Good morning, April

 

I meant to write an April Fools blog to you all, inventing some fantastic life I had (not really) been living...maybe April in Paris in an apartment overlooking the Jardin Luxembourg and train tickets for life around the world, etc.  

photo by The Real Emily in Paris

But the day slipped by with only Alexander fooling us early in the morning, and besides, there is plenty of not-so-foolish fantastic life happening here for real.

Ten days ago, my sister Mary Ellen finally made her way down south with a truck and car full of her belongings, moved into my upstairs suite, which she has been since busy making her own, and gone with me on walks to meet the neighbors.  It's lovely having her company here...a real spring reincarnation, along with the brilliant blooms and bright sprouts the season brings out.

This morning, after some welcome April showers last night, the morning bloomed with that Carolina sky we know and love, so we are on the porch having our morning coffee and water.

Yesterday, expecting those late showers, Joseph got up early to take me for my annual load of mulch.  It was a perfect morning for getting the garden into shape; the ground had long been seeping clay, and I was, as it was, particularly anxious this year to be protected from the long rainless siege of the past year.

Here's the thing about having Mary Ellen here...she's a Helper bred to the bone.  There isn't a dish unwashed around here, or a grocery list unlisted, and batches of red lentil soup simmer on the stove (and, shhh, a pan of her rich brownies...she's a superb baker...for Alexander and Joseph).  All this while she's still unpacking and sorting and putting away and arranging car license and insurance.  She's a whirlwind of energy.

Anyway, this morning we had hardly returned from the landscape yard when she rushed out the door, not even having had her morning coffee yet.  Somehow, she'd gotten it into her head that this was a "heavy" job, too heavy for me alone.  I'd already twice heavily discouraged Joseph from unloading piles of it for what he called my "convenience" (are you, like me, seeing a pattern here?).  Because I have my methods, which include leaving the mulch in the truck and getting right to work, so that in barely a couple of hours, I have it unloaded, wheelbarrow full by wheelbarrow full, and spread out wherever needs filling.

Over the years, I've looked forward to mulching the garden because 1) it's Spring and I'm springier; 2) I feel the energy rush of getting the groundwork in; 3) I know the growing newcomers are grateful for my intervention; and besides, 4) I need to protect all that work that Joseph did sculpting that difficult slope.  It really doesn't matter how many Springs have gone by in my lifetime; I wake up ready for the job.

But now I had a partner trying to save me from myself, apparently.  Thanks to her help, we finished about a half-hour sooner...she raking and gathering while I unloaded, wheeled and scattered, and finally, when there was no more raking to do, she swept the truckbed out so thoroughly you'd never know it ever had a load of mulch, or indeed  anything else.   I used the extra time to plant some green-and-gold I had been rooting and a few more herbs, though the basil will sit on the porch for another week or so, just in case.  I planned to put a pink dogwood where next spring it can come to life (I hope...I haven't had much luck with dogwoods, frankly).  

This morning I got up early and walked proudly down the slope drinking in the work we and last night's rain had done.  I have a small bed to mulch yet, around the newly leafing hydrangea I cut back earlier in the year.

But because it's too beautiful a day to do anything else, we'll take a ride out to Durham to walk the gardens of our rival institution, giving Mary Ellen a little break from her tasks and showing her another part of the area.  That's been fun, too, riding out to various parts of the area, a few new to me, too.

I wish I could record for you the birds singing to accompany us into spring, because:  

spring in the Japanese garden

Later:   they followed us on our afternoon walk through Sarah P. Duke Gardens

sky overhead 

gazebo, Blomquist native plants

beginning at the bridge

tulips, about a day past prime