The wick and the dead

This time of year always reminds me of The Secret Garden, and the wonderful word "wick." [Confessions: 1) it wasn't until I had a daughter that I read this wonderful book and 2) I am so ignorant of recent musical theatre I didn't realize until I googled the word to get a link for you that not only was the book made into a musical (I have seen the movie), but there is a song in it called "Wick"!]

It's especially relevant this year, since we've had—for us—a very harsh winter and I'm sure some perennial plants aren't coming back this spring. Perhaps a little late, I spent some time this weekend cutting back some dead wood in my yard and looking for wick-ness. [Energetic son (in picture at left) helped with digging up some more of those unwanted volunteers—it is a wonderful thing, in many ways, to have an adult child who has not yet acquired his own house and yard to expend energy upon!]

The hour today I spent pruning back the dead ruellia along my driveway gave me plenty of opportunities to muse upon the vagaries of wick-ness and survival in the face of hardship. [not necessarily referring to my soreness from yesterday's labors]

I'm not really too worried about the ruellia coming back, although many of its stems from last year snapped in very un-wick-like fashion. I'm confident that there are some hardy guys in there that will be blooming like crazy in a few months. Unfortunately, the most wick-ness I encountered today was in shoots of a very pesky vine that I rather wish wasn't sturdy enough to have survived the winter. Sigh. Isn't that always the story for gardeners? Weeds [definition: unwanted plants] are always stronger than their desired cousins.

More musing while pruning reminded me of the little poem I once saw on a needlepoint. It's stuck with me and I've come to regard it as something of a personal theology statement:

He who plants a seed
beneath the sod,
and waits to see,
believes in God.

Even in my energetic gardening youth, I wasn't so much a seed planter as a seedling planter, but I approve of the sentiment. Today I re-wrote the verse a little to relate more to my current activities and came up with the following, an expression of the optimism I try to keep ever uppermost, especially as baseball season gets underway:

She who prunes dead wood
and looks for green,
has faith in what cannot be seen.

May your gardens all be wick!

Wordless Wednesday: you know you're getting old when...

... a book like this comes into the library

Turn about is fair play

Februaries are busy months in our household, and a month when it's very difficult not to gain weight. First there's V-day, followed close on its heels by my birthday, then our anniversary (33 years and counting) and then, just out of the February frame, my husband's birthday on March 1.

As some readers may remember, my 60th last year was commemorated with a wonderful surprise party at a local Mexican eatery. And it wasn't the first time the devious spouse had pulled this. When I turned 50 (long before blogging days) he threw a surprise dinner for me at his mother's house, attended by out-of-town family and friends I hadn't seen for years.

I assured him after both parties that I'd never be able to pull off anything like that for him. For one thing, he's too clever and suspicious—much too hard to fool. And for another, I'm not a very good actor/dissembler/organizer.

But with the help of industrious in-laws and wonderful children, we were able to do it! Scheduled for a week early—only one of many little diversions—at the home of one of his sisters, Henry's surprise 60th celebration came off beautifully on Saturday. The picture above is of son and daughter keeping watch for our arrival at the party house, which caused a little anxiety all 'round, as we were about 15 minutes late! [Thanks very much to incredibly talented daughter-in-law for the pictures with this post. I was much too wiped out from keeping the secret and stressing over getting him to the party to have energy left for taking pictures!]

And here's the birthday boy, being really, really surprised! [flanked by super-hostess sister and myself]

Planning this party and carrying out the lead-up to it without giving anything away is one of the most stressful operations I've ever undertaken. Childbirth has nothing on it! [slight exaggeration] Having to make sure suspicious charges didn't show up on the cards he monitors, getting everyone on board with the "cover story" that would get him to the party house on time, worrying something I or someone else might say would plant a seed of suspicion, and, finally, not being able to do anything myself to help with preparations on the day—I'm getting too old for this!

Having such a wonderful group of friends and family on hand—some who came from far-flung locations to join us—was what really made the evening. But the food and entertainment was also first-rate. Food was mostly contributed by generous friends and family, but we did splurge on a professional super-cake. Here's a look at it, a personalized scene showing the aftermath of a fantasy boating mishap (note the name of the boat: here's a blog post that includes a picture of Henry in the same canoe! although at a different scale)
It tasted as wonderful as it looked! I have to plug the young artist who made this for us. See some other examples of her handiwork here.

And that wasn't all the talent on view. Our son showed off prodigious video editing and composition skills to create a "this is your life" video for his dad. Plus, he reminded me that I could embed it in the blog!

Thanks to everyone who helped make this a memorable, fun, evening for us. And for helping keep the secret!

Not a milestone, but still a famous number

No baseball fan can write the number 61 without thinking an asterisk should follow it. Billy Crystal even made the digits—complete with asterisk—a clever title for a decent baseball movie.

As a hint to what my 61* graphic means, let's just say I am old enough to remember personally the 1961 baseball season, which was when the number became so famous.

But my asterisk isn't (specifically) baseball-related**, but rather means:

• I wouldn't want to be younger, since there aren't any years since 1949 that I'd want to give up (maybe a few days in junior high, but not a full year)
• for the time to have gone by this fast, I must have been having a lot of fun (although when you're this old you can't always remember it!)
  
