Get Thee To A Garden!

Smith Botanical Conservatory

"Spring is here. If you are inclined to look for the meaning of life, get thee to a garden. There are profound reasons why the garden is central in the sacred texts of major religions. Since ancient times, it has been the place where the soul goes to exercise, while simultaneously engaged in a multilayered dance with earth, plants, sun, birds, bees, hummingbirds, butterflies, night, day, temperature, the faithful earthworm, water, minerals, fragrance, a cast of thousands of microorganisms, our stalwart friends the fungi, chlorophyll, nectar. I think of it as a ballet in the biosphere."
                                                            - George Ball in The Wall Street Journal

The temperatures are climbing to the 50's F here in the hills and although there is still snow on the muddy, muddy, ground, I feel as if I am finally thawing out from a long, hard winter. The above quote made my head spin in gladness for the beautiful perspective of the words which celebrate our interconnectedness with the plant, animal environmental, celestial systems. My gardens at home are just starting to reveal themselves again and I'm aching to connect with the dirt and the plants. Soon, soon...

We went to the Smith Botanical gardens a couple of weeks ago. Oh, the smells! Wonderful smells! Humid, damp air, moist dirt, hyacinth, freesia, daffodils, tulips, orange blossoms, camellia, cacao trees... It was soothing to our winter weary souls. And nice to have a view looking out the conservatory windows through green plants and steamed up windows to the gray frozen landscape.

So if you are still waiting for the grasses to green, the daffodils to push up, the forsythia to bloom, get thee to a garden! A botanical garden or conservatory is a good place to BE, even if just for an hour or two.  Your kids will love it, you will love it! You will linger in a room of blooming bulbs and close your eyes, just to breath in the fragrance. Happy Spring!

Kaz smelling the flowers

Bulb Show, Smith Conservatory

Camellia

Cacao Tree

Sister Sunflower

A sunflower grew to be twelve feet tall in my garden this year. She was a volunteer. I did not plant her. She is the daughter and granddaughter of the sunflowers that grew in the same spot over the past few years. I've come to think that her presence is the guardian of the house and the land. Everyone who comes to my house comments on her. I like her strong, quiet companionship. Sometimes I go out to the garden and just stand next to her. All alone. I look at her beauty and think about how she teaches me. In return I admire her and give her a little of my company. Her flower head is over a foot in diameter. The seeds are riping and later this fall they will feed the birds, squirrels and chipmunks who will come. Her head is heavy, bent down in a pose of humility and surrender. The dazzling yellow petals have whithered away. The nights have turned chilly. Her heart shaped leaves draw inward towards her strong and straight stalk holding her upright even in the rain and in the wind. She surrenders to the season. Fall is here and the trees, birds and flowers are letting us know. It has been a truly beautiful two weeks. I can't remember a more beautiful turning of the leaves to their golds, reds and coppers. Rain came today and everything is beautiful in a different kind of way.

In light of listening to a weekly poetry program on the radio, I feel like sharing another Mary Oliver poem. I just love her work. This excerpt from the following poem The Sunflowers resonates with me. Oliver just squeezes out the truth, the essence of a thing, the essence of spirit the truth about what it means to be alive.

Like these words from The Sunflower...

"...each of them, though it stands
in a crowd of many,
like a separate universe,

is lonely, the long work
of turning their lives
into a celebration
is not easy..."

The Sunflowers: APoem by Mary Oliver

Come with me
into the field of sunflowers.
Their faces are burnished disks,
their dry spines

creak like ship masts,
their green leaves,
so heavy and many,
fill all day with the sticky

sugars of the sun.
Come with me
to visit the sunflowers,
they are shy

but want to be friends;
they have wonderful stories
of when they were young -
the important weather,

the wandering crows.
Don't be afraid
to ask them questions!
Their bright faces,

which follow the sun,
will listen, and all
those rows of seeds -
each one a new life!

hope for a deeper acquaintance;
each of them, though it stands
in a crowd of many,
like a separate universe,

is lonely, the long work
of turning their lives
into a celebration
is not easy. Come

and let us talk with those modest faces,
the simple garments of leaves,
the coarse roots in the earth
so uprightly burning.

"My work is loving the world..." a poem by Mary Oliver

Messenger

By Mary Oliver

 

My work is loving the world.

Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—

equal seekers of sweetness.

Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.

Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?

Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me

keep my mind on what matters,

which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be

astonished.

The phoebe, the delphinium.

The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.

Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart

and these body-clothes,

a mouth with which to give shouts of joy

to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,

telling them all, over and over, how it is

that we live forever.

All photos were taken today, a glorious September day, at the Raspberry Hill Community garden.

While on a drive this week I came across a radio show where poetry is read. The host read a Mary Oliver poem that took my breath away. I think her work is deeply beautiful and true.

Folk Flower Tattoo: A hand designed commission

 

In 2011, upon return from my trip to Poland and Hungary, a woman who donated some money to my quest got in touch with me. She liked the images I was making inspired by eastern European designs. She also admired my quest to travel, learn and meet family. She wanted me to design a tattoo for her based on my eastern European Folk Flowers.

