What Were Those Trees?

One of the silly delights of falling more deeply in love, after you are already "in love," is in discovering similarities in your differences.
(As an example of this, Himself and I the first time we dined out on chicken acted as if we'd discovered the cure for the common cold, ooh, I like white meat and you like dark, yes, but, not only is that a handy complementarity when apportioning the bird, we seemed to consume our food at exactly the same rate!!!!! the same, shamefully rapid, rate.....)

My Father used to like to fib that he knew only two flowers, roses and sweet william - he stubbornly named any non-Rose bloom, ah - sweet william! 

On our honeymoon I learned Himself calls all, not merely flowers, all PLANTS regardless of size, type, "zinnia."

I just realized that this is more or less when we were in England, and i'm thinking I ought to finally find out what those gorgeous flowering trees were - one did not pass a churchyard or walk down a suburban street, or wander in a park that wasn't resplendent with one.
I asked him if he knew, but i don't care what he said - these were not zinnia, (I kinda hate yellow flowers.)

These were EVERYWHERE!
And they were GORGEOUS! rich, complex rose and pink and blush colors, so lush with blossoms that until you got very close they seemed to have no foliage.
We asked several people, different days, different towns - alas, for a nation of avid gardeners. no one we met seemed to know.

What's blooming there now?
I search the web looking for their picture, their name...

Were they simply apple?
Not that apple isn't a fine thing for them to be.
Mabe a Judas tree......

Sometimes the Onion is superfluous....

Things may have reached a point where parody is impossible.

Is Dr. Ben Pitcher a real person? and if so, is he really sociologist? or is he perhaps a sociologist the way Dame Edna is a dame?

Perhaps the Spectator and the Mail aren't real news outlets... does John Oliver write for them?

But I'm quite sure the Telegraph is real.
So the question is, has it been hacked, and this bogus story, excuse the expression, planted there?

Regular listeners to [a gardening show on the radio] may be horrified to discover it has been accused of peddling racial stereotypes.

According to an academic, the sedate Radio 4 panel show is riddled with "racial meanings" disguised as horticultural advice.... Dr Ben Pitcher, a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Westminster, claimed the programme’s regular discussions on soil purity and non-native species promoted nationalist and fascist beliefs. 
Speaking on another Radio 4 programme, Thinking Allowed, the academic said: “Gardeners’ Question Time is not the most controversial show on Radio 4, and yet it is layered with, saturated with, racial meanings.
“The context here is the rise of nationalism. The rise of racist and fascist parties across Europe. Nationalism is about shoring up a fantasy of national integrity. My question is, what feeds nationalism? What makes nationalism powerful?”
Dr Pitcher said the “crisis in white identity in multicultural Britain” meant people felt unable to express their views for fear of being called racist, so expressed their racial identity in other ways, such as talking about gardening. 

There'll always be an England, I believe the New Yorker used to say, (of course, it being a magazine, there probably won't always be a New Yorker.)

Pride Goeth Before the Fall, or Sometimes Before the Summer

Looking out my window yesterday I was filled to bursting with joy and pride, looking at our hydrangea bush, which was enormous, and healthy, and had, if anything, too many blooms.

(This is a first, we had several years of it not flowering, or looking sickly and scrawny all summer, not seeming to grow, or just generally failing to thrive, as those with care of children might say.)

It was so remarkable that, well.... I remarked on it, and summoned the could-care-less Himself to share the sight with me.

Now these abundant blossoms were tinged with blue, but only slightly.

And I like blue hydrangeae.

The past few years I have given it aluminum sulfate, but i am out and in light of the projected move to a place where the hydrangeas bloom not, wasn't about to spend ten dollars on a bag of chemicals to use a spoonful or two, so I read up on the internet, (the magisterial internet, the source of all wisdom and knowledge,) and had decided several days ago i could give it tiny amounts of vinegar to futher acidize the soil.

And as of yesterday I was very puffed up indeed about how it looked.

And this morning it is all but dead.

Interspecies Warfare

What is with the squirrels?
What is with them this year?
I hate squirrels.
Why are they ignoring my yellow peppers, (off of which I could not keep them last summer,) and molesting my tender little flowering plum babies? (which they can't even eat, squirrels in a manger!)
And when did they stop being frightened of us?!??!#??&?
They refuse to yield until I am within actual swatting distance, and I swear, when my arms are full and they realize thet are in no actual danger of swatting, they stand their ground and mock me.

And why do they go through my compost bucket, (to which they are welcome, generally, knock gyourselves out on banana skins, boys,) only to scatter teabags across my porch?
Teabags?
Does this reveal heretofore hidden political leanings?
And leave my grape tomatoes alone, you!

Brazen, furry little rats...

I hate squirrels.

Here we go 'round the mulberry bush....

Or, more precisely, the mulberry TREE.
It is a luscious, luscious thing, a fresh-picked mulberry.
The summer after we moved here there was this shrubby, stumpy thing with dark fruit on it, on our property backing onto the ally.
I conjectured that it was something edible and Himself, terrified that I would poison myself, begged me to promise not to eat of the fruit of the tree, which I of course did.
Promised, I mean, not ate.

