by jphilo | May 21, 2013 | Walking Down the Gravel Road
10.
The wild plum tree blooming across the road.
9.
Blossoms on the cherry tree across the fence in the neighbor’s yard.
8.
A white crab apple tree just about to burst into bloom.
7.
Sunshine streaming through trees covered with new leaves.
6.
White jonquils waving at the morning sun.
5.
Red bud trees vibrant enough to take a person’s breath away.
4.
A field of dandelions…next to someone else’s yard.
3.
A red crab apple tree heavy with flowers.
2.
A fairy ring of bleeding hearts.
1.
A tulip festival in our own backyard.
What do you love about spring? Leave a comment!
by jphilo | May 4, 2012 | Walking Down the Gravel Road
Spring is lovely along our Iowa gravel road.The rain washes away the dust kicked up by cars passing by, so the foliage is a deep and vibrant, soothing green. Every day is a feast for the senses.
The lingering scent of rain from a night time thunderstorm.
Toads betrayed by small movement in the grass.
Does hiding the shadow.
Cardinals singing in the treetops.
The stream rushing and gurgling under the bridge.
Goldfinches fighting for their turf in low bushes.
Each spring morning, I rush outside to greet new blossoms.
First the magnolias, the rhododendron, the red buds, and the daffodils.
Then the bleeding heart, the tulips and the lilacs.
Now the iris, the clematis, and the columbine.
Soon the peonies and the daisies.
I can’t bear the thought of missing the arrival of these friends. So most years, I stay home in May, determined to fully savor its beauty. But not this year. Not this week. Tomorrow, we pack the car and leave the beauty behind for a few days. I hate to miss the arrival of the peonies and daisies. But I know how much my daughter misses our gravel road after a year in Ohio while her husband finished grad school.
She misses the ancient silver maples in our yard,
The sight of leaves and grass,
The smell of trees and space and flowers,
The fairy ring where she played as a child,
The regularity of a gravel road each mile,
The greenness found only in Iowa,
Beloved by Iowa girls like my daughter and me.
She’s hungry for her home state, as I was during the seven years Hiram and I lived in South Dakota. So hungry, I could hardly bear it. So eager for a taste of home, I lived for my mother’s visits and feasted on the time she spent with us.
My mother left her roses,
And her yard work,
And her rhubarb,
And her invalid husband
To feed her daughter a taste of home.
So the peonies and daisies will have to bloom without us. Hiram and I are off to see our daughter and new son. Packing our car with Iowa air and comfort. Eager to share our feast with our hungry, Iowa-starved children. Bringing them the taste of our gravel road as my mother once brought a taste of home to me.
by jphilo | Nov 23, 2009 | Walking Down the Gravel Road
November is not Iowa’s best month.
Maybe that’s why our small state has never been a destination location in late fall, except for the fourth Thursday of the month when people come back in droves for an indoor frenzy of food and football. Considering Iowa’s landscape this time of year, who can blame our inhabitants and visitors for eating themselves into a stupor and yelling at a bunch of goofy guys in helmets running around on TV?
True, the temperatures have been mild for November and the winds calm. But the cloudy gray skies, the bare, gray tree limbs, and the feeble, ineffective hours of daylight make for poor eye candy during my daily walks. In fact the scenery is so glum, it takes all the discipline I can muster and an Evelyn Lundberg Counseling Agency pep talk to force me out the door.
This past Saturday was no exception. In addition to the normal gloom, a thick fog settled over our area. No need to become road kill this close to the holidays, I thought, and delayed my walk until mid-morning. Even then, the mist hadn’t completely dissipated. Everything around me was gray and shades of gray, at ten in the morning no less.
And then I walked behind our community college. The campus was quiet and empty for the weekend, except for a row of wet and shivering crab apple trees between the parking lot and the buildings. The naked branches were loaded with fruit, crying as the blanket of fog lifted and left them exposed and red and lovely.
What other beauty is hidden in the fog, beauty I miss by concentrating on dreariness and gloom? What bright colors have I missed, driven indoors by gray skies and weak sun?
Instead of waiting for the fog to lift, perhaps I should walk into it and find joy in unexpected places, in every season of the year.
by jphilo | Apr 3, 2008 | Daily Life
This morning, the sky is gray. Every once in a while, in a fair imitation of an irritable camel, it spits a little. The cold and rain is about as welcome as difficult house guest who wore out her welcome weeks ago.
But I refuse to let the weather dampen my enthusiasm because spring is on its way. Between Monday’s substantial rainfall and Wednesday’s sunshine, the lawn is now more green than brown. I saw crocuses in bloom at McFarland Clinic yesterday. And every day, another tulip or daffodil in my flower bed braves the cold and comes out of hiding.
The magnolia tree beside the house is covered with buds waiting to flower at the slightest provocation. I can hardly wait since it barely bloomed the first spring after planting and an April frost nipped last year’s buds in the bud.
The tree was supposed to be a bush, but it had bigger growth plans and implemented them with great success. Hiram wanted to move the tree away from the house last fall, but I persuaded him to let it bloom this spring before digging it up. The trauma of a move could be deadly, so I want one glorious blooming and lots of pictures in case that happens.
Which means, of course, that I should be pleased with a cold spring which keeps plants from flowering too early and becoming victims of a frosty death. The magnolia is more likely to be what I hope it will be, all because the weather is not what I think it should be. So I am pleased, at least in my more mature, big picture moments which don’t come nearly often enough.
Every gloomy morning provides an opportunity to mature and consider the big picture. So this spring I am maturing at record speed. And in the moments when I see the big picture, I thank God for gray skies and chilly days, and most of all for magnolia buds and for beauty yet to come.
by jphilo | Oct 4, 2007 | Walking Down the Gravel Road
Black walnut season has arrived on our gravel road. Every time a car drives over one of the round green fruits, there’s a peculiar pop, like the popping of a giant paper bag. When I’m in the car the pop is beneath me, and I jump a little, wondering if I’ve lost a tire.
This morning was so beautiful, the sky so blue that I thought up excuses to stay outside. The best excuse was to pick up walnuts. Good exercise, I thought. Get rid of the mess. And since someone in our church is collecting walnuts to sell, with all the proceeds going to our building fund, I could get my good deed for the day done before mid-morning.
The idea of all that multi-tasking had me so pumped I borrowed extra five gallon buckets from the neighbors. I filled six of them before I noticed my back and my legs were getting a little sore. By tomorrow morning, after a good night’s stiffening sleep, I’m thinking they’ll be a lot sore.
Still the extra time outdoors was worth it, and I was slow to hike up the driveway and into the house when I was done. I looked back at the walnut tree near the end of our driveway. Its leaves are gone and its limbs are black against an intense October sky. And there are plenty of walnuts hanging there, waiting for stiff winds and cold nights to shake them to the ground.
I have a feeling I’ll be out here again, I thought as I walked to the house. But will there ever be another morning as beautiful as today? I opened the door and forced myself to walk inside.
