Garden Pictures, Baby Robin, Trumpet Vine, Cardinal Flower, Turnip

Young Baby Robin in training and in hiding among grape vines and leaves, 2010

Better contextual view. Picture taken from below because of the overhang of leaves aiding the feathered camouflage.

Garden view from entrance, March 2012

Garden view from entrance, July 2011

Grape Vine back right

Trumpet Vine, back left

This is the first year for this Cardinal Flower Arrangement with Bee Balm in between, Lilies and white-flowered Catnip in background, 2011

Looking into canopy of Squash Blossoms & Zucchini Blossoms, 2011. I feel shrunken.

Orange Trumpet Vine Creeper, 2011

Ants love this. At least a dozen around every flower cluster and rest crawling over every other inch.

Orange Trumpet Vine Creeper closeup, 2011

Poke Weed/Poke Salad, 2011

Thriving Turnip, 2011 (planted 2010, survived a cold winter)

My photographer son took all 2011 pictures and did a good job capturing these images.

Gardens: 12 Signs of Spring - Soil Music

1. Plants at the borders such as Crocus, Bearded Iris, Daffodils and Dandelions sending up green flares.

2. Thickening buds nearing popping points on bushes and trees such as Forsythia, Lilac, Rose, Butterfly and Maple seemingly getting goosebumps of anticipation from the warming flowing through them.

3. Chives, Garlic, Onions, Kale and Brussels Sprouts coming to life in the garden. Garlic in a pot in a cold garage without moisture showing top growth after being brought outside to breathe again.

4. Robins returning and Geese leaving northward and north by northwest honking their goodbyes. Many birds gawking at the transients.

5. Sparrows building new nests before it becomes yard waste.

6. Winds increasing, taking care of dead branches and trees before the rest of nature is underfoot.

7. Temperatures rising bringing higher highs and higher lows.

8. Moisture softening the ground and awakening zillions to do most of the work for the rest of us.

9. House-kept plants increasing in luster absorbing the increasing light, pressing their bodies towards windows of time when they were out there too.

10. Greening grass forwarding the border call.

11. Biorhythms tapping their feet to it all signaling older humans to migrate outdoors and take leisurely walks.

12. Humming and vibrating being felt by those with bare feet, hands and ears in touch with soil music.

What are a few Signs of Spring in your part of the world?

See Also:
Natural World Observations: Going Wild Like A Flower In Spring Breaking Free

Gift Giving Food

Food Fight #33 - Messing With Tradition

In societies keenly aware of their interdependence with the rest of the natural world, gifts of food are common and normal. Gifts are given to consume now and that can produce more food later.

We already know food has the power of healing. Why not place the power of health back in someone's hand as a gift they will use everyday? Buy them a fruit or nut tree and help them plant it. Help someone start a garden of perennials. Give one or more of the many tools needed. Work together to preserve food for winter. Build a greenhouse or green room. Install some rain barrels or dig a well. Give someone a fish, teach them to fish and teach them to make a fishing pole. Give some land. Feed their soil. Grow some food and share it. Empowering gifts determine our wellbeing. They educate. They increase our options. They teach us how to take care of ourselves holistically, spiritually and with greater certainty physically.

Giving a gift of food helps shift our focus back to how hurriedly we need to tend to reciprocity with the rest of the natural world.

There's a graveyard of gifts dead on arrival

but gifts that feed the whole self every day,

fill courtyards where living moves beyond survival.