Birth Story

The pregnant Martagons have given birth to themselves. And it is a joy to wake to their charming colors and their subtle majesty. They are in a shady part of my garden so they last a long time considering the quick demise of the delicate plants in the full sun. My back garden looks pretty good, meaning organized and tidy. The front is another story: a story of crazy wildness and hidden boundaries. A struggle for water as roots grow in and around each other in an attempt to get to the water first. MM is a master gardener and consequently she is saddled with the task of maintaining order in her garden by finding homes for the unwanted progeny of her lovely martagons. I have ecstatic to be a foster mom to her precious lilies. In return I have gifted her with a few of my prolific foxgloves.

I fantasize about a fox like the one I fed at Kew gardens when I was visiting my daughter in London. Yes, that's right: I fed the fox most of my apple., and would have even if he hadn't looked particularly fragile and beaten up. My son in law calls him a "crack" fox in jest, I hope. He appeared to have been in some sort of altercation and come out the worse for his efforts. Hair shaved and a line of stitches along one side of his body. Perhaps it was a female and had been spayed... Does the British medical system include wildlife? How wild was he if he was eating an apple out of my hand? Raising my kids with Roald Dahl stories filled with foxes has created a warm place in my heart for foxes. The fabulous Mr Fox is very real to us when searching the bushes at Kew garden for his location.

The call of the cardinals overhead, the fragrance of the currently blooming roses and a glass of iced Jasmine tea and I am ready for summer. School is out and AB is in the process of moving his classroom beginning with packing up all his art supplies. Last year he simply changed rooms, so he has had a chance to go through the process of culling the less necessary items from his inventory of teaching materials. This summer will bring a change of buildings as the whole elementary school moves across the freeway. We are all slowly recovering from the "high" of the wedding. And at the end of the week the happy couple will leave for the Sonoma Coast to camp at Wright's Beach and walk among the giant redwoods of Armstrong Woods.  Heading east. across the mountains to Napa they will eat the duck confit they dreamed about for their wedding dinner in Calistoga at "All Seasons Bistro". In the meantime I will be in the back garden, watching the Montmorency cherries turn red and wondering if it is too late to harvest the rhubarb!