The Gateway to Summer When Everything Feels Possible

The Month of May is not only the gateway to summer, it is also the month when everything seems possible. Flowers are blooming and there is a feeling of expectancy in the warm air. 

Something that I did not expect was that on May 1st Bud announced that he was going to paint the deck.

It had been four years since we last painted it and neither of us felt like doing it ourselves again.

But try as we did we could not find anyone else to do it. I wasn't up to helping so it was all Bud's project - from power washing, to buying the paint, and applying two coats.

So from start on May 3 ....

...  to finish on May 5, it looks great.

The creeping phlox is just one example of those blooming flowers I mentioned.

They don't last long, but they are so delightful.

Lily of the Valley and Columbine came next. They are really spreading along the north side of the house.

Yesterday it was the Peonies that popped. So lush and fragrant!

Mother's Day weekend started the real 'deck'-orating when son Preston and daughter-in-law Shalea surprised me with this gorgeous planter.

And continued when son Douglas and daughter-in-law Shelly brought me an equally gorgeous hanging planter.

My kids sure know my colors!

Finally, this week I felt like filling some of my pots and adding even more color.

Bud moved one of the shepherd's hooks to the north end of the deck. I used two empty hanging pots from previous years for some wave petunias.

I thought I was getting all pink ones, but when two of them bloomed I discovered they were red ones among the pink.

Is it silly that I may have to find another pot for those two? They're messing up my color scheme. 😬

It is tried and true for this corner of the deck and this planter.

Each year, salmon geraniums with an accent plant - this year it is asparagus fern.

The Clematis growing on the trellis behind is just loaded with buds. 

I have a few more pots in which I am trying seeds instead of buying started plants. I hope they grow and bloom. 

I didn't know what to put in the two planters attached to the railing along the side deck until I saw these bright little gems. I had forgotten all about Lobelia. I think because I hadn't had much luck with it in the past.

Hopefully they will do okay this year.

At the corner of the deck where the steps lead down to the patio, atop the found and scavanged base of a birdbath, I potted some of my favorite annuals - Verbena.

Down to the patio, where shade loving Impatiens should do well in this old iron kettle, and the basil in the mailbox from my childhood is handy for use in the kitchen.

In the background the first of the ditch daisies are begining to bloom.

Returning to the perennials - lambs ear backed by abundant chives. I love having the chives even if I don't do anything with them.

I still lament the loss of Mom's Coral Bells moved here from the farm, but it does look like the replacement 'Marvelous Marble' ones are about ready to bloom.

Part of the expectancy of May is the return of all the birds.

Not only the song birds.....

.....but also the frequent visits from the heron.

We're only five days away from the end of May, but it has been a beautiful and productive start to summer.

Now if we can just get some gentle rains with no storms.... 💚💧😊

Warm Milk Sops - A Tribute To My Mom

Reading a book set in London in the 1920's in which there was a reference to 'warm milk sops'.  I almost kept on reading without it registering a "Wait. What is that?" response in my mind. "Wasn't there something Mom gave us when we were ill, something like that?" It finally came to me, she called it 'milk toast'. It was simply a slice of buttered toast with warm milk poured over it. And it was served mainly when we were ill, either with a sore throat, which I had often, or an upset tummy when nothing else seemed palatable. Once in a great while it was a simple Sunday night supper.

My siblings and I were the most fortunate kids ever because we had the best Mom ever. And we were raised in the best of times, when mothers 'didn't work' (even though they worked harder and longer hours than those who had 'careers' outside the home) and were always there when we got home from school. That is when she taught us different lessons just as important as our book learning. Like doing chores - responsibility; helping neighbors - kindness; listening to and minding our grandparents - respect.

And perhaps the most important, taking responsibility for our own actions - listening to our internal voice that told us right from wrong. My mother was my best friend. She let me make mistakes because I learned from them. She was my shoulder to cry on, never trying to fix things for me, but being there to listen as I reasoned things out for myself.

My children tell me I'm the best mother ever but I know that's not true because I had the best Mom ever and I'm not anywhere near the woman she was. 

I love and miss you Mom. Happy Mother's Day. 💞

(Mom is pictured with the flowers I gave her for a Mother's Day in the early 90's. I wish like everything now that I'd had another picture taken of me standing with her.)

Trackside At Ak-Sar-Ben

May 6, 2023 - It's race day at Churchill Downs in Louisville - the Run for the Roses, the first leg of the Triple Crown - the Kentucky Derby. It's also the 106th anniversary of my father Louis' birth so naturally both are dominating my thoughts for the day.

