Worth the Wait

Rocky Mountain Columbine is normally true blue.
My alkaline soil turns the flowers a purplish-blue.

They say patience is a virtue. I really wouldn’t know. My mind is often spinning in a dozen different directions. Who's got the time to worry about that?

Some folks might consider this pretty Columbine a 'weed,'
since she prefers to grow in the crack in my sidewalk.

I've never really minded all my nervous energy. It inspires all kinds of I’m gonna do this! I’m gonna do that! exciting ideas. 

Thanks to this nervous energy, I actually follow through. 

This wild Columbine planted herself in my gardens.

 “You have the patience of a flea.” So sayeth my gone but not forgotten supervisor during my last corporate performance review.

In this world, there are doers and talkers. He dearly loved to talk but he never really got around to doing much of anything.

This Poppy is another volunteer. She just showed up, one day, and said: I like it here!

I quit after my supervisor insulted me by calling me a flea. Hummingbirds are 'impatient.' Couldn't you have used that as an example?

I quit. Started my own company. Stole his biggest account. But… not…. intentionally. 

Had barely figured what to call this company I decided to start, when my old boss’s biggest client called me asking if I was in business. 

Um. Yes. I proudly claimed. Lied. Wondering how quickly I could purchase a desk, and a new laptop and possibly hire someone to upgrade the wireless. 

Great, she says. We have so many projects and none of them are getting done fast enough. We’d like to hire you to make this happen. 

This Snowball shrub was an impulse purchase. 
We had 38 feel of snow last winter, nobody needs to see any more white.

Here’s the irrefutable truth about impatient people. We get shit done. 

Like this morning. When I stepped outside at dawn and played in the gardens for six blissful hours. Couldn't believe I was out there that long. The time just flew by. 

And yes. I freely admit. I've experienced many exasperated, impatient, moments when I stood in front of my flowers and irrationally screamed: Grow dammit! 

Brunnera is a shade lover. Tiny blossoms about 1/4 inch diameter.

But now that the gardens are fully grown, I step back, calm down, and think to myself: The waiting was the only hard part. 

Sort of looks like a Brunnera (upper photo) doesn't it?
It's actually a wildflower that enjoys full sun in my backyard. Not sure the name.

Thinking about patience and people because I said my final goodbye, last Tuesday, to my last freelance client. 

I resigned all my freelance accounts last year. Time to retire. These people move very slowly. Six months later, we had a lovely goodbye; he was always my favorite - I worked with him for 20 years. And I think that’s because I always believed at some point he might change. Even though it's a well-documented fact that people never change.

Wild Iris

During our last conversation he said: “We will be [insert title of project that will never happen here] and it’s too bad you can’t be part of that.” 

But… but… I was part of that! At least I tried to be! When I recommended that you do that. Three years ago.

Impatient people get a bad rap. [I'm mostly just saying that because I am one.] 

Anxious to do whatever it is that needs doing… we often make other people feel lazy. And sometimes crazy. Because we keep asking: Have you done that yet?? What are you waiting for??

I can tell you what I've been waiting for. For a very long time. A simple summer day. And it's finally here. 

Summer arrives very slowly - at this elevation, in the mountains. But it is always worth the wait.

Let's Take a Walk

Pear Trees

Spring has finally arrived in the mountains. Not completely, the furnace is still on. And those April showers - that can't seem to figure out it's June, now, - are still foiling our plans to truly take a walk...

But it is most definitely springtime. My trees told me so.

Spring - it is such a lovely time of the year. I often wonder why we make our resolutions on New Years. When it's cold and snowy and the most creative thing we can come up with is maybe joining a health club or going on a diet. 

They bud pink; they flower blue, I don't know who they are but this Lilac is my favorite.

It's these beautiful Spring days, this rebirth and renewal change of season, that inspires me to pop a bottle of champagne and celebrate. When the gardens begin to bloom once again. And we see how all our flowering friends survived.

Plus. The second the snow melts you're working like a fiend out in those gardens. Who needs a Peloton bike when you've got that going on?

There's a 'super bloom' happening in the horse pasture. Meadow Phlox is so dainty, it's hard to photograph the drifts of petal pink, so here's a close up.

This wildflower might be called a Biscuitroot - not sure. I don't plant wildflowers back there. 

Sable does! 

You're not supposed to pick wildflowers but the horse doesn't know that. She eats the flowers, and later, deposits seeds back into the pasture, creating her own, magnificent, garden.

