Welcome to A Garden Variety Blog!

Although my neighbors are all barbarians,
And you, you are a thousand miles away,
There are always two cups on my table.
--Tang Dynasty


I hope you, whomever you are,
will sit down "with" me for tea,
or flavored coffee or spiced cider,
and have a garden variety chat.
Now and then.
I am not so consistant about blogging
as I ought to be.
I *am* consistant about
drinking hot beverage
and the coffee/tea is always on the hob.

Come on in!

Sunday, May 4, 2008

The best things to do in Spring

Ahhhh, the Lilacs! Finally!
In my yard I found one bloom just beginning to open today. I snipped it off and tucked one leaf branch into a pot of dirt to "start" it. Lilacs start really easy. Just as I brought the flowers into the house, I remembered our childhood, with the lilac hedge to announce every Spring to four very inventive and creative kids. (When we were outside kids, we were not "children". We really were more like young goats! LOL!) Certainly I was not the girl in the picture above. We knew the best thing to do with lilacs, and that involved the leaf and not the flower. So back then I didn't always pick the flowers, preferring something better. Such a great memory! I honored it today by popping one of the leaves from my little sprig into my mouth, and for about 30 minutes I've been walking around the house making obnoxious noises involving my tongue, my diaphragm and a lilac leaf. I'm having such fun! But I think I'll quit now. I didn't remember how bitter a lilac leaf tastes.




Another thing that we knew was best to do in spring also involved our mouths and spring plants. Remember the wild garlic?



MMMMM.......
These were a Sunday treat. Usually after Sunday dinner and before Sunday evening service we passed the time playing in the field between our house and the woods, doing the best thing we knew to do on Sunday afternoon - eating wild garlic. We must have been the healthiest kids in our church; certainly the stinkiest. Lots of smells can be washed, rinsed or brushed away; not wild garlic. Hey, who would want to make that taste go away, after all? It left you feeling like you'd just eaten a great dinner, for hours. And every time you opened your mouth, you knew people would go away and leave you alone! Unless they had wild garlic at home. Not many people we knew were blessed that way. We were so lucky! And now, I am lucky again because I found wild garlic growing in my herb garden this spring. I don't know how it got there, but today is Sunday and I'm going to keep the old tradition alive. I promise I won't open my mouth in the evening service.





Then of course one more spring plant had an important Sunday purpose.





I seldom see this growing here in our sandy area. When we were children, our woods was blanketed with Trillium in early Spring. It looked a lot like this.


This spring plant had a lovely, non-gustatory Sunday purpose. We each would gather bunches every Sunday morning, while they lasted, and take them to Sunday School for our teachers.


We were so innocent, loving and sw............well, ok not sweet. Innocent, loving and stinky - but with generous hearts.



I bought two plants and put them in the woods in front of our house a couple of years ago. I've tried them before and they just seemed to melt away, but these stayed. I know two isn't much of a Trillium blanket. But I trusted them to do their best. Last year they brought a baby with them, and today I went out and counted 11!!!