Thursday, or Thereabouts - April 11, 2019

It's cold, -3°C. It's grey and snow flurries are mocking Spring as they twirl outside my door. I'm sure I can hear giggling! So I'm going to stay indoors and daydream about blooms both wild and cultivated - vibrant with colour and fragrance, magnificent and without limit.

I love watching the forest come to life every Spring. Without any hand planting, or watering, or weeding, colour emerges.

Sophie loves the trilliums.

I truly have neither the diligence nor the talent to manage much beyond hanging baskets and a few planters filled with hardy blooms that tolerate sandy soil, full sun, and my frequent neglect.

I can hardly wait to get my hands dirty rooting around in the rich earth, caring for this year's gaggle of joy and wonder. Oh - and look what I found in my garden tour yesterday - fledgling rhubarb

...and a bulb daring to sprout in a planter along the south wall of the house. I'm not sure what it is yet, as I planted crocus, tulips in the pot back in the Fall.

Hope springs eternal!

©2019 April Hoeller

Thursday, or Thereabouts - June 7, 2018

I'm done with all the pollsters' prognostications, media soundbites, backtalk, nastiness and fearmongering. I'm done with all the noise!

I have cast my ballot.
My vote is in.
Que sera, sera.







Tomorrow I have every confidence that the sun will come up as usual. I trust that I too will rise with the new day and go about my business as usual - with one exception - I will absent myself from all social media and newsfeeds. I'm unplugging from the too many beeps, squawks, alarms, and vibrations good or otherwise.

I have no room in my head for post-election rants, no desire to hear any "shoulda's, woulda's, or coulda's" from politicians or political commentators or backseat experts. I do not want to hear or read any bombastic diatribes or any cranky pants whining from any corner. Neither do I want to hear grandiose exhortations about glorious things to come. I want to hear of neither cheers nor jeers.

I want calm. 

I want space. 

I want silence. 

So tomorrow you will find me in my garden probably talking to the pansies, dahlias, and any other blooming thing I find hanging around.

If the weather does not cooperate, then I'll be inside baking bread...

...starting the packing lists for our next great adventure (just nineteen days to takeoff), and generally putzing around. If you want to connect with me, pick up the phone and give me a call or email me and I'll get back to you when I'm feeling refreshed.

Have a great weekend, folks. 

Whatever the weather, there will be wine!

Cheers!

©2018 April Hoeller

Thursday, or Thereabouts - May 31, 2018

There is nothing like garden dirt -- dark, cool, clumpy yet yielding, earthy. Just add flowers. Planting flowers can turn any frown upside down. Talking to them as they grow brings me smiles and chuckles along with a very special memory.




One day a long time ago when we were children, my Dad was out planting annuals in the back garden. He loved gardening when he had the time to do it, and if he could amuse his three daughters at the same time, well that really was a red letter day. So on this one morning, my sisters and I with noses pressed tight up against the bedroom window screen, watched Dad plant pansies. For our entertainment, he talked to his little plants in a voice, not unlike that of the late Jonathan Winter's character, Maude Frickert.


An old reedy, wheezy voice with a bit of a southern drawl wafted up to the window, "Well aren't you just a little cutie. Let's just get you set up right in here. Oh, such a sweetie. Now, what about your other little friends here? They want a special place just like you. Oops, don't you worry about those little wormies. They're your friends too."







We hung on every word, suppressing giggles and jostling each other. What neither we nor Dad knew was that our neighbour, hidden by the fence, was also crouched down in her garden not two metres away from Dad. Then we saw her face appear as she stood to peer over the fence to investigate the chatter. I well remember her squinty quizzical eyes focussed squarely on her neighbour's back.

Dad kept right on talking to the flowers, "Oh look at you, such a pretty yellow dress."

He must have felt her stare. He oozed his head around to look toward the fence then turned back. His chin dropped to his chest and he hung there shaking his head. He seemed to be muttering something, probably an expletive or three.




Words from the other side of the fence penetrated the air. "Well they are pretty aren't they?" 

We slid from our places at the window, hands clutching our mouths, giggles bubbling up inside us.

So yes, I talk to my plants, and not just the pansies.