We have a lot of short-sighted new residents in Park City, now, who complain that horses 'poop' on the trails. But your dog poops on the trails and nothing good ever comes from that. Horses are vegetarians. As are deer and elk and moose. Our stunning wildflower trails do not come from you and your destructive mountain bike. We can thank the vegetarians and the birds for this glorious show. It might be nice if you people would shut up about that.

Okay. Fine. I'll stop complaining about my new neighbors. Let's keep walking through the gardens...

Golden Currants attract tons of songbirds. Makes a wonderful chutney.

No animals are attracted to Cushion Spurge, [which is kind of why I plant it!] These happy yellow blossoms are some of the first flowers to bloom every spring.

The Bridal Veil is just getting started.

The Newport Plum is almost done.

High winds are making short work of the Crabby Apple trees. It's sort of 'snowing' white petals this afternoon.

Perhaps my insanely alkaline soil is the reason my dark purple Allium has evolved into precious pink beauties.

Bleeding Hearts have no business blooming this early but who am I to complain? 

Did you know Bleeding Hearts can handle -40(F) degrees? Zone 3. I'm zone 6 - they're very happy we don't live in Alaska. 

The scent of various Lilacs waft through the open window. That lovely fragrance is really the only saving grace with these daily afternoon rains. I mean. If you have to rain every day. Couldn't you do that at night while we're sleeping?

Anyhoo. That's what's blooming in my neck of the woods. Now isn't this 'walking exercise' a whole lot more fun than a treadmill at the gym? No need to thank me. 😊

The Bulb Festival

Plopped down in my morning coffee spot, massaging sore muscles, contemplating the last 27 things to do on my spring cleanup of the gardens. Hoping to get all creative and stuff. Surely I could invent a good reason not to do any of that today. 

When a woman ran past the front of my house in a wedding dress. 

Screaming: Wheee! To the cars passing by, honking their horns. Jumped up, took a look around, hoping to see another runaway bride. 

My cute town does not have an overabundance of runaway brides. It’s Running With Ed weekend. A 26-mile relay race, to benefit local schools. 

Lots of people happily running a marathon - many in costumes. Didn’t realize that May is almost over until I saw the sprinting bride. 

The race became my really good excuse. To not do any more hard gardening work. To sit there and clap and cheer and wonder why most of those runners were smiling. 

It's always a curiosity to me. Who in their right mind would willingly run 26 miles? I wouldn't do that. Even if zombies were chasing me.

But I'm nearly finished with a marathon of my own making. 

Raking and weeding and planting and mowing. Spring clean up is hard, hard work. Taxing muscles that spent a whole lotta time reading books during the long, cold winter.

Maybe that's what they mean. When people say: Pick Your Poison. 

If you find a passion, it feels like fun, even when it’s backbreaking labor. Or. It feels like fun right up until the day you rip off that wedding dress and say: I don’t wanna do this anymore. 

Which is what I did. When I ran out of steam and hired a landscaping service to collect all the broken tree limbs and other stuff I raked from the garden beds. The guys removed an entire flatbed trailer of debris. 

May, in the mountains, is always known as Mud Month. Once the snow melts. After our epic winter with 400+ inches of snow, we're dealing with some serious mud!

It's been an exhausting few weeks of playing in that mud. Spring clean up. 

Some of it heartbreaking, badly damaged fruit trees. The disappearing act of quite a few flower bulbs (ground squirrels gobbled them up.) 

The Willows are gone. Nibbled right down to the dirt. The moose were starving during this long and difficult winter. It's fine by me. Happy to donate Willows to this worthy cause. 

During an extreme bout of cabin fever, I decided to spend oodles of money on a completely inappropriate patio set.  

* If you look real close, you can see the muddy footprints on the white cushions. White. What was I thinking? Dog, Charlie, happily approved of my design.

The gal who published that book, Do What You Love & The Money Will Follow, clearly did not take into consideration a career in gardening. Well. I suppose most people don’t call it a career; they call it a hobby. Some days I call it an obsession. 

I visit flower festivals and then I want to make my own backyard equally beautiful.

Did you know that USA gardeners spend $50 billion dollars a year? I think most of that is me.

I don't love spring cleanup, or weeding, but I do love planting. Digging in the dirt. Shopping for brand new beauties at the local nursery. Always have. 

