Flowers grace life with beauty
Flowers bring everyone joy
Flowers invite humans to hike, laugh, love
Flowers sing songs of peace.
Spring in LA County
beauty
A Letter for International Women’s Day
Dear Fellow Females:
Celebrate yourselves today,
tomorrow, every day!
Stand strong, be brave, promote persistence, purpose.
Without you, your will, your abilities, your strength
humanity cannot continue to exist.
I salute you!
The Huntington Gardens–Part Two
In the last six weeks I have travelled to these gardens five times, two alone and three with house guests. Amid all the turmoil in the world today this is a place where nature continues its grand display, instilling a sense of peace and quiet.
Depending on how you walk through the gardens, you walk to Japanese first, then Chinese, then back to the Japanese Gardens. This and the following few photos are the Chinese Gardens.
The Chinese Garden is filled with various sizes of limestone that looks like sculptures but is natural. The next time I go, I am going to learn what is written on many of the pieces of limestone.
After five times, I have seen most of the gardens–next post will be some photos of the Australian area–and the two art galleries. Never made it to the library yet.
The Huntington–Gardens, Part One
Where have I been? Entertaining my son whom I had not seen in more than two years. One of the things he wanted to do was visit The Huntington in Pasadena after seeing some photos I took on a visit in January. Unless you get there as soon as they open and stay all day, it is impossible to see everything in one day. I have been there four times and only seen the gardens. The library and art gallery await for another time. Here are the photos from the first excursion with my son, Erik.
In many place in the gardens you can see the San Gabriel Mountains in the background.
Winter Afternoon
No wind, stringy high clouds block a bit of blue.
Someone bounces a ball next door,
I hear the intermittent sound.
Suddenly several dogs bark across the golf course green,
Suddenly stop.
Across the turquoise pool water burnt orange leaves waft downward,
some land on the pale gold rocks,
some float at the pool’s terracotta edge,
others lay across the dark green rosemary bushes.
Bird song I cannot identify fills the background.
Two men, voices loud, banter –they’re neighbors, friends.
One of their small children cries, stops, cries again.
A late day golfer strides a ball, shouts.
Breeze arises, quits, more leaves fall,
the pool and birdbath water slightly ripple.
The lemons glow against the dark green leaves,
a painting emerald and bright yellow.
I sit beside the African multi-colored granite table my son made,
admire the colors:
-succulents called fire sticks match the falling leaves.
shades of orange, red, and green.
-the pots that house them match the dark blue of the pool’s old fashioned
Mexican tile.
-roses still display a few blossoms, dark red, pale pink, peach.
Tomorrow the gardener will trim them back to help them bloom lushly n spring.
-the oleander, still green, quit blooming weeks ago.
-rosemary loves this time of year, covers itself with tiny, fragrant, grey-blue flowers.
-in the distance mountains arise, a purple haze.
Now, no sounds, only silence.
I sit in the quiet beauty, write, drink green tea, feel grateful.
Winter Evening
Orange pink shadows ripple across the turquoise pool water.
Pumpkin colored and purple leaves drift across the rosemary,
land, bright little boats floating across the turquoise water.
A phoebe, dressed in his grey tuxedo coat and white tie,
flits along the red tile at water’s edge.
Green, minuscule, a hummingbird hovers among the scarlet salvia.
Fuschia, peach, deep red roses glow in the setting sun.
Suddenly, howls break the evening silence.
Coyotes, joyful, sing to each other,
preparing for the nightly hunt.
An Old Bowl and the Silver Spoon
My Aunt Julia, Mom’s sister, lived to 94. She loved fine antique china, linens, and French furniture. The ordinary bowl in this photo defies those inclinations, its origins a mystery. How did she acquire such a plain bowl and why? I will never know. In spite of its age, cracks, dull finish, I have used it every morning for decades. It is my breakfast bowl, filled with yogurt or cottage cheese with dried blueberries and a handful of walnuts, or, occasionally, oatmeal.
The spoon, on the other hand, is not ordinary, but rather good silver from the set Dad gave Mom on their first wedding anniversary. Unlike Mom, who saved her good silver for holidays and special occasions, I use these spoons daily and think of her unconditional love, strong will, determination, and love for beauty.
A Christmas Tree Story
Decades ago my parents, long deceased, started going to warm Arizona from cold Missouri. They gave me their artificial Douglas fir tree. It was the old fashioned kind of tree where you had to put together a column, add alphabetically labelled limbs one by one, then add the lights of your choice, and finally the rest of the decoration. Every year I unpacked it and went to work. This year was no different except a crucial part of it was missing. I still do not know whether moving was a factor or somehow I did not pack it up correctly. Regardless, it was obvious I would not be using it. What could I salvage? The limbs, the top so I used parts of it to decorate.
Then my daughter, Ema, told me I could use her tree which is too wide for her current place. We took it out of the box, she showed me how it works, and I decorated it this afternoon. It is wider and I had to move some furniture but I love the result. I have a tree, but still could salvage parts of the tree I have treasured for all these years since Mom and Dad gave it to me.
Now it is time to finish the shopping and wrap the gifts.
In Memory of Mother’s Roses
Mother’s rose garden
flowers for the family table
all my childhood summers.
Red, pinks, snowy.
No roses for decades
except those given, bouquets,
mostly red.
Now, I look out every window, roses
Pinks, reds, orange, lavender, yellow, snowy.
I love them, cut them,
And remember my mother.
Moving–6, The End
Finally settled in my new home in San Dimas, CA. I finished hanging all but one piece of art and family photos this morning. In addition I discovered a new rose bush I had previously not noticed since it is among the constantly blooming oleanders. This makes rose bush no. 25 I think. What I thought was a lime tree is a lemon–now that some are turning the color of lemons. What others said was an apple tree is a pear tree. One tree is pomegranate and full. As to when to harvest, I remain clueless. Supposedly, another tree is mandarin orange but not sure yet. Flowers in bloom everywhere make my heart sing.
Because this area is not right next to the mountains, I thought probably no pumas or bears around. While we walked around the large lake in Bonelli Regional Park on Thursday, my neighbor informed me that both are here and related a story about a bear on the golf course–the back of my house adjoins a golf course, and someone watching a puma chase a bunch of coyotes. I have heard the coyotes sing more here than where I lived out in the country in Texas. The weather has been such that I have not used the heat or the AC yet. Next task is to learn the names of the birds I see here all the time. I know the raptors I have seen but not the little ones rapidly consuming something in the grass nearly every morning. Another change from the Panhandle of Texas is the absolute lack of wind. Right now no wind at all and when it is windy, it is like ten miles an hour or so basically a nice little breeze.
writingontherim 