White coral bells
Upon a slender stalk
Lilies of the valley
Deck my garden walk
Oh, don’t you wish
That you could
Hear them ring.
That will happen only
When the fairies sing.

I remember my mom singing that song to me in a slightly off-key, reedy voice. It is a comforting memory and it plays on a loop in my head during Lily of the Valley season.

On field trips he would tremble with delight when he found certain kinds of flora — one of which was the trout lily. Another plant that I thank Mr. Steinbach for teaching me to identify is Solomon’s Seal. Not only can I identify it,  I can also distinguish it from False Solomon’s Seal. (which has flowers at the end of the stalk of leaves instead of dangling along the stem)

Dean’s sister, Debbie, was in my botany class and I idolized her from afar. She never knew who I was and by the time Dean and I met, she’d been killed in a car accident. At this time of year when my Solomon’s Seal is in bloom, I always think of Debbie, albeit in a round about way, through memories of Mr. Steinbach and botany class.

Kids’ Prayer — Dan Bern

–The Cowardly Lion
The Wizard of Oz (film)

My interest in fairies was rekindled when I first heard about the Cottingley Fairies and when we visited Yorkshire in 2002 we drove through the village of Cottingley but alas, saw no evidence of fairies.

It was not a surprise when my daughter developed an avid interest in fairies and declared her belief in them. We’ve planted two small “Fairy Gardens” from a kit (here’s one of them on YouTube), constructed numerous fairy houses outside various vacation homes and made plans to create a real fairy garden in our backyard. We dug up an old azalea and some vines, cleared an area and planted some flowers. We added a couple fairy statues and one of my garden gnomes and it looked pretty good for awhile. Then the flowers died because we didn’t really prepare the soil well and after a while the vines took over again. This year I plan on using only container plants — we’ve got horrible soil here and I’m too weak and lazy to dig down into the clay and mix it with whatever it needs.

The photo above kind of illustrates what we have now — more of a fairy mud hole instead of a fairy garden.

One of the bushes in our backyard has been a mystery to me until recently. I never liked it much. It’s full of sharp thorns that deliver painful punctures in your skin if you get too close to it. The leaves have a pretty reddish hue, but the bush is in the business area of our yard — not in the pretty area — so the foliage is easily overlooked.  In the fall the bush is covered in bright red pill shaped berries that I remember warning my kids to never, ever eat.

A couple of years ago I noticed that, in the spring, the bush was covered with tiny yellow blossoms and this year I searched

bush “red leaves” “red berries” “yellow flowers”

and discovered that we were the owners of a Japanese Barberry which is an invasive plant and even prohibited in Canada because it can transmit black rust (which is bad for crops, according to Wikipedia).

This knowledge has not endeared me to the bush, but the yellow flowers are quite lovely and the berries look like red Tic Tacs(TM).

Red gerbera daisy

I’ve always loved daisies. My favorite kind is the sort you find in fields — white with a yellow middle — but a few years ago I discovered gerbera daisies and because they have such vibrant colors, have attempted to grow them a few times.

See, we have a red door — it used to be redder, it’s now more maroon, and like to have red flowers planted out front to accent it. (which may be completely wrong in a design sense — I’m no decorator).

Two years ago Dean took the kids to a nursery and they brought me some red gerbera daisies to plant in the planters on our front porch. They were lovely and bloomed most of the summer. Last year I requested the same and Dean brought home some flowers and planted them in the planter himself.

The flowers in the planters were red all right. Bright red. But they were not gerbera daisies. They weren’t even close. Dean thought he was planting red gerbera daisies, but instead planted red geraniums. At least he got the ger part right. And the red.

There are few flowers I dislike, but geraniums are on the top of that list. I don’t like their look and I don’t like their smell. Last year I hoped that they would die so I could plant something else, but, being geraniums, they were quite hardy.

This year I went with him to pick out the flowers and brought home red gerbera daisies. I still don’t know how he could mistaken geraniums for daisies, but oh well, that was last year and this year I have my gerbera daisies back.

4 year old coconut

The day after my son turned 13, I went on a Caribbean cruise with my three sisters-in-law. While it may seem I was escaping the reality of being the mother of two teenagers, it was just a coincidence. Honest.

After the cruise I spent a day with my sister-in-law who lives in Florida and she took me to a market she likes. I was excited to see all the fresh vegetables and exotic fruit and bought a number of items, including a coconut. My kids always asked to buy coconuts at the local grocery store — the novelty of cracking open the hard shell, drinking the sweet “milk” and eating the moist white flesh of the coconut was a rare treat. I assumed that a coconut from Florida would be so much better than the ones at the Bethesda Giant store. Clare was happy about the coconut. She may have seen coconuts eaten on Lost and wanted to experience the taste of being a castaway.

After we drilled into two of the holes on one end of the coconut Clare lifted it to her lips and drank. Then she ran to the sink and spat. And spat. And spat. And rubbed her tongue with her fingers. And gagged. I [stupidly] tasted the milk too. It was awful. It tasted bitter and rotten. It was possibly the worst thing I’d ever tasted. I followed Clare’s example and rushed to the kitchen sink.

We didn’t even consider tasting the meat of the coconut. We were terribly disappointed about the taste, but thought it looked cute so placed it under some yew shrubs in the front yard and soon forgot about it.

During the big snows this year, the yew under which the coconut was hiding was crushed and after the snow melted the coconut was seen once again. I don’t have the heart to throw him in the trash, so it will sit there, possibly another four years, until it eventually falls apart.

I still think it is kinda cute. Don’t you?

Play with me

Although technically my daughter’s cat, Halloween and I are very close. She’s the friendliest cat I’ve ever met — to a fault at times — and is often in need of attention.

Most mornings while I drink my coffee, plan my day and check my emails she’s either trying get a morning snuggle or has already found her way up onto my lap where she stretches her body and puts her paws on each of my shoulders, rubbing her head on my neck.

It’s hard not to love this affectionate feline. She doesn’t ask for much — just a cuddle a few times a day, but gives a whole lot of love in return.

Dog Violets

The house at the end of the street on which I grew up sat on two lots which, in early spring, turned a bluish-purple color when the violets bloomed. My friends and I would spend hours picking those violets and arranging them into child-sized bouquets, their stems tied off with long blades of grass. I seem to remember that we once considered selling these bouquets, but I don’t recall getting any money for them. I do, however, remember the look on my next door neighbor, Mrs Wewell’s,  face when I showed up at her door with a bouquet of dog violets. She was so happy that she went back into the house and brought me a stick of gum in exchange for the flowers.  Mrs Wewell always gave out sticks of gum if we did things for her or Pepper, her Mexican Chihuahua.

I distinctly remember the scent of these violets, but according to Wikapedia dog violets are scentless. Either the violets of my childhood were not dog violets or my childhood sense of smell was keen enough to pick up the scent that adults could not.

The other day I looked out into our backyard and saw that it had turned bluish-purple in spots and whiteish-blue in others. Our dog violets were blooming and I was reminded of spring in Elgin, my childhood friends and Mrs Wewell and her sticks of gum.