The last of my peonies

Tags

peonies, postaday2015, water

    

Sadly I have to bid farewell to my blooming peonies, these are the last of them in the pitcher up above, all of the rest have faded to rest and store up their nutrients for next year’s blooms. I can’t complain, I have three gorgeous sets of peonies, each a bit different from the other and they get bigger and fuller each year.

Today is a beautiful, breezy day in Blandford, hot but pleasant due to our strong mountain breeze. I think that the rest of the week will be a wet one for the Northeast, we’ll be in New York for most of it. When I was young, I remember being none too happy whenever it rained, but as I have gotten older and became impassioned with gardening, rain has become my friend. I also don’t have to reel out the two water hoses, drag them back and forth and then have to reel them back in, not a question of it being too hard, more a question of feeling a little bit lazy. 

Water has always been a precious resource, but we have been treating it as a commodity and I think that has been a big mistake for us as a society. I am so grateful to live in an area that rarely gets to be in a drought situation and similarly rarely gets flooded. I know how lucky we are in the Northeast, despite having lived through  several devastating hurricanes and ice storms, on average we do much better than millions of others throughout the world on an annual basis.

Compassion, gratitude, humility and optimism are characteristics that I actively try to nurture in myself every day, I think that it helps with life in general being aware of these traits and trying to apply them to your own experiences. I think that it puts a lot of things in a more manageable perspective.

Daily prompt: Mutants and Hybrids

Tags

birds, hybrid, mutants, postaday2014, water

If you were one part human, two parts something else — another animal, a plant, an inanimate object — what would the other two parts be?

We are actually made up mostly of water which is why when you start a diet, you lose the first three or four pounds so easily, it’s mostly water. The fat reserve is shed much more slowly as we slowly come to realize with a lot of frustration at times.

I was thinking of water because swimming with the dolphins might be fun; but on second thought, our oceans are pretty polluted and the marine life would fare much better if I stayed out of the ocean and put my efforts more towards trying to find ways on land to keep the plastics out of our oceans, banding together with others to keep the oil companies from drilling in the Arctic Circle and in doing that, I would really be honoring our oceans, instead of just playing around with dolphins and sea lions.

So instead I was thinking that even though I wouldn’t want to look like a lizard, being a bit chameleon-like would be pretty awesome; blending into whatever situation you find yourself in; it would be perfect for gardening. I could have a lot of fun with camouflaging myself in the garden, jumping out at the chipmunks, watching Jack try to find me with his trusty little nose. After seeing Raven/Mystique in the X-Men movie, I could imagine all of the different scenarios that being camouflaged would come in handy. I am pretty sure that I wouldn’t take unfair advantage, I would be too busy goofing around innocently with my newfound talent.

The other part would be birdlike; I would love to soar like a hawk or an eagle, flying far and wide, surveying all below me. After seeing how beautiful Angelina Jolie was with her wings, folded neatly behind her shoulders, I figure that I could rock a similar pair of beautiful, strong wings capable of propelling me into the air at a moment’s notice. I know that evolutionary speaking, we weren’t made to soar or coast the wind currents like birds, our bones are far too dense, but a girl can dream.