Weary

I have not been feeling well the last couple of months. And the garden grows a little wilder by the day.

Movement has slowed. The tall flower meadow blooms on.

The rambling Clematis stans has ebbed and flowed and held on with the competition.

The Doll's Eyes have come out to look.

Joe Pye bends with the wind while butterflies glide and hummingbirds zoom through the air.

And golden Rudbeckia drifts in waves.

I draw it all in, resting in the view from my front porch.

Into A Blooming Meadow

In between rain showers, when the meadow is dry, is a good time to wander into the garden to see all that is a bloom.

A lavender Beebalm.

Purple Liatris

Purple Coneflower

Post white Fly Poison fading to green

Black-Eyed-Susan

Into a blooming meadow.

Spring On A Leash

The final diagnosis was stage 4 adenocarcinoma of the lungs with metastasis to the nearby lymph nodes and the lining of the wall of the lung cavity. It has kicked my butt. I am permanently tied to the oxygen tube. I had my first chemo last Friday.

Good thing I planned for a nice view from the front porch for my decrepitude.

The view from the dining room window is where my ashes go. Not many people have the opportunity to design their own final resting place.

I tried to rouse myself for a walk in the garden on Bloom Day and couldn't do it. The garden is proceeding with spring without me. The view of my front porch is nice too.

A couple days later I strapped on some oxygen and made a mighty effort. It will be the last walk in the garden until my breathing improves. I saw Celandine Poppies.

The trilliums are rising in multitudes. We will need that many to feed the damn deer.

All I can do is a weak holler now "Get Off My Lawn". I can't go chasing the varmints off.

This summer I will be getting chemo and immunotherapy tied to a leash and stuck inside. Robbed of the breath of life there is zero energy for movement of any kind. How will the maintenance gardener handle that?

Amazing Grace

I spent my 65th birthday in a hospital. Testing, testing, testing. I have not been feeling better. My shortness of breath has gotten so bad, so rapidly, I can't walk ten steps without having to stop and catch my breath. My right lung is partially collapsed. I'm on oxygen now. The tentative word was lung cancer. More tests were needed for the particulars. I can't breathe which means I can't work and had to call all my clients to let them know I would not be back this year.

The daffodils have had an amazing, way early, full bloom this spring. It has been nice to see it happen. A cold front with a dash of snow came through and the lows the next two days will be in the lower 20's. We shall see what is left when the cold is done with a spring that came too soon.

The new pulmonologist doctor from the start of my appointment today was not in the least bit willing to declare lung cancer from the previous test results she had seen. It could be something else. Really? There is hope. Happy Birthday to me. Testing, testing testing.

Tomorrow they are going to drain all the fluid off my right lung. Hopefully it will re-inflate. Friday they are going to stick a tube down my throat into my lungs to collect a bunch of samples. This is what I wanted. Action. Now. To find out what is going on to steal my breath away. Cancer has not been ruled out, but it is no longer the only option. 

The doctor and hospital staff were wonderful today, speeding things through a backed-up system for a patient clearly in distress. My family, friends and clients have all rallied around me to let me know I am loved and appreciated even with my faults. That is such an amazing gift. I have lived a charmed and blessed life in so very many ways. I have so much to be grateful for.

The Trout Lilies will open in the sunshine. Let me be the boy who cried cancer. I have gardens to tend. I can handle the embarrassment of a false alarm in exchange for the love and caring I have seen. Testing, testing, testing.

The Daffodils Begin

The warm continues with passing systems producing generous rains every few days. The daffodils are in full on bolt.

The deer ate every last crocus on the Great Lawn. A giant flower show was obliterated in the night. It is most annoying.

Daffodils are poisonous thank you very much.

There are some crocus left right beside the house.

The Trout Lily have started blooming too. They are spreading at an exponential rate and could become groundcover like in a few more years.

This is unusual for the first day of March. Normally I would expect just the foliage to be up and showing by the middle of the month.

I may see daffodils bloom this year that quite regularly get zapped by a winter storm. That is not out of the question at this point for sure, but for now it is more warm days out to the horizon. The daffodils are going for it.

In the land where the waters will carry me away.

