“To stay in one place and watch the seasons come and go is tantamount to constant travel; one is traveling with the earth.” ~ Marguerite Yourcenar
For those who have read my blog since the beginning, you may remember my meme, Seasonal Celebrations. I used to piggy back with Beth Stetenfeld’s, Lessons Learned, on her blog, PlantPostings. And while I only did the meme for a few years, it made a deep impression on me. It allowed me to see nature through the seasons. To get out, explore and commune with nature all four seasons, 365 days a year.
And this being in nature became a spiritual practice bringing me closer to what is happening, day by day, as the sun rises sooner now and sets an hour later. Watching the return of birds already….the bluebirds are back and lucky me they are hanging around the sumac fruit to get a bite to eat.
We are covered in feet of snow and it is bone chilling cold. But inside I have a bit of blooming going on. The Hippeastrum are in full flower. I could cut some and put them in vases, but so far I am content to watch them bloom. This is how they looked about a month ago nestled amongst the rosemary I brought in. There just isn’t enough light in my house for the rosemary to survive for very long.
This Hippeastrum is called “Sweet Star”. It has had 2 stalks with 6 flowers each so far and another stalk with buds is forming.
The lovely coral blooms on this one are called, “Rosalie”. I have one more that is slower to grow so I will have blooms through February. I got my bulbs from John Scheepers. I love their bulbs for inside and out. Always good performers.
These tropical-looking flowers had me reminiscing about warmer weather, and some of the vases I created in spring. This was for May Day. My first bunch of flowers put before my threshold for luck. You can see some of my first new bulbs from last year. What will appear this year? Hoping for a few survivors here and there and in the one huge pot where I planted bulbs. With the landscape fabric and stone the property owners laid down, I may not see many or any.
I had great success with gladiolas this year. They were growing all over the front putting on a wonderful display. This one happened to fall over from the weight so I rescued it in a vase. It bloomed for quite a while.
Another late spring/summer flower that was stunning in a container was this pink verbena. I do love verbenas. This one had the whole pot to itself to grow profusely. I had to trim it a bit as one side was growing more than the other. Which is how these blooms got into a vase.
With these vases, I am linking in to the wonderful meme, In A Vase On Monday, at Rambling in the Garden.
AND NOW…
We found a publisher. That’s right!! Beth and I have signed a contract with Golden Dragonfly Press to publish our book….A Journey of Seasonal Wisdom: Contemplating Life With Observation and Gratitude. It is still so new I am in disbelief pinching myself. The final draft is just about ready, so we are jumping right into the production phase. We are eager to learn and be involved in the process. I feel so blessed to have found such an amazing publisher in Alice Maldonado. Here’s what she had to say about what we submitted….
I think it could be a charming book full of comfort, beauty, and peace. A book needed for these times.
We don’t have a release date yet, but Beth and I will keep you posted. And we’ll bring you along for the process of how a book is made.
All the pictures shared in this post were taken with my Nikon Coolpix or iPhone camera, and manipulated on my iPhone using the apps, Pixlr and Prisma.
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