A big birthday was coming up for her and she wanted a special tattoo to mark this passage in her life. She is a talented flower arranger, has a flair for creative color palettes and creates unique, locally grown flower combinations that are used in her arrangements.

We got together to talk about what she wanted. Then I got to the drawing board.

A tattoo! A bit daunting, isn't it? Tattoos are a creative expression that are pretty permanent for a lifetime. I wanted to make sure that the design I came up with would be something she'd want to live with for the rest of her life.

I created two design options and she liked them. She took elements from them both and used them in her final design. This was an interesting process for me because I never had to design an image with the dimensionality of the human body in mind. Bone, skin, muscle...it was a cool challenge. Especially for the location of her tattoo as she wanted it to come from her foot, around her ankle (where that ankle bone protrudes) and up her calf.

Ultimately I had to hand the design over to the final artist, the tattoo artist. She would bring the image to the skin and to life. We met with her and she thought she had something good to work with. She and my client tweaked some of my color choices and varied the drawing just a bit, combining elements from both drawings, so that my work would translate to the tattoo medium, needle and ink, skin, muscle and bone.

When I got to see the pictures of the final result I was happy with how the image found a home on my client's skin. Graphic folk art patterns and design lend themselves well to tattoo art. The colors are so vibrant and beautiful. I know that my client really wanted colors that were vibrating with life as part of her tattoo.

This commission was a fun project and good challenge. I really enjoyed working with my client. I'm happy she has a piece on her skin that means so much to her. It reflects her life and her work with flowers.

Summer Harvest Time Begins

It's that special time in late summer when the hard work in the spring begins to really pay off. The counters and the table in my kitchen begin to be cluttered with what was picked from the gardens in the last day or so.

We've been having fun making cordials and fermenting various items from the great outdoors. Last week we spent an hour picking the wild cherries which are abundant this year on Stage Road. The cherries are sitting in various combinations of vodka, gin and sugar to become cordials to be enjoyed this fall and winter. I have a rose cordial in the makes. Once the elderberries are ripe they will be used to make our special immunity boosting cordial. I have a batch of pickles fermenting in a crock. It's my first time trying to make this fresh fermented pickle. I got the recipe out of my new Polish cook book, "From A Polish Country House Kitchen". Josh and a friend made a big batch of dandelion wine which is aging in corked bottles in the closet. I've been wanting a chest freezer for a long, long time and just recently we purchased a used one to put in the garage. It's holding a nice amount of rhubarb, raspberries and blueberries so far. I like to look in it and dream about the good food we'll be eating this winter.

OK, lets leave the kitchen, go outside and take a look in the gardens! Right out the front door is a scramble of marigolds, geraniums, lantana, snapdragons, new guinea impatiens, canna lillies, mint, and salvia in colorful pots on the front porch.

The old claw foot bathtub is now a garden and full of canna lilies, calla lilies, dahlias, geraniums, gladiolas and morning glory.

Today I picked a whooping 13 peaches off the peach tree. My biggest harvest yet!

I created a hay bale, raised bed at the base of the terrace garden hill in which to grow squash.  The plants are quite happy as they grow and spill out over the edge of the haybales onto the meadow and hillside. It looks like we'll be eating a lot of spaghetti and butter cup squash.

The sunflower greeting the morning rays is a pretty sight. Under her grows some kale, peppers and a volunteer tomatillo.

The cherry tomatoes are just beginning to ripen.

After looking around my garden at home I headed around the block to my community garden plot at the Raspberry Hill Community Garden. The space is a very special place where the sounds and beauty of the country nourish my soul. The crickets are chirping, the swallows fly and swoop over the garden and big old maple trees line the lane. The land, also known as the Guyette Farm, was gifted to the Franklin Land Trust by Evelyn Guyette. The gardens are situated on a beautiful spot overlooking hills to the west. The sunsets are gorgeous and the cloud watching is excellent. I got a late start with my plot this year. It's my first year working the land here and a lot of sod needed to be lifted in order to create my garden beds. Finally they are all planted and beginning to really thrive. I'm growing carrots, beets, dill, cabbage, potatoes, kale, onion, leeks, green beans, cucumbers and a cherry tomato. I really love being a part of this group of talented and dedicated gardeners and look forward to spending more time here with the land and with others in the years to come.

Let's walk through the gate and take a peak at the gardens.

The blueberries are ripening in the sun and the old barn is in view over the raspberry brambles.

Cloud watching to the west.

My plot is pictured below in the foreground. All the plants are relatively young but they are coming along. I think they'll do really well growing big and strong during the warm month of August into September before the frosts come.

At home again, Kaz came out to the garden with me after his morning nap.  He enjoys throwing around the dirt and mulch as I prep a bed to plant more lettuces.

Happy August, early harvest time to you! I hope you are enjoying these golden days.

