Of crows and tourists and forks in the road

June, 2005
Finnie and the crows shared a love of the birdbath water. We could hear the crows cawing over the right to sit in the birdbath. This was a bird I had previously thought a quite cool and interesting bird. I would come to think of them as somewhat malevolent as I would see them tormenting smaller birds and occasionally taking young from their nests. Desperate parents tried valiantly to catch up to these large black birds as they easily escaped with the young in their claws. They would gather in groups cawing menacingly. Intelligent birds, I think but they added an uneasy presence.

Finnie loved to dip her dolly of the moment in the water, or fetch rocks to put in it, or to taste it, even if admonished for doing so.

The flower garden was beginning to resemble a garden. Some flowers were blooming but the sparseness was obvious. Time would fill it out but I was doing my level best to speed things up by planting any flowers that came my way and I could not go by a garden center without stopping to see what they had. I came to appreciate yarrow for its long blooming time and bright spots of color amongst the rest. The one I had was called sunset or autumn or something like that. A strong red, orange color. I had wild roses from my parents cottage, siberian irises from garden centers and from my mom, peonies, roses moved from another part of the property, lavendar, sage and lemon verbena, to name a few.


Siberian iris at full bloom.









A salmon peony. More pinkish than salmony, this was an expensive buy and a bit disappointing but I would wait till next summer to see if it would evolve. I did like its delicate petals though.





Sunset? yarrow. Hardy, long-blooming and rich colors. This plant would grow on me and I would search out more.







St. Vincent resided in a large patch of mint that was planted previous to us. Just a few steps from the deck, I drank alot of mint tea, heavily sugared, reminiscent of the trip to Egypt Tim and I took and where I was proposed to by Tim, in the temple of Queen Hatshepsut.

Unbeknownst to a large group of German tourists that descended on the small 15 x 25 foot temple at precisely the wrong moment. Tim had placed the ring box on a ledge and I had just noticed it, or rather noticed the incongruity of this blue velvet box on the rough-hewn stone ledge in a room with little else in it, looked at Tim and then the tourists entered. Poor Tim, unable to continue, we waited till the tour guide had finished his speech, and the tourists had tromped out, before Tim could try to reestablish the mood and ask the necessary question. Couldn't say no to the lad after an affrontery like that, could I?

Little did we know that that event would lead to two children and living in the country on 17 acres. My gosh, the choices we make and how divergent the different directions become as time and opportunities create such a distance from the original fork in the road.