Springtime and Senescence

 Hello Lovely Internet Friends!

It is Spring and flowers are beginning to show their glorious petals here in the PNW.  I had planned to post some pictures but the crank fell off the aged laptop and it's all too much.  You'll just have to trust me on this one.  Here's what I have seen around these parts:

Camellia, forsythia, snow drops, crocus, daffodil, hellebore, probably some others, and now the cherry blossoms are starting.  Cherry blossoms and plum blossoms which people often confuse, but both are starting to bloom and it's all a delight.

It's still chilly and wet here.  We had a couple of days where temps rose to 60 degrees fahrenheit and everyone rushed outside and basked like lizards.  Then it snowed again.  Oh, just a dusting this time, as opposed to the February storm where they predicted a dusting and we got nearly a foot.  How fun it must be to work as a weather prognosticator.  Do they have special dice, do you think?

I have a new job, of sorts.  It's unpaid and it's every day.  My brother has finally acknowledged that he can't take care of our father all on his own.  He moved in with the old guy several months ago (maybe a year?) but being mostly deaf, he doesn't always hear it when Dad gets up and wanders off.  A month or so ago Dad decided to take a walk early one morning.  He wasn't wearing much - just a t-shirt, boxers, and a blanket.  He made it the end of the block, crossed the street, and took a tumble partway down the next block.  Thank the Goddess for kind neighbors!  They discovered him lying on the sidewalk, brought out a pillow and another blanket, and called 911.

As it happened, I was on the phone with 911 at the same time reporting him missing.  I raced over to the house, picked up my brother, and met the emergency services.  They took him to the hospital to be checked out and amazingly he had no broken bones and no concussion.  He needed a couple of stitches along one eyebrow and the doctor kindly said that he would sew it carefully so that Pop wouldn't be left with a scar.  Lol.  

The tricky thing is that this is the third time that emergency services have had to intervene with our dad. My brother realized that if it continues social services will be called and Dad will be whisked away to a secure facility.  That's not what our dad wants and it's not what we want for him.  We managed to keep our mom at home during her final days and we will do the same with dad.  Fingers crossed.

I've got the day shift.  I go over at 11am when dad is up and having his morning oatmeal.  My brother goes home to his own house and rests and does whatever the heck he does.  I give Dad his lunch, help him to the toilet, chat with him, watch tv with him, and, mostly, watch him sleep.  He sleeps a lot.  That's fine.  He's not much of a conversationalist any more.  His memory is good on ancient history but not good on much else.  Still, he's cheerful and almost always in a good mood.  He remembers who we are.  He's always glad to see us.  It could be much worse.  My brother comes back around 5pm and sorts out dinner and I go home.  

I had thought that this year, post-pandemic, I would finally get around to visiting some friends and relatives.  I had a plan for a big summer car trip circling through the western US with stops at various cousins' houses.  I will have to postpone that trip.  I don't know how long this caretaking gig will last, but I'm in it for the duration.  Well, I'll be taking off a weekend at the end of April to attend the granddaughter's first birthday celebration.  Looking forward to that!

So, that's what's going on around here.  Meanwhile, the sun is breaking through the clouds and it looks like it will be at least partly sunny today.  More rain in the forecast for tomorrow but such is life in this well-watered region.

Have a beautiful day, friends!

Floral Report

It's February.  It's cold.  We had tiny snow pellets yesterday and an unkind wind today.  The pellets were called 'graupel', a German word, by the local weather people.  I looked that up online and it wasn't the actual atmospheric phenomenon that I experienced.  Suffice it to say, it has been cold, icy, and gray.  However, the days are getting longer (and marginally warmer) and the plants have their own timetable.

So, on with the Floral Report!

A couple of weeks ago I began seeing the signs.  Tiny piles of earth, pushed up, into the air.  Soil breaking, and pale tips emerging. Stirring.  Life is stirring, under the protective leaf cover.  Plant life, earthworms... stirring.

And then I smelled it.  The fragrant, sweet, seductive aroma of the sweetbox shrub.  The early bloomer, with such subtle flowers, that blasts glorious spring-promising perfume through the neighborhood.  Glory!  Spring Shall Rise Again!

Immediately following the glorious perfume of early spring, here come the snow drops. So clean and pristine looking.  Demure.  But, they are sharing the stage with the earliest of the crocus.  Purple, yellow, white, with dark green spiky-looking leaves, they are planted in drifts in yards in my neighborhood.  I'm usually seeing them closed up as I walk home, as they are diurnal and go to bed early.

In my yard, the daffodils are poking up, and the tulips.  Just barely, but they are gaining by the day.  There is also a lot more garlic than I was expecting in the front bed!  Maybe I'll get some big ones this time.  :-)

Spring in Portland is wonderful.  If you are cold and snow-bound (or just cold), I wish you warm temps; if you have been deluged with rain after years of drought, I wish you high water tables and low erosion; if you are yearning for Spring... I wish you could be here.  It would please your soul, I'm certain.

We are at the beginning of the season.  I'll try to keep you posted!

Daffodils

It’s Spring here in the Pacific Northwest.  It’s chilly and damp with rain and even a little hail today, but it’s Spring.

In the last couple of weeks I have seen: snowdrops, crocus, camellias, violets.  Forsythia, star magnolia, azaleas, hellebores.  This week the cherry trees and ornamental plums have burst into bloom.  And, yes, daffodils.  Pussy willows are fuzzy and the catkins are hanging on the alders.  New green foliage is unfolding. 

Last Friday I stepped outside in the early morning and the air was rich with the scent of the sea.  A sure sign that warmer (and wetter, for us) days are nigh. 

I haven’t posted about it because I didn’t want to rub it in.  I know that you all have been suffering through this interminable winter.  But, I saw Washington, DC on the tv last night and there were cherry trees in bloom.  And I thought, yes.  Spring is coming.  Even to the mid-Atlantic.  Can New York, Massachusetts, Chicago and the prairie be far behind?

Hold on!  If it’s not there yet, it’s coming!

Floral Report

We have had freezing temperatures, ice, snow, wind, and rain, rain, rain. Even though we are in an El Nino pattern, we have been getting plenty of rain. I mention it only because when you have a “water intrusion” as the building trades like to call it (aka a leak), you do notice the unremitting rain.

However, all is not dreary and gray! No indeed, with the above average temperatures that El Nino brings, we are starting to see early spring flowers popping up. I should be worried about them; they should be worried about themselves. It’s really too early to be bursting into bloom. February is known around here as the ice storm month for good reason. But, I am so happy to see them!

In my yard, the winter blooming jasmine is sporting sunny yellow flowers. OK, it’s a winter bloomer, not a sign of early spring, but I love it anyway. Cheers for the jasmine! Thanks for the joy!

My neighbor’s yard is rife with daphne, and they are just starting to send out their heady fragrance. Do you like the smell of daphne? It reminds me of Froot Loops cereal, so sweet!

There are bulb-borne flowers starting to push out of the ground, strong, sturdy, sword-like leaves are cleaving their way through the soil. Tulips, hyacinths, daffodils.

Even the hydrangea is showing new leaf buds on its winter scarred branches. I wasn’t sure we’d get any hydrangeas after that cold snap and snow storm. It is such a fibrous plant that it dies right back in the cold. Ours seems to have survived.

Some planting guides suggest that we can put peas in the ground now (snow peas, I’d guess), but I’m going to wait just a little longer for that. That would be tempting fate, tempting the weather gods just a little too much.

What are your favorite spring flowers? What’s blooming in your yard or neighborhood?