Just as soon as I saw I was nearly done with all that hard work, I instantly decided to take on more hard work. :) Placed an order for more waterwise perennials. 

Because that’s what being a gardener is all about, don’t you think? The power of positive thinking. The belief that this year, oh this year, this flower season is pretty much guaranteed to be marvelous!

This Spring has been a little disappointing. Dull grey skies, plentiful rains. As if we needed more moisture after our epic winter snowfall. It’s a miracle anything survived. Including me. 

So far, my gardens are showing zero enthusiasm toward the merry month of May. 

Which is why I thought you might enjoy these photos from The Bulb Festival. This last photo could be a dead giveaway, as to where I was ~ when I was tiptoeing thru the Tulips.

The Aftermath

We’ve been very busy. Watching the snow melt.

Time has this annoying habit of moving on - caring very little about my opinions on the matter. 

Moving quickly when I would much prefer time to stand still. 

Moving at a snail's pace when fast would be good. Great, even. Let's put this long, cold winter behind us. 

We had 400 inches of snow this winter.

I'm happy to report that Spring has arrived in the mountains. You can hear it with the cheerful serenade of returning songbirds. We’re back! What’s for breakfast? 

Maybe a Finch?

Even when you’re buried beneath mountains of snow, you can see that Spring has arrived. Feel it. A warmer morning light, a softer, gentler breeze. A kinder angle to the glaring sun. Bluer skies. 

In the ditch, the driest area of the property, tiny green Daffodil shoots are popping up in the mud. Always makes me smile when I see how much growing happens beneath the deep drifts. Snow is a fine insulator. 

The view from my window. The view from up here.

You can also tell it's springtime by the “Urgent! Avalanche!" warnings popping up on my phone. [Argh. Will this ever end?] 

And then it did. End, that is.

Two weeks of exceptionally warm weather, snows rapidly melting. Spring has arrived! As indicated by the new warnings on my phone: “Urgent: Flash Flooding!” 

I'm showing you a picture of my living room ↑ because I am so very proud of this old house. It weathered the plentiful storms. Roofs collapsed, from the weight of the snow, on newer homes, near me. But this place. The oldest house in the neighborhood. Did just fine.

And, of course, the dog ran away. The most predictable sign of spring. 

6-foot fences in our backyards are no match for 15+ feet of snow. Charlie glided easily over the fence and kept on running. Embarking on a life of crime, he returned home with this chicken.  - >

That was the funniest part of this epic snowfall winter. All the neighbors making the same - daily - announcements: Lost dog! Lost dog! 

They're not lost. They're up on the sledding hill, having the time of their lives. 

So that's what's happening in my neck of the woods. Just sitting around, watching the snow melt. Wondering when, if ever, those Daffodils will start to bloom.

 

Home is where the... snow is.

It melts on this sunny deck but don't let that fool you.

We have 400 inches of snow. 

We set that record while I was searching for some sunshine in Arizona. [With zero luck, I might add.] 

It's a lot deeper on the other side of the mountains ~ 5 miles west, as the crow flies. Although crows are way too smart to be hanging around here.

Snowbird has 700 inches of snow. No need to get out the calculator. I did that earlier this morning. I mean it's not like I have anything better to do. I'm stuck indoors. Because it's still snowing. 700 inches = 58 feet of snow. 

Snowbird received 5 feet of fresh snow in the last 5 days. 

Snows have reached the roof level.

It's snowing sideways right now ~ a bitterly cold wind battering this old house. It's almost April. It should be springtime. Crocus should be blooming. Maybe they are blooming! Do you suppose they do that? Beneath this mountain of snow.

I imagine you're not the slightest bit interested in my snow report.

But I just have one last thing to say: Enough Already! 

Okay. Two things: I'm glad I don't live in California ~ it's even crazier farther west.

Indoors ~ things are a whole lot prettier. Shock of the world... Everybody survived. 

As in all the houseplants left to fend for themselves during the 6 weeks we were gone. 

I don't know what possessed me... well, that's not true I know exactly what possessed me. I just hate to see all my little annuals die in the first freak freeze which happened in October. To save them, I dragged one of the outdoor planters indoors for the winter.

At first I felt kind of foolish. But I gotta tell ya... That planter is keeping me sane. 

