With St. Patrick’s Day around the corner and me tuning up my bagpipes, it suddenly occurred to me how appropriate it is that this most Irish of celebrations, where green is the color of the day, is held in March. This third month, after all, is the time when green returns to the landscape.
Irish eyes may be smiling, but on a recent walk through the garden, as I brushed aside brown winter leaves, I found my gardener’s eyes smiling at the excitement and promise of once again seeing green.
Snow has melted, fallen, and melted again — but winter’s debris is still there. I don’t mean the fallen leaves and broken twigs that litter the beds and lawn. I’m referring to actual litter.
Due to a combination of winter winds and my home’s location at the head of a T-shaped intersection, my yard is the final resting place for not only the leaves from the intersecting street, but also for my neighbors’ garbage. Whether it’s been set free from cans on garbage pick-up days or dropped on the street by passers-by, trash loves my yard.
March is an interesting time for gardeners. It’s the month when the first warm breezes begin to melt winter’s icy grip, when the garden begins to stir, when hints of green suddenly appear, when it’s time to get outside and get things ready for the gift that is spring.
At least that’s how my March used to be until about five years ago, when my March literally became MARCH — as in parade. I’m a bagpiper and March is piping season, with each weekend devoted to at least two to three St. Patrick’s Day parades — making this St. Patrick’s Month.
But as the first of the parades gets underway, March is also the time that I reflect on how I came to be a piper and how thankful I am that bagpipes entered my life. This post is that story.
Amaryllis. With a name like that, I should have known she was destined for stardom — but who could have anticipated any such thing on the Christmas morning that she arrived on my doorstep?
As the February snow melts and re-freezes, taking on the look and sound of carved Styrofoam, Long Island elected officials are scrambling to come up with answers for how municipalities so badly handled snow removal. There is talk of contracts, lack of direction, an overwhelming amount of snow, and the resignation of one highway supervisor — so much talk, in fact, that it’s all starting to sound like a snow job as historical as the blizzard itself.
If only they had paid more attention to “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” There always seemed to be snow falling on the other side of the massive window in Mary’s adorable apartment — you know, the one on the top floor of Phyllis’s house. I often dreamt that I would like to live in Mary’s apartment — if only to have Rhoda as a friend.
The same bench from previous post.
Yesterday, I was humming Christmas carols. Today, my lyrics sound more like this:
“There’s got to be a morning after, if we can hold on through the night
We have a chance to find the sunshine; let’s keep on looking for the light.
Oh, can’t you see the morning after? It’s waiting right outside the storm.
Why don’t we cross the bridge together and find a place that’s safe and warm?”
Snow falling on the bench.
I arrived home from work today, just in time for the opening volley of a February blizzard. Like a good blogger, I grabbed the camera, ventured out into the 1″ of snow, took some photos, and hummed a few songs to myself — songs better suited for Christmas.
A few posts ago, I shared some garden travel photos that I had found in a box in the attic. They were from a time when photos were developed on film, the sort of pictures you could touch and flip through to relive the moments caught.
Today, however, I’m doing some digital cleaning. There may not be any flipping through pictures, but there is clicking through snapshots of vacations gone by.
While I certainly love the hefty feel of an open photo album across my lap, any kind of photo can re-ignite the senses from a captured piece of time. A picture is worth a thousand words, but so too is a pixel.
Like the photo above, for example, which was taken at the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. Each time I see this photo, I can imagine trysts and stolen kisses, plots and deceit — all hidden from view by the thick greenery . . .
But I’m jumping ahead. I wanted to save the Spain photos for the end of this post.
Our first stop, then, is a brief stop in the southern United States.
At last, we have arrived at the big reveal — the announcement of the winner of Margaret Roach’s most excellent book, The Backyard Parables. So without any further delay, the book goes to . . .
Now did you really think I would jump right in with the winner’s name? Not only am I nitty and gritty, I’m also wordy — and a post just wouldn’t be complete unless I added a few hundred words of my own (as well as a few photos, each one dedicated to a season in my garden in honor of the chapters in Parables).
Parable is one of those Old — no, make that Ancient World words. Just saying it conjures up an image of a toga-ed philosopher sitting on the steps of the Parthenon, eager and inquisitive students kneeling and sitting and catching each one of his words.
That’s kind of how I felt as I read Margaret Roach’s newest book, The Backyard Parables. Okay, it wasn’t a toga party, but I could certainly imagine gardeners arriving from far and wide to her rural New York State garden — gathering about her as she shares the wit and wisdom of her words. (Note to self: find out Margaret’s Open Garden Day schedule.)
Nitty Gritty Dirt Man 