I've already picked my horses for the Derby. First pick is always my lucky number. This year the horse is Mage, which means magician. His odds are 15-1 so he might have to be a magician to win. Second pick is by how the horse's name resonates with me. Reincarnate is that horse with 50-1 odds. That is really a long shot, but I've seen horses win seemingly impossible odds before. Finally I choose by the horse's looks and that horse is Angel of Empire. He's a dark brown colored horse, which I always favor, with odds of 8-1. He's also an Iowa owned horse and I would be over the moon if he won. By the way, I do not actually bet on any of these horses. 

The first time I placed a bet on a horse was at the Ak-Sar-Ben racetrack in Omaha. It was May, 1969. Denny and I were living in Des Moines and our checking account was with the Polk County Schools Employees Credit Union. As part of membership they had what was called the Young Iowans which sponsored different group activities. That May it was a bus trip to the horse races at Ak-Sar-Ben. We went even though it was very close to the due date for our first child.

Whatever it cost for the trip, $25 dollars per couple sticks in my mind, it didn't include grandstand seating. We were down there in the crowd close to the track as shown in this old postcard. I've never been a gambler but we each decided to a pick horse and bet a small amount. I did what became my way of picking a horse - by name - regardless of the odds of it winning. I placed a two dollar, win, place or show, wager on a horse named Try Mona Try, even though I have never gone by that nickname. Its odds were very long, 30-1 or some such. As the horses came around the last corner headed for home my horse was near the front. Wow! We crowded up to the rail and as the horses came across the finish Try Mona Try was right there, one of the first three! I was so excited, jumping up and down and yelling. It's a wonder I didn't have the baby that day.

I don't remember how much I won. Less than ten dollars, I think, but enough to place another bet on one of the next races in which I didn't win anything. But it was a fun experience. After that I only went to Ak-Sar-Ben one more time before it closed in 1995. (It was demolished in 2005.)

My earliest memories of the famed racetrack and coliseum are of my dad going there with, probably, his brother-in-law, Uncle Al, and then coming home and talking about it. There was another time he and my brother Ron went, along with a highschool buddy of Ron's.

Dad's birthdate has another connection with Ak-Sar-Ben - the May 6, 1975 tornado that hit Omaha and narrowly missed the racetrack where nearly 16,000 people were in the grandstand according to a story I found online. This picture was taken by the track photographer as the storm passed just west of the facility.  

We've had some light showers this morning with chances for some severe weather later today and tonight - no tornadoes, I hope!

It looks like the Kentucky Derby might also see some rain. I wonder if a muddy track would help any of my horse picks win? I'll find out late this afternoon as I watch the 149th Run for the Roses. 😍🏇🌹

Oh, To Hear Its Call Again

 

I

The Whippoorwill By Madison Julius Cawein

Above lone woodland ways that led
To dells the stealthy twilights tread
The west was hot geranium red;
And still, and still,
Along old lanes the locusts sow
With clustered pearls the Maytimes know,
Deep in the crimson afterglow,
We heard the homeward cattle low,
And then the far-off, far-off woe
Of "whippoorwill!" of "whippoorwill!"

Beneath the idle beechen boughs
We heard the far bells of the cows
Come slowly jangling towards the house;
And still, and still,
Beyond the light that would not die
Out of the scarlet-haunted sky;
Beyond the evening-star's white eye
Of glittering chalcedony,
Drained out of dusk the plaintive cry
Of "whippoorwill," of "whippoorwill."

And in the city oft, when swims
The pale moon o'er the smoke that dims
Its disc, I dream of wildwood limbs;
And still, and still,
I seem to hear, where shadows grope
Mid ferns and flowers that dewdrops rope,—
Lost in faint deeps of heliotrope
Above the clover-sweetened slope,—
Retreat, despairing, past all hope,

The whippoorwill, the whippoorwill.

Were there whippoorwills in the fields and groves and along the creeks of the farm where I grew up? I don't remember. But I do remember Mom always sharing her knowledge of the songs and calls of birds we heard and the "whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will" of the Whippoorwills was one of those. I don't know when they left our area, but just like the jack rabbits we used to see, they were gone.

Many years later I heard them again in the area around Oakland Cemetery where my Lynam grandparents and great-grandparents are interred. To me, their whip-poor-will, whip-or-will call is plaintive, which seems appropriate to the proximity to a cemetery.