It's so nice to have my morning coffee with these pretty little Pansies. ↓

Geraniums don't know how lucky they are. Rescued from the garden last autumn. ↓

Happy little Daisies, planted by seed. ↓

Easy to grow Kalanchoe. ↓

Did you know Kalanchoe (K. blossfeldiana) can live for a hundred years? Why yes, indeedy, they do. So stop throwing these grocery-store cuties away. They're perennials. Give them a chance to re-bloom. You'll be glad you did.

AND! Tulips!! 

I always keep a bag of Tulips in my refrigerator. Force the bulbs indoors for a little bit of Easter color.

√ It's really easy to 'force' Tulip bulbs. You basically take them out of the refrigerator and say: Okay do your thing. They'll flower with or without soil. But, of course, they appreciate a drink of water.

This year, I planted my Tulip bulbs - indoors - in the planter - before I left on vacation. And for once in this gardener's life, these flowers did exactly what they were supposed to do.

Filled my house with glorious spring colors.

It was a pretty wonderful welcome home to see them all blooming.

After I climbed over the 6-foot snow drift blocking my front door. :)

The I'm Not Kidding Ghost In The Attic

We've driven as far south as we can go - without a passport - and it's still snowing.

↑ 11 miles from the Mexico Border.  ↑

When we embarked on this Let's Head South to Warm Up, impromptu road trip, I packed two suitcases. One for hot weather - one for warm weather. Bit the bullet, got a pedicure, prior to my departure. Couldn't hardly wait to put my sandals on.

Packed three whole items for cold weather. Confident I'd be escaping the snows very, very soon. Been living in a filthy sweatshirt and a pair of dirty jeans for a couple weeks now. The only warm clothes I have. I haven't been warm since we hopped in the car, eager to leave winter far behind.

It makes sense that I'm suffering through a super snowy winter. I live high in the mountains in a ski resort.

It does not make sense that the father south we drive, the colder it gets.

After departing chilly Sedona, we headed much further south.

Tombstone was a ghost town. Which makes sense ~ seeing as how their biggest attraction is shooting each other every hour, on the hour, at the OK Corral. 

I suppose the lack of tourists stems from the fact that it was so freaking cold there nobody felt like cheering on the Gunslingers. 

This is a major thoroughfare and a two-way street.

From Tombstone, we headed farther south, to Bisbee.  We were lost the whole time we were there. I'm still laughing that it took us 30 minutes to find a restaurant that was only 1/2 mile away! 

*  FYI ~ once we did find Cafe Roka (sign in the photo - I think I hold the Guinness Book of World Records for u-turns, while on vacation) it was the best meal I've ever enjoyed.

The town gets much prettier when you drive around the corner. 

Bisbee is an eccentric, artsy, ghost-loving community. Which sounded like kind of a crazy claim to fame. Oh, lookee there! Isn't that cute? I thought to myself, when I saw that Bisbee was listed as one of the most haunted places in Arizona.

We came to stay at this lovely 100 year old mansion. ↓

When the weather cooperates, it looks like this vs. the top photo in this blog post. When it's covered in snow. 

When I booked this place I envisioned me in Donna's glorious garden. Me in a tank top, sipping lemonade, and photographing her lovely flowers... and... what? 

Eleven miles from the Mexico border - it was 18 degrees the day we arrived.

Look up! Complimentary wine but you must climb to rafters to retrieve it. :)

I fell in love the moment we walked inside. Have always dreamed of having a country kitchen in a wonderful old home like this one. Sans the ghost.

Yep. Pretty sure it was haunted. 

That's crazy! YOU are saying to yourself at this very moment. 

I'm a light sleeper - woke in the middle of the night, hearing footsteps. Figured it was Hazel (I picked up a friend at the Phoenix airport for the last half of this journey.) But then I heard her snoring in the next room. Which is right about the time I remembered why I don't travel with her that often.  :)

Footsteps. In the attic. And no dog.

Even when he's bored to tears, while I'm working on my computer, Charlie never leaves my side.

Charlie refused to come upstairs in that house. 

He's been by my side every day for the last 8 years. We sleep together every night. 

But Charlie wouldn't come upstairs to sleep with me while were staying in that house. Flatly refused. Which felt so very strange. Until I heard the spooky visitor in the attic in the middle of the night.

So there you have it. Truth in advertising. Bisbee really is a ghost town. And there's absolutely no need to book one of those super popular ghost tours the town offers. Just book the place I stayed in.

* If you don't believe me, believe in Charlie Waffles. He was smart enough to sleep downstairs on the couch.