Well well well! After more than a year of waiting impatiently (which morphed, necessarily, into patiently) while the 12-foot yurt languished in its original wrappings on the Overhill house front porch (thus pretty much negating the porch for any other use), the backyard platform upon which it is to be built is finally finished. (Thank you son Colin, whose back and knee were, at long last, well enough to take the strain.) So now, its as if the long-awaited finale to this delayed yurt project is like this morning’s tiny iris bud, about to bloom!

 

Meanwhile, strawberries are peeking out, yukon gold potatoes (planted in early March) are doing well, and the Sagittarius plants (see bottom photo in collage) are once again, growing in the holding pond’s gunk. (These plants were gifted to us about five years ago, by Maynard, a friend of then-resident Dan, who brought them, he said, for Ann and Rebecca (who was here for ten years, until two years ago).  Little did he know that both Rebecca and I are Sagittarians!

 

The teensy weensy lettuce seeds of various types that Camden patiently planted eight days ago, assuming we’d get maybe a 90% germination rate, started to peek up green in only 48 hours. As of this morning, only four  have not (or not yet) germinated – out of 156 total!

For the past three years, we’ve been graced by the voluntary presence of purple perilla (also known as shizo) (upper right, montage ab0ve). This spring it’s coming up again. We discovered what we had here when an Asian woman came to her first Community Dinner and was excited to find perilla growing in our gardens. Says it’s extremely valued in Asian countries, as both food and medicine. 

Middle photo right: We have lots of allium growing this year, for the first time. Did we plant it last year? I don’t remember. Oh, and notice the tiny star shapes . . .

 Remind you of star anise (one of my very favorite herbs)? 

How about this. Nearly identical shape!

 

Nature is our Designer, our Teacher, and our Mother.

Happy Mother’s Day!