Like Ironweed

Big and tall and purple in a field somewhere waiting for God's children to notice

Ironweed is hard to get rid of when it finds a spot it likes. It puts down strong regenerative roots. Oddly for an herbaceous perennial, bits of it left in the ground will resprout, but it does not transplant well at all. It self-sows.

The last ironweed left in the roadside vegetable garden proper. Plenty more all around. The ironweed had a good year. The vegetable garden is having a terrible year. There will be dried beans and root crops. Somebody is eating all the green tomatoes.

I walked up to the roadside in the gloaming to notice the color purple.

In A Different Light

After six hours on hold over two days and while speaking with the fourth IRS representative, the phone line went dead. I got disconnected. There was no call back, as if they did not have my phone number sitting in front of them. I decided to give up on trying to penetrate the IRS phone labyrinth. A slow mail entry into the system will have to do. An online option is not available.

I would rather go for a stroll in a blooming meadow than wait for hours on the phone with drowsy elevator music when I get home in the evening.

There are flowering native wildflowers to be seen. The Downy Skullcap, Scutellaria incana, has produced its first self-sown plant nearby.

All three Yellow Wax Bells, Kirengeshoma palmata that I purchased and planted last fall came up to get slightly nipped by a spring freeze while in the asparagus sprout stage of emergence and nibbled a bit by the deer while in the fresh and tender leaf stage. Small, but healthy and alive, I have hopes they will like it here and grow big and strong in the coming years. I did get some flowers. That is a good sign.

Out wandering in a buzzing meadow, I compose a temperate, just the facts letter to the IRS, while knowing my plan to send identical letters to three different offices, Austin, Memphis and Cincinnati, all with their fingerprints on the problem, could introduce a new hairball into the system. So be it. One of them might be the right department.

An error has occurred. Fix it. I would rather be outside with Joe Pye.

The Persicaria polymorpha has reached the same size as the Miscanthus 'Morning Light'. I like to pretend I will have a deer fence one day.

Three identical letters went out in the morning mail on different journeys. Be like Ironweed.

Ironweed Bloom Day

I ran out of energy and went to bed before I could finish this abbreviated Bloom Day post on time. I feel the same tonight. I am old. I work seven days a week. I have too much on my plate.

I need to be like Ironweed, tough and durable.

There is a diverse and abundant bloom in the Tall Flower Meadows all across the mountain top. I am low on energy. Joe Pye will have to do. You can visit Bloom Day Headquarters for a whole lot more.

Random Pictures From A Rainy Life

Rabbits, deer and groundhogs have been dining at the vacant Inn all year. There were some flowers left over. Some extra rain has helped.

A hillside of Cotoneaster dammeri 'Streib's Findling' and red hibiscus where it gets warm. The varmints dine regularly in the Almighty Falls too.

The funnel-web spider on a rainy day.

It has been raining every day on the mountain top. Any stroll that may happen is slow and wet.

Spikenard, Aralia racemosa.

June Bloom Day

June is the greenest month of the year when the plants are reaching full size well before many of them bloom. There are plenty of flowers about, but it is not like the big color bursts of spring. The summertime show starts in July.

We can start Bloom Day with Thermopsis caroliniana. It has done much better for me than Baptisia and has begun to gently self sow. That reminds me. A white baptisia I grew from seed is blooming for the first time. I need to go look at it.

Into the chartreuse Lush we wander.

Where the foliage can get mighty big, to see what flowers we may find.

The 'Black Gamecock' Louisiana Iris has started to flower in a week that can only be described as weirdly hot and humid without any rain. My body does not process that kind of hot very well anymore.

The glass is half cracked and the white Iris ensata grown from seedlings have become large blooming clumps. I should have just taken starts of the purple and lavender ones I wanted. Patience doesn't always work out.

The candle stick blooms of Bottlebrush Buckeye prepare to open.

Persicaria polymorpha in full bloom frames the Great lawn where the Louisiana iris named Clyde resides.

Clyde is blue and a sprig is going to go live in a vat of pond scum to multiply. I need more. Funny how that is with flowers. So if you need more, go to Bloom Day Headquarters for flowers from around the world.

I will be outside with Clyde.