Slippery slope ii

Well, after a fine afternoon looking at the offerings of two nurseries, I came home with a few pieces of advice and a few plants to put in after the rain this weekend.  They are good plants, each in themselves...hellebores (lenten rose in a nice rose shade) to add to my timidly growing ones; a small holly fern (the first fern I really have ever liked) which I'll plant under a copse of trees;

 and a prickly, blood-orange quince to pair with the one I share with Anna, growing up between trees near my shed.  I know the latter's flowers will be soon gone, taken over by green leaves on thick-wired branches, but I couldn't resist, and next early spring they will return, flaming (I hope), just when a little flame might warm us.

Shopping for garden things (and fabric) with Angie is always a treat in itself, and this time Jim came along to lunch to make it a celebration.  Angie always introduces me to places I'd never have found on my own, and I always come home with a surprise or two.

One of the surprises this time is that none of that plants I bought are intended for the slope at all.  I hardly got into that with my nursery visits yesterday.  I did try, but somehow inspiration failed me except for a few small ideas of periwinkles and vinca, which turn out to be old ideas anyway and today the periwinkle notion is fading.

So the slope is still the slope, and digging into it will be a job which, this morning at least, I don't relish.  Plans are one thing, executing them is another level of energy entirely.  So much has happened lately...plans afoot, plans being slowly put into practice, plans even more slowly becoming reality, and plans entirely unforeseen...that I am in something of a confounded state this morning.  I don't know which hope to put forth, or which to put on hold in the back of my spirit for a later moment when I can handle it with more aplomb.

I'd love to get into my workroom to make the confounded into art, but it's unavailable...undergoing renovation for new space (a good thing) but keeping me at stairs distance for a while longer than expected (not so).  Back to digging in the earth is the next best thing.

But isn't life full of such discombobulations?  Why, except for remembering that that is so, is each occurrence such a new shock to us, no matter how similar the experience?

As I wrote in my last post, that spring weather (and its spring-like joys) had better be around the corner waiting for me...or at least bud out of the tight promises the azaleas are making right under my window.