Brought over by a friend because I love lemons. These are gigantic and SO juicy.
Seriously though, what did you think I was referring to?
I figured we all might need a bit of levity because dealing with reality today is HARD. I don’t like this country very much right now, So many poor decisions from guns to reproductive rights. It’s a hellscape so I’m going to slice a lemon and enjoy a refreshing and citrusy glass of water and try not to think about the fall of democracy.
I can see this area called Marja Acres from my backyard and it’s several blocks away, but even so, I watch and hear this land rape on a daily basis, and it makes me feel sad and angry.
It’s one of the very last pieces of land around here that hadn’t yet been violated by earth movers and concrete and plundered by developers who don’t care about anything except making money for themselves. They tore down a couple of nurseries, a little old fashioned store, and a couple of other businesses that had been here for decades, coexisting peacefully amongst the native flora and fauna.
Here’s what the plan is, to build a strip mall and way too many homes without any consideration for the existing community so negatively impacted by yet another ugly and unnecessary development.
We fought against it, of course; to no avail, as usual.
Even more sadly for me, there was no thought nor consideration for the creatures that lived here: coyotes, bobcats, raccoons, possums, birds of prey, AND RATS. They’ve all been displaced and this is where our RAT infestation emanates from.
I swear, this city continually never fails to disgust me.
It’s time to grab the camera when this little guy strikes a pose!
He’s reclining on an outdoor sculpture of (what else) seashells and starfish.
It seems a lovely vantage point to observe the garden. Nice and warm in the sun, he stayed in that same position for quite a while.
#WordlessWednesday
It’ll stay light here until 8pm tonight, but in the Seattle area where my all my Angels live, it won’t get completely dark until 9:30 or so.
I used to think something significant should occur on these solstices, something to remember or define or to memorialize planetary movements, but usually nothing overt happens, although there’s always the chance that stuff might be fomenting beneath the surface.
So far, this is the only significant event that’s occurred…I’m not exactly sure where, but I lost one of my favorite necklaces, the one I never took off with very tiny diamonds and an impossibly delicate chain. I had it for years and years, just a bit of sparkle that layered well with all my other jewelry. It must have broken and fell off without warning. Since I’m not sure where it happened, it’s even worse because I don’t know where to look. I feel like I somehow neglected caring for it and this is a sign or a message from the universe that I should have been more conscientious and attentive. I hate losing things that I’ve loved and cherished and much like a phantom limb, I can still feel it. During the day, I’ll reach up to touch the spot where the tiny pendant would sit between my collarbones and it’s not there. I don’t often lose things, so this is going to bother me for a while, or at least until I get a replacement, but I’ll always miss what I had before it was gone.
Do you celebrate the summer solstice?
It was too hot too early to walk the full six mile round trip to the Pacific Ocean and back, so I settled for a longish trek around the lagoon with detours to observe it from different perspectives.
I ended up walking mostly all the way to the beach anyway and stopped at Rite Aid to buy myself a treat but nothing looked fun or appealing or was small enough to fit in my little backpack, so I continued on my journey.
Looking east from a secret side street overlooking Snug Harbor and the swan boats on Agua Hedionda Lagoon.
It wasn’t even 9am and the little beach was full of families enjoying Father’s Day and paddleboarding and kayaks. Thank goodness there’s no gigantic mall marring the view on the south shore.
Well, well, well, it seems like we have a very low tide, too, combined with our drought situation.
It’s not often that one could literally walk all the way around the lagoon to the beaches on the south side. I was wearing new shoes and didn’t want to ruin them in the muck, but for once it was entirely possible.
“Time and tide wait for no man”
We can’t stop the passage of time nor the movement of the tides, no matter how much we might want to halt the inexorable inevitability.
This proverb appeared about 1395 in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Prologue to the Clerk’s Tale but I also found a source that said it was recorded as early as 1225 and is reputedly a quote from Saint Mahrer. However, it’s also believed that the expression time and tide wait for no man might be older than that.
My son sent me this photo while he was at Golden Gardens Park in Ballard, Washington on beautiful Shilshole Bay.
It depicts the lowest tide in decades, four feet lower than average.
We have the same exact phone but he takes better pictures than I do, and of course he likes to send them to me to show me what I’m missing.
It’s so true–time and tide wait for no one.
This hot spell is a catalyst for all of my blooming bulbs. Here are the first two gladioli who decided to flower together in shades of pink.
All pink, ALWAYS.
A few months ago, I rescued a wilted and sad little Stargazer Lily from the back of a clearance shelf at the nursery. If I remember correctly, I paid a dollar or two for a one gallon plant.
I thought to to myself, “Nobody puts Baby in the corner” and brought it home with the hope of bringing it back to life with love and care.
My efforts were rewarded this week with a dozen or more heavenly perfumed pink blooms, perfectly timed for tonight’s full moon.
Stargazer’ lily (Lilium orientalis ‘Stargazer’) was developed in the late 1970s as a cross between Lilium auratum and L. speciosum to intentionally create a flower with upward-facing rather than drooping flowers. The tips of the flowers are “reflexed”—meaning that they curve back toward the stem—and they sport long, showy stamens.
They are among the most fragrant flowers. With a diameter of six inches or more, they have exceedingly showy blossoms—there is nothing subtle about ‘Stargazer’.
FYI…Like all lilies, ‘Stargazer’ is toxic to cats.
The last time I traveled to visit the Angels, I packed a bag full of gifts but also a little baggie of steel wool pads infused with soap.
From previous visits, I recalled that there were none and nothing works better on pots and pans and glass dishes than a good scrub with steel wool, one of many life hacks I learned from my mom.
A couple of days after I arrived, DIL asked me where I found them, and when I told her they were packed in my bag and I had brought them, she started laughing.
Apparently, HER mom brought a bag of them from England the last time she visited, and showed DIL how they worked and what a valuable little cleaning tool they were.
I learned it from MY mom and DIL’s mom learned it from her mom, too.
It was a funny moment of cleaning secrets passed down from one generation to another; apparently this new gen can still benefit from the teachings of the elders.
After a little elbow grease, this sixty-year-old pan which originally belonged to my mom and now lives with the kids and is still going strong, will sparkle and shine.
SOS and Brillo to the rescue!
Yesterday in the late afternoon I took a walk around the lagoon.
Although I’m a fast walker and normally gaze straight ahead, at one point I looked down and saw a hawk feather and then another and another and my eyes followed a trail of feathers to the tragic and somber sight of a juvenile hawk that must have had a catastrophic collision with a vehicle.
His poor little mangled body was crushed beyond recognition but I was able to collect a handful of feathers. I thought I’d bring them home and design some kind of creation to honor his short life.
Native Americans believed a hawk’s death is a good omen and it’s symbolic of when their troubles will end and they will receive blessings. The appearance of a dead hawk is an indication of a significant event or could also be suggestive of a needed life transformation.
I immediately thought of the Donne poem, Death, be not proud. I’m not exactly sure that the meaning works in this situation, but since that’s the first thing that came to mind, here it is.
HOLY Sonnet: Death, be not proud
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou’art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy’or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
John Donne – 1571-1631