• it looks and sounds worse than it feels, at least most of the time, since...
• 
  
• inside, I still feel a lot like this:

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**Pitchers and catchers report to spring training soon, which is always a joyous occasion to have happen right around your birthday! Play ball!

House-hunting in A-town

No, we're not thinking about moving. Not after just getting half our house made liveable!

But the globe-trotting son and daughter-in-law are looking to put down roots, to find a home base of their own to jump off from when the make their future travels. And we're just thrilled that their selected location is so close!

Being part of the new internet economy [going to an office in the same place every day to work is so TwenCen!] they can live anywhere. So why wouldn't they choose Austin, coolest city in Texas by far and one of the coolest in the country! Not temperature cool, to be sure, but definitely hipness cool.

Unfortunately, though, a lot of people are enamored of Austin, and the house price reflect its popularity.

We took a family Valentine's/early birthday* trip north up IH 35 this past weekend and spent a few hours house-hunting with them and their perky realtor. They found a house they were really excited about, only to find out a few hours later that four offers had already been received on it. That's them on the front porch at the left.

Sigh. I guess that was a really good price. They have learned, pretty quickly, to be philosophical about such setbacks, though, and are determined to keep looking.

The rest of our visit was spent playing games, sleeping, and eating. Doing all this with the whole fam (including cat grandson Bosworth, shown on the left making sure no one disturbs a napping Henry) is a perfect birthday gift for this mother of adult children.

But I even got a couple of other unexpected cadeaux: a Kindle gift cert that I will have so much fun deciding how to spend, and the promise of a ticket to an upcoming Alamo Drafthouse LOTR extravaganza. Does this sound like heaven or what?!

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*More on this non-milestone bday in my next post.

[belated] Wordless Wednesday: fast train in the rain

Getting rid of unwanted volunteers

No, I'm not talking about door-to-door proselytizers or charity fundraiser phone calls.

My mother used to refer to non-weed plants that just sprouted up in unexpected places in the yard or garden as "volunteers," and I always thought that was a very apt turn of phrase. They aren't "drafted," like the plants you buy with a specific location in mind. They just volunteer their services wherever their parents' seeds happen to land, if conditions are right.

Over the years I've happily accepted many a volunteer in my yard. In fact, the fence all along my driveway is now completely furnished with ruellia from my next-door neighbor's yard. Not only is it prettier and more hardy than anything I've tried to cultivate in that narrow strip of dirt [that I'm always forgetting to water]. But their lovely blooms always remind me of the friend who planted them and identified them for me. In fact, my asking her about the plants was one of the last conversations I had with her, before she died of ALS 10 years ago. (I can't show the plants to you now because they die back in the winter, but they'll come on strong in the spring, and bring more memories of my friend.)

However, not all volunteers are welcome. In particular, the raintree that's been happily growing in the midst of one of my rose bushes. (See photo on the left; click to enlarge if needed to read the legend.) As you might be able to tell from the size of the trunk, it has not just recently taken up residence. If it had, I could have yanked it out by hand. The raintree seeds germinate very easily (little ones come up all over the yard) but only thrive like this guy after years of cutting back and then letting go. NOT the right way to garden, I know, but I am a very lazy gardener.

The parent raintree in my yard has an interesting pedigree. It was itself once a volunteer that sprouted in my mother's lawn, sired by the raintree she'd planted there. After it reached a transplantable size, since I needed trees for my yard at the time, she gave it to me. I'm not sure how many years ago this was, but it was long enough ago that the little guy now looks like this (see right). It's been trimmed back a few times and just grew out new trunks. Take a look at the size of its multiple trunks, on the left. (You'll notice other volunteers nearby—but I'm not taking on the bamboo in this lifetime.)

We're happy to have the raintree that big, where it is. It somewhat screens the utility pole (except in the winter). And it normally has big showy yellow flowers in the summer that turn into handsome bronze-colored brachts, followed by showy yellow leaves in the fall. But it is rather profligate with its seed dispersal, and if I'm not careful about pulling up the babies, I eventually get stuck with a monstrosity like the one right in the middle of my rose bush. (I wish I'd taken a picture of it before it lost its leaves; you'd have a better idea of what I was up against.)

Anyway, I made a new year's resolution to get rid of the volunteer once and for all in 2010. However, I knew this would require major gardening energy. I would have to dig up the rose bush, remove the intruder, then re-plant the roses. I would have hired a professional to do this, if the rose bush was a modern variety. But it's an Old Blush antique rose, bought many years ago from the Antique Rose Emporium in the link. And it's one tough cookie. I'm sure that it didn't mind having the tree growing up through its innards at all, and a little digging around its—quite muscular, as it turned out—roots wouldn't cause it any major problems.

So I took shovel in hand this morning and after about 45 minutes or so of digging and dirt removal, I had my quarry removed. Dumped the dirt back around my tough little Old Blush roots, and I was ready to take the rest of the day off. (And hope that I'll be able to get out of bed in the morning.)

At the right you can see my trophy. My only concern is: did I get enough of the roots so the sucker won't be back next summer? I'll report one way or another in July.

Wordless Wednesday: don't leave home without it