Observations on a Monday

Sitting in the backyard in the morning certainly forces attention to the present moment.  How easily I allow my mind to ruminate over the past or fret over the future as I lie in bed waking up.  I carry those useless thoughts outside, and they evaporate in the morning air.  My senses take over, processing what is going on around me.

The birds have an entire subculture existing around us.  The crows are the loud, brash bullies.  The sparrows are the protectors.  The hummingbirds are neutral--too wise to be involved in petty squabbles of the crows and sparrows.  They need to learn to tell time though, because they check the fountain often before it comes on, zipping in wide arcs around the top until they realize the water is not flowing.  It's like musical chairs when the water does come on; whoever is closest gets the first bath.

A few more garden maintenance thoughts creep into my current stream.  I push them aside.  I am not a gardener right now.  I am a visitor.  I still want to go over and pluck a few spent flowers, just to remove the distraction.  I stop myself; it is more useful to practice removing the thoughts.

The fountain comes to life:  first a small gurgling sound at the top, and then the overflow of the top level as water comes cascading down.  Then the second level in turn overflows, completing the resurrection.  I sit and wait for the schedule-challenged hummingbirds.

There is much more noise now:  the fountain, more traffic, the whiz of a landscaper's engine.  I can't hear the birds much anymore.  Maybe it is time to start gardening.  But wait--here comes a hummingbird to take his morning bath.  I watch him dip and buzz.  Another comes to chase him away.  My turn! he says.

bxApage bxAinline

Observations on a Sunday

It is so peaceful in the backyard on a Sunday morning.  The birds are active, and the cars less so.  I treasure the occasional moments when there is a lull in the traffic and all that can be heard are the birds.  These last few mornings I have been out here even before the fountains turn on.  A hummingbird will whisk over, check to see if the water is flowing yet, and jet away disappointed.  She will be back; the birds love a good shower.

Not a leaf on the Lombardy poplars is stirring this morning.  It is eerily still.  I enjoy so much the glittering leaves in the afternoon when the breeze and the sun play with the trees.  They offer our yard such a grand wall of green.  Grand indeed--the only trees around.  All the others are diminutive in comparison.  Lately I have been careful to pull up the suckers that pop up all over our yard; they upset my husband so.  That and errant dog poop on the front lawn.

The silence is disrupted for a minute by the fountain filling.  After the first ten seconds the fountain base is full, causing the water to flood over the sides the remaining time.

The leaves are beginning to flutter a bit, and I feel a slight movement of breeze on my face.  I try to sit here as a gracious visitor, attempting to ignore my perspective as a gardener who focuses on the spent flowers that need trimming.  I suppose that is good metaphorical advice for life, particularly parenthood.  A tenant in common with the flowers in my garden.  Not the superintendent.  But still my eyes seek out the spent petunia and vinca flowers, not content until I pick them from their perch.

bxApage bxAinline