Patience

This brown beauty, which I believe may be a white admiral butterfly, returns each year to the Sweet Mock Orange shrub that sits by our front steps. The orange-like scent of the Sweet Mock Orange perfumes all visitors to our door.

Meanwhile, back in the backyard, this bumblebee was busy kissing the lavendar bells of the giant comfrey plant that sits beside the bird feeders. My friend, Marjut, gifted me this comfrey plant which proceeded to grow and grow and grow. She told me to use the leaves to line the bottom of my kitchen organic waste pail (that is, stuff that goes out to make compost). We eat a lot of fruit and vegetables so we make a lot of trips to dump that pail in the back compost bin.

This is Patience. She belongs to the Campanula family. Last year, she was out in the front flower bed, but this year the birds brought her over to the bed lining the end of the driveway. I never know where Patience will pop up. I call her Patience because for many years of her life she was mowed down with the lawn, but despite that she never gave up.

She was inside the grass, just waiting. Like the grass got clipped, so too did Patience. Year after year. The summer after we moved in, I was mowing the lawn one day and I noticed what I thought might be...not-grass in the lawn. So I dug her out and put her in the front flower bed to see if anything would happen. So now Patience pops up around my yard in all sorts of places. But it's her call where she will go. Her being mowed down made her stronger.

My son handed me a petal of this Stella D'oro day lily today and told me to taste it. I said, what! eat a lily! They're poisonous!
No, mom, try it!
So, we munched on the petals. I said if we die tonight, it'll be your fault. ...Instead, he sent me this to read. Now I'm dreaming about how stunning the yellow petals will look as decorations for my täytekakku [whipped cream cake].... or maybe an entire flower in the center instead of a large strawberry?

A whole bevy of Oriental Poppies opened last night. I was stunned to find 8 of them flashing their fantastic faces in the front yard. Their crumply paper-thin orange petals open up to a deep purple centre that would make a wonderful meditation mandala. There is no escaping the spectacular appeal of these large poppies which have come our way from Turkey. Strangely, unlike most living things, they thrive on neglect.

This shasta daisy was dancing tonight in the evening breeze. The day was hot and the night breeze is warm. The breeze is scented with all the flowers that are madly calling out to the bees, now that the heat has released their passion. Their life is short; they've no time to waste in their desire to attract the bees and butterflies.

The peonies are beginning their show. I'm sure they'll open tonight in the dark. The moths and fireflies will hear their petal-soft rustling. The ants have been traveling the highways of their stalks and, in a pilgrimage ritual, the labyrinths of their flower heads.

This is new Rose. She has decided to work her way through the heart of the willow trellis I made a few years back with the help of Judi Vinni from Willow Springs. I call her New Rose because she is more tender than

obstinate Old Rose.