I've never seen a Whippoorwill and doubt very much I ever will. They are a nocturnal bird of the nightjars, or goatsuckers, family, only active from dusk to dawn. During the day their coloring keeps them well hidden among the barks, leaves and grasses.

A few months ago, commenting that as I would turn 80 this year, maybe it was time for me to make out my 'bucket list' - that at the top of the list was to hear the Whippoorwills again. Years ago any bucket list of mine would have included travel to Ireland and all fifty states, go back to the Virgin Islands - mostly things that involved experiencing other places. But a bucket list I made now would include much simpler wishes. And yes, hearing the call of a Whippoorwill would be one of those.

The World On The First Of May

 In celebration of May Day as well as ......

.... acknowledging my own 79th May Day with my photo of an ornamental pear tree....

....and a poem by Sara Teasdale. 💛

May Day

A delicate fabric of bird song 
Floats in the air, 
The smell of wet wild earth 
Is everywhere. 

Red small leaves of the maple 
Are clenched like a hand, 
Like girls at their first communion 
The pear trees stand. 

Oh I must pass nothing by 
Without loving it much, 
The raindrop try with my lips, 
The grass with my touch; 

For how can I be sure 
I shall see again 
The world on the first of May 
Shining after the rain?

April '23 Book List

 Reading slows down with the nicer weather - only seven books read this month. ☺

A Sunlit Weapon is Jacqueline Winspear's 17th Maisie Dobbs novel. I love this series just as much as I did with the first one I read.

Black Candle Women by Diane Marie Brown was a mystery that just showed up at my door in an Amazon box. With nothing inside to tell me who sent it, I guessed it was either my daughter, Kari, or my son, Doug. Doug had sent me books before and it was him, again. This is Brown's debut novel. It is about generations of women attuned to magic and in dread of the family love curse. It is a 'Read With Jenna Book Club' pick.

This Was A Man by Jeffrey Archer is the last novel in the Clifton Chronicles series. I really liked this series.

Desert Star by Michael Connelly is his newest book and features Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch. It was so good to be reading a Bosch book again. Loved that series so much!

Girl, Forgotten is Karin Slaughter's latest thriller. It is the second book featuring US Marshal Andrea Oliver.

The English Assassin and The Confessor are books #2 and #3 in the Gabriel Allon series by Daniel Silva. I was certain this was a new author for me, but when I look back through my posts, I find that I read a book by him in August, 2011. It's not surprising that I didn't remember that long ago. The library does have three of the final four of the Allon series which I will also be reading. 

Looking at my stack of  my most recent check-outs, it looks like May is already setting up to be a good reading month beginning with the latest books by three of my favorite authors. 💖

Last Day of April and of Poetry Month

It's the last day of April, the last time to share some poetry for poetry month and the last chance to post photos of the plants in flower around the house. Beginning with the one I just took this morning with the sun shining on the flowering crab apple tree and the birch catkins blowing in a very chilly wind.

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring --

When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;

Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush

Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring

The ear, it strikes the lightnings to hear him sing;

The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush

The descending blue, that blue is all in a rush

With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and joy? 

A strain of earth's sweet being in the beginning. 

(First lines from Gerald Manley Hopkins' poem, Spring.

After my walk Friday I came home and took pictures of some of my flowers. I didn't think the little Grape Hyacinths were going to make it this year. But then they perked up and blossomed so brightly.

                                              The neighbor's tulips were beautiful.

The purple Phlox by the mailbox don't last long, but they make a nice showing. And look at all the shoots of Lily of the Valley coming up! 

I still don't know what this plant is that I got a start of from my niece year's ago. It spreads readily and I have to pull some of it out, but I love its cheerful yellow flowers.

The bluebells I also got from my niece, Kristi,  have me perplexed. They have gradually whitened over the years. I can find no reason like soil PH or too much sun or??? An online search tells me only that one in 10,000 bluebells will be white. 

But I am sure they started just as blue as this plant is which is several feet west of those white ones and more in the shade.

These Mertensia, or Virginia Bluebells, always remind me of my Grandmother Delphia and the ones Mom had on the north side of the house - starts which she got from her mom. 

I like saying mertensia - mer-tench-ee-uh - and I almost always call them that.  Virginia cowslip is another name they are known by.

April is going out like the proverbial lion March is noted for - very windy and chilly. But tomorrow - May Day!!