It grew into a tree, and jealous of the birds and squirrels who seemed to be enjoying its bounty, I did a little cursory research on line and decided it was a mulberry, but Himself was having none of it and would not release me from my promise.
Some friends told us that they were pretty sure it was edible, but since they didn't claim to know what it was, he still refused.
It grew tall enough one year that it was threatening the cable and phone, so we cut it back ruthlessly, and a neighbor, walking by lamented that he would not be able to help himself to our berries as he always had.

Okay, NOW will you release me from my promise?
Oh, maybe, but that year there was no fruit.
And the next, I was away or infirm or crippled with eczema the entire picking season.

So this year, when I came home from the Colloquium, there was all that succulent goodness taunting me -- okay, it was the d***** squirrels that were taunting me, they've also snatched every single cherry tomato the moment it had even a hint of a blush of color on it -- I am going to declare war! ButIDigress....
Anyway, I reminded him of our conversationS of previous years, and he gave in, with a proviso,
Don't try serving them to me!

I love not having to share ;oP

Larcenous Squirrels

I remember on one of our endless-seeming, cross-country treks back in the day, lighting on a gardening show on the radio, desperate for any non-Limbaugh, non-sex advice talk to keep us awake and engaged as it grew dark and we still had miles to go before we could afford the time to stop and get a motel.

Gardening.

Homeless and likely to remain so, (or at least house-less, Himself was figuring to stay nomads, but perhaps get an apartment or condo somewhere,) it never occurred that the information would actually be of interest. (I am lazy, and indoor person, anti-sunlight, and hate to get earth on my hands.)

But it was engaging it, and it did spur conversation, and actually stuck in my memory. It was a call in program, and a mna was seeking the hosts advice on placating his neighbors, who were accusing him of theft.

It seem that they had planted many tulips, and come spring, most of them had bloomed in his yard.

He blamed it on the squirrels, but the host/expert treated that excuse and the caller with amused contempt.

Well, I'm here to tell you the guy was on the money.

Because we do own a house, and I've discovered I do love seeing things grow, and feeling the satisfaction that comes with knowing one has effected that growth, and so though still lazy as a slug, against all natural inclinations, I planted tulips bulbs.

And not only have I had to chase squirrels from time to time out of the beds and pots where I had planted them, but now that they've raised their proud red heads, many of them, perhaps MOST of them, rather than in the beds where we could enjoy them most easily from our windows, are in the middle of the lawn, or next to the trash bins on the other side of our fence (though still on our property,) and at the foot of some lilacs we propagated, (another excellent effort for lazy gardeners, I highly recommend it.)

So it WAS those accursed squirrels.

Anyway, I hate those thievin' squirrels, (they also seem far too fond of orange peppers for my comfort. Grrrrrrr.)

Rhapsodizing on Blue

I just wanted to say, because i have so few successes of any sort lately, and almost none in gardening -- I have managed, through patient and diligent (for my slip-shod self,) adding of aluminum, I have FINALLY managed to turn my hydrangea blue.
Success!
(Now, if only there were grape tomatoes or sweet pea-pods to share with my Mother on her all too short visit here....)

EWTN Rountable on Motu Proprio

Very interesting, (despite the not-ready-for-primetime personas of the members of the roundtable discussion.)
One participant (Msrg. Schmitz? of Christ the King? I'll have to look it up,) used (or quoted?) a perfect analogy.

This is the first year I've grown peppers, and the first time I have ever even tried to grow something from any seed that I had gathered myself.
I take an inordinate pride in gazing out my back window at the shining, brilliantly yellow-gold, tremendously sweet (I have eaten one so far, they ripened far more slowly than I'd expected,) and normally EXPENSIVE beauties.
How I preen!
Look what I grew! I think to myself.
But I always think "grew."
Note that. Not "look what I created," I merely planted, and watered, and staked, and watched.
I create nothing.
Anyway, this priest, in talking about the excessive so-called creativity of "liturgists," reminded that a liturgist (and a musician, I might add,) is no more a creator than a gardener, who properly tends..., protects,... encourages, NEVER creates the Liturgy/the Plant, to "grow from its own interior strength."
Exactly.
I was pleased to hear, (can I admit this as an creative artist? LOL!) the dismissive inflection everyone on the panel used in speaking the word "creativity."

There was also a phrase that caught my ear, as an alternative to "exerting a gravitational pull," which I have probably overused.
The Extraordinary Form can "reinvigorate the Rite [in its Ordinary Form,] with VIRTUES THAT HAVE BEEN LOST" either in practice er even in theory (I would have said either accidentally through carelessness or ignorance, or intentionally, by design; the useful idiots guilty of the former are far less culpable than the "theologians" and "liturgists", the theorists who perpetrated the latter.)

One other quote, which I saw as a possible rebuke to certain bishops who shall remain nameless... but not, I hasten to add, mine... the motu proprio requires implementation, not commentary.