Feeling the Lovage: A traditional Romanian soup, Ciorba de perisoare

This week I spent a lot of time in the kitchen cooking with some of the goodies found in the garden this time of year.  So far the two main ingredients from the garden have been Rhubarb and Lovage. How many of you know about the herb, Lovage? If you have never cooked with this herb, it's time to start feeling the Lovage! Lovage is an amazing plant with a beautiful, fragrant odor and tangy, complex, out of this world flavor.

My husband Josh spent two years living in Romania when he served in the Peace Corps. While there he ate many sour soups, called Ciorba, which uses this herb to add an unmistakable flavor:  tangy, a bit sour and very flavorful. Ciorba de perisoare (meatballs), Ciorba de burta (tripe), Ciorba de cartofi (potato).... the list goes on.

Josh and I went to Romania and Hungary 10 years ago for our honeymoon. We had a wonderful trip and experience visiting and staying with some of the friends Josh made while in the Peace Corps. True hospitality met us during every interaction and with all the friends with whom we spent time. We traveled all around the country: Bucharest, Pitesti, Sighisoara, the Danube delta, Constanta (on the Black Sea coast), the mountains... As you can guess, I was struck by the culture and folk arts while in Romania. I especially admired the ornamental wood carved gates found in a certain region of Romania and the woven wool rugs were particularly striking, I loved looking at the rural dwellings especially. My friend Razvan remembers me taking a special interest in the folk arts on that trip. Perhaps some seeds were sown and embers were left smoldering...a foreshadowing of my interest in Eastern European traditions. I took the following photos during our trip in 2003. After this little photo tour you'll find a tasty recipe for Ciorba de perisoare if you would like to try and make it in your kitchen.

Bucharest, Romania: View from our friend's flat

Rural Mountain scene in Romania

Sighisoara, Romania

Village house, Romania

Flowers blooming, Romania

Constanta, Romania

I made Ciorba de perisoare on Friday and brought a little bit of Romania into our home for an evening spent with some friends. Oh, the smell of that soup! My house was filled with it's fragrance. We played all our favorite Romanian music which was bought on our trip many years ago. Kids and some adults danced around the living room table, what fun! If you can't travel to the place, bring it to you!

If you have some Lovage growing in your garden, can find some in a friend's garden or at a Farmer's Market perhaps you'd like to try this recipe. The soup was delicious. Even Kazmir, my 11 month old, got excited about eating it! Here is the link where I found the recipe:
Romanian Sour Meatball Soup

Ciorba de perisoare
Sour Meatball Soup Recipe (ciorba de perisoare)
Cooking time: 1 hour 30 minutes (preparation: 50 minutes; cooking: 30-40 minutes)

Makes: 8 servings

Ingredients:

• 1 pound grounded meat (mixed beef and pork)
• 1 pound beef (or veal) with bones
• 2 small onions
• 2 slices of bread
• 2 tablespoons rice
• salt
• ground black pepper
• 1 parsley root
• 3-4 carrots
• 1 parsnip root
• 3-4 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 bunch of lovage leaves (or parsley leaves)
• 2-3 tablespoons vinegar

Preparation: 

1. Bring to boil  6 cups of water in a pot.
2. Finely slice: 1 onion, the parsley, the parsnip and the carrots and put them in the water.  Add the beef (or veal) meat.
3. In the mean time soak the bread in water then squeeze it. Mash the bread with a fork.
4. Mix the ground meat with the other finely chopped onion, the mashed bread and the rice, and season with salt and ground black pepper. For a more tender meat composition add 2-3 tablespoons of water.
5. Make small meat balls rolling them with wet hands.
6. When the vegetables become tender put the meat balls in the boiling water. Reduce heat and simmer for 30-40 minutes.
7. When the soup is almost done the meatballs are coming to the surface as the soup simmers.
8. Add the tomato paste and stir.
9. Finely chop the lovage and add it to the soup, and then season with salt and vinegar. If you do not have lovage, you can use fresh parsley leaves instead.
10. The soup is delicious served with a bit of sour cream, and a hot pepper on the side.

New Folk Flower

So many warm and sunny days have spent their time with us this April. I can't say that I've minded although I was beginning to worry after days and days without rain. Thanks to the rain gods, the rain did come this past weekend and have visited us here and there every day since. Things are greening up again and look well hydrated. It goes to show how important balance is.

I'm about ready to wrap up my series of folk flower paintings and send them to the press to be made into cards. Here's a new one! It may be my personal favorite so far...most likely because of the color palette.  I have a soft spot for turquoise and think these colors play off that color background well. I hope to post two more finished designs later this week so stop by again if you are interested to see them!

I'll leave you with a photograph of twilight through our trees that was taken last week on a balmy evening. I never tire of looking at the dark silhouette of trees against the colored sky painted by the setting sun.

Spring Flowers

Inside the conservatory at Smith College spring flowers are blooming in riotous color and sharing their heavenly scent.

This is a yearly ritual and I go to awaken my senses to the coming spring. Outside the snow is gone, green is returning and some brave flowers are blooming.