They all are good listeners and together we enjoy many a lovely chat come sun or cloud. There are no little faces pressed up against a window screen watching me and no neighbours listening in, but I'm never alone. My Dad is always right there beside me chatting away. It's a family tradition!

Dad & Mom 1971

©2018 April Hoeller

Monday Moanings - May 28, 2018

As I sit here, it's a tepid 31°C (88°F) outside my door, with a humidity nudging 50%. It's not my kind of weather! Oh, and I do know there are folks out there who just love the heat; there are folks who will be vexed by my moaning about the sweltering temperatures, folks who will think I'm being so very un-Canadian.

And I would apologize to you at great length - if only I could get enough air into my lungs to do so. Sophie, our double-coated canine sits at my feet panting. She is in total agreement with me.






As delightful as this day is for heat lovers, surely we all can agree that it's too hot for May? The normal high for May 28 is 20°C (68°F). Bring the thirties on in mid-July and, though my lungs will still protest, I will happily call it "summertime, where the living is easy."


But today as I shelter inside, all I can think of is all the garden and yard work that still needs doing. There are annuals yet to be planted, weeding yet to be done, and nooks and crannies still full of winter debris. There is a new forsythia bush that requires care and protection from extremes while the roots establish themselves. The deck needs to be stained, the patio stones need to be re-laid, the firewood needs to be stacked. But not today.



Today, before the sun cleared the trees, I toured the garden to see how all the little ones were fairing. I talked to them tenderly and watered them generously.

Plenty of cooler days yet to come even as summer pushes her way in front of spring, so Sophie and I will sit back, breathe easy and think cool thoughts.

Sophie's idea of cool

©2018 April Hoeller

Thursday, or Thereabouts - May 17, 2018

Victoria Day Weekend 2018

The first long weekend of summer sits perched on the doorstep. Also known as the May TWO-FOUR weekend in these parts, which refers more colloquially to a case of beer rather than a day in May honouring the birthdays of Queens Victoria and Elizabeth in Canada.













"The twenty-fourth of May is the Queen's birthday!" was the chant from my childhood days. And for Victoria that was true. Her birthday was May 24, 1819. In 1953, the Canadian Government added Elizabeth to the celebrations and set the holiday to fall on the Monday preceding May 25 (i.e somewhere between May 18 and 14). For the record, Queen Elizabeth's birthday is celebrated in June in England, even though ER II was actually born in April. It's complicated...







This year there is an added royal celebration - the wedding of  Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Will I get up very early on Saturday morning to tune into the festivities? Well, I'm not setting any alarms for  4:30am! But I'll probably be up in time to tune in to the actual wedding. I'm sure it will all be grand and tickle little girl dreams of a fairytale Prince Charming falling in love with an ordinary girl, and the two newlyweds riding off in a royal carriage to live happily ever after. Nothing wrong with that. It's just not me.

I'm rather fond of our Queen and her love, the Duke of Edinburgh. I think the monarchy with its rituals and traditions connects me to our history and commends a sense of honour and respect, a civility we all would do well to reclaim. Royal wedding hoopla is not my cup of tea, especially on the May Two-Four weekend.

This is the weekend that garden centres, hardware stores and gas companies get really excited about as winter-weary Ontarians dig out the planting gear and drive to the garden centre to buy bedding plants; haul out the lawn mower and drive to the hardware store to get parts to make it work; and/or drive up to the cottage then drive to the hardware store and garden centre to get parts and plants. Oh, and beer. There's got to be beer. The Two-Four, remember? 

The weather forecast for the long weekend changes daily, but at the moment it looks like Sunday and Monday will be good days. Saturday may be a washout. On the whole, it looks good for planting! So, I'll head out the garden centre to pick up some geraniums, pansies, and impatiens along with a bag or two of composted manure to beef up our sandy soil. I'll harvest the rhubarb, make a rhubarb crisp for dessert and get a few pies into the freezer. Come Monday and the sun, I'll be ready to kick back and celebrate.

Be safe out there folks, especially those of you heading out on the highways and byways on your way to open up cottages. Please, don't drink and drive.

©2018 April Hoeller