were my windowsill flowers) I decided to use them as "vases." Too bad this color isn't true--this is all royal purple, not blue.

March 5, 2013 -- playing with purple

This didn't quite work, but tonight, when the sky was dark blue, I tried to put some deep purple flowers in front of it. At least it's a record of what's blooming: tiny reticulated irises (on left) and pansies, which have lifted their heads in response to longer days but are likely to have their temerity punished by snow/rain tonight.

March 4, 2013 -- daffodils and catalpa cigars

Oh, how I could improve on this now that I've seen the photo: I want to pull the right-most daffodil upright, separate the vase of daffodils from the vase of catalpa pods, and open the window lever! But at least this is a record of a fine experience today. Photographer Robert Llewellyn picked these blooming daffodils in Earlysville, Virginia, where he also has the most amazing studio filled with botanical beauties like these slender, dark brown catalpa pods. I hate not doing his studio justice, but...one does what one can do.

I could get all worked up about the limitations of my photograph--or just celebrate the fact that daffodils are blooming in central Virginia, and one man is saving catalpa pods because he appreciates their beauty!

March 3, 2013 -- Neltje Blanchan page

This page, in a 1917 book by Neltje Blanchan, was by far the most beautiful thing I encountered today. Having gotten rid of an entire suite of bookshelves, I am ruthlessly discarding garden books. But this one, oh, this one, which I'd forgotten I owned, will stay in my possession: The Nature Library, Wildflowers, by Neltje Blanchan. I have no idea how it came into my possession, but what a treasure it is. Its illustrations (and text) are all wonderful, but this Solomon's Seal illustration is exquisite. I may be risking some damage to the book, but I've put it on the windowsill so I can enjoy the illustration. This seems sort of disrespectful, but it's certainly better than letting the book languish on a bookshelf unopened. I just propped it up next to yesterday's plant material.

Here's the page close up.

March 2, 2013 -- fasciated willow and cryptomeria

What I like about this is the source of the materials. Today was sort of a cold, gray day on average, but this morning I was outside when the air was relatively warm for a while and the sun almost peeked out. I was enjoying being outside, and gardening! Some things that had seemed impossible to do suddenly seemed possible--like cutting down an overgrown fasciated willow and cleaning out part of the shed. From the shed (an old bucket of greens) came these very small sprigs of cryptomeria (the feathery evergreen foliage). And from the tips of the fasciated willow (pussy willow with flattened stems) came these pussy-willow-like twigs. I actually harvests lots of twigs--a bucketful--from the fasciated willow, because they were way too pretty to throw away, and I'm hoping they'll root.

March 1, 2013 -- same thing, after dark

Same materials as yesterday, photographed after dark. So sweet.