by jphilo | May 15, 2014 | Three Thoughts for Thursday
- My favorite lilac bushes in our yard come from suckers dug from around the bushes that grew in the yard of my childhood home. Those bushes came from suckers Mom dug around town in the 1960s. One day, when we move closer to our kids, we’ll plant suckers from the bushes in our present yard in the new one so the memories firmly implanted in my heart will surround our new home.
- Quote of the week from Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me‘s Peter Segal: Being sexy when you’re 25 is easy. In your golden years, it takes genius.
- After 50+ years on this earth, one thing is perfectly clear: I’m no genius. You?
by jphilo | Apr 10, 2012 | Top Ten Tuesday
I’m an early riser and try to start each day with a walk. The practice is good exercise in every season, but a spring stroll is also a delight to the senses. Here are ten reasons I love to walk outside on a fresh spring morning.
10. Sunrise.
9. The yellow-green tree leaves are such a happy color.
8. The red buds blooming in the wild ravine down by the bridge.
7. Frogs singing in a pond dappled with early morning sunshine.
6. Knock-kneed fawns running every which way when their mothers turn tail and run.
5. Wild plum trees blooming along the fence rows.
4. The scent of lilacs on the breeze.
3. Cardinals singing in the treetops.
2. Crab apple petals turning the air pink and white as they float through the air.
1. The new growth surrounds me with the promise of Easter – new life in Christ.
by jphilo | Apr 9, 2012 | Family, Reflections on the Past
The lilacs are blooming,
Blossoms purple against deep green leaves.
Their scent rises in greeting this morning
As I walk down the lane.
I welcome these old friends,
Who visit briefly each spring,
Then wave good-bye in the wind,
With never a backward glance at the branches that bore them.
My daughter loved their circle of branches,
A fairy ring just big enough
For one small girl and her dolls
To hold a tea party on summer afternoons.
I look for my sweet, shy daughter
And the circle of branches
In the lilacs,
But both are gone.
The fairy ring is overgrown,
Filled with tender, new lilac shoots.
My daughter is grown,
Filled with tender love for her new husband.
Still, the lilacs blossoms
Return each spring.
My daughter and her husband
Return when they can.
When they turn into our lane,
The lonely branches wave
To greet the shy, sweet girl
Who once nestled in the safety
Of a fairy ring.
by jphilo | Apr 6, 2012 | Daily Life
For most of the country, March Madness 2012 ended with last weekend’s championship game. For many Iowans, like my husband, the madness ended in the second round when the Iowa State Cyclones, the team that beat the reigning champs in the first round, lost to Kentucky in the second.
But for other Iowans, like me, the March madness continues, not on the basketball court, but in our flowerbeds. This year’s mild weather was mentioned in a previous post, and afterwards spring marched through March like mad. In fact, so unbeleivable was spring’s onslaught that on the last day of the month, I used my camera to make a record of the mad, mad, mad, mad spring of 2012. Crazy stuff, unheard of in Central Iowa. Stuff like
bleeding hearts blooming in March,
along with tulips,
and more tulips,
and violets.
Not to mention buds on the clematis
and the lilacs, too,
rhubarb almost ready to be picked,
and the roses in full leaf.
Only the wild plum tree blossoms, usually the first of the spring flowers to bloom, waited until their usual time to appear.
Surrounded by the many evidences of this mad spring, the plum tree nearly escaped my notice, until the fragrance of the blossoms wafted on the breeze and tickled my nose. A lovely March Madness I pray will rule at our house until the end of May.
by jphilo | May 8, 2009 | Reflections on the Past
Our lilacs are blooming, their scent perfuming the air and filling my head with memories of the day we planted them. The shoots came from the backyard of my childhood home in the town where I grew up. Mom, spade in hand, dug out small saplings and told of friends and neighbors who had given shoots to her years before. After years of gathering different varieties, her collection of pink, lavender, dark purple and white lilacs was the envy of the neighborhood and her particular delight. Her delight became mine the weekend we planted those shoots in the southwest corner of the yard of our new home.
Yesterday morning, I grabbed the clippers and tramped across the dewy grass, hoping to find enough blossoms to make a decent bouquet. But when I slipped behind the spruce trees and stood beside the lilacs, the size of the bushes rather than the abundant, lush blossoms nearly bowled me over. The dozen shoots, barely three feet tall when we planted them in the early 1990s, had multiplied into a solid, seven foot hedge.
When had the lilac saplings spread and grown until they were identical to the ones in my mother yard? When had it happened? I thought back through the years when we moved into this house, the kids young, Mom still teaching. I thought of Dad’s death in 1997, the sale of the house where our parents raised us, and Mom’s move to her house in our town, where she lived for twelve years. I thought Mom’s illness which recently led to the end of her life as a homeowner.
And then I knew when it happened. The answer was as delightful and poignant as the bouquet in my hands. “Just in time,” I thought as the scent of lilacs filled my heart. “Just in time.”
