Calvesgarden Calendar

Thursday, April 6

SPRINGTIME AT LAST

Spring has come round to old Zealand after a long cold winter. Temperatures have stayed above freezing for so long now that the last of the snow has melted. I am looking forward to do some work in the garden soon. It is the best exercise, complete with a purpose. The witch hazel flowers have been out for a while. Early blossoms before leafing are something special, I think.

It has been an exquisite grey day with some fine rain and not much wind, very quiet except for a nice old lady collecting money for the Red Cross. I gave her all my change, but afterwards I regretted not having given more, because I did have some bills. She took me by surprise because it is mostly kids who do the collecting around here.

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HUNTING SPARROW HAWK

In the morning, a sparrow hawk dived down a few yards from the windows to get a mouthful of songbird, but it missed and changed course in mid air still chasing the bird out of the garden. I have never seen it at such short distance and the swiftness of the sparrow hawk amazed me. Missing the bird by an inch it just hung there with its wings spread out wide and then, in one stroke, it was back on trail.

A DIALOGUE WITH MOTHER EARTH. I have just learned that Liza Kirsten...

CALVESGARDEN CALENDAR 4.1 Imaginary books and libraries, the odd book link, old bindings, things like that...

"WEBLOGS SHOULD BE WRITTEN 'AU COURANT DE LA PLUME', it’s part of their charm, I think, but my limited knowledge of English tends to take the courant out of the plume. Trying to find the 'mot juste' sometimes feels like dragging for a lost lottery ticket in the wrong pond..."

"AS OPPOSED TO THE SCIENTIST, A MAN OF LETTERS HAS TO accept the mystery of life, which is flung in his face. The randomness and shapelessness of his experience, all the ineffable elements in his perception of the world, he must speak of in a language not very well suited for the purpose..."

"NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS GET CARRIED AWAY BY THEIR eloquence from time to time, I think. Siding with the plants indiscriminately may seem to be the obvious step forward on the left bank of the Seine where they are nursed in pots, but it doesn’t in a cottage garden. There are certainly some nasty specimens you wouldn’t want to run into empty-handed in a dark corner..."

"MEMORY WORKS IN PECULIAR WAYS, I THINK. Sometimes, it's like a faithful servant who steals out in the night, getting mugged in the bad neighbourhoods of the mind; at other times, it’s more like an old dog mixing up routines of remembering where you put things, their names, proper use and what have you. Baying at the moon in the burgeoning darkness..."

"IT SEEMS TO ME THAT SILLY MISTAKES AND EASILY avoidable accidents, even utter foolishness, are becoming overly exposed these days. I favour inspired garden folks, especially the sensitive and unhurried part of the tribe, well considered in their exploits and gardening with temperance..."

"I ENJOY READING PEACEABLE, UNCOMPLICATED WEBLOGS where people write about their daily lives and the places they live. What seems to be quite ordinary on one side of the planet may be highly inspiring on the other side. Food, housing, family, work, diversions. Any old turn will do. Mountain climbing? Tourism? No, thanks. Mountains look much the same to me. Turist sites, too. Most of the interesting things in life happen every day, I think..."

"WITH AGE I HAVE COME TO ACCEPT THAT SOME THINGS are better experienced in subdued light or even in darkness. Peter Ustinov once regretfully observed, being touched by the fate of the chicken in an excellent curry he had just consumed, that “nature is both magnificent and awful, both sublime in its equilibrium and horrifying in its detail,” which is more or less what I’m driving at here, I think. Attempting to present the bright side of gardening..."

"WHEN I TOOK OVER THE GARDEN TEN YEARS AGO, I LEFT IT FOR a year, just observing and pruning the few plants that were there and scouting the neighbourhood for nice gardens. Then every autumn, I’ve cleared an area and planted about fifty new shrubs, half of which were gifts from neighbours. I prefer native plants with some drought tolerance and a rich bloom, because they need very little tending and look great after a few years..."

"IN THE MORNING, A SPARROW HAWK DIVED DOWN A FEW yards from the windows to get a mouthful of songbird, but it missed and changed course in mid air still chasing the bird out of the garden. I've never seen it at such short distance and the swiftness of the sparrow hawk amazed me. Missing the bird by an inch it just hung there with its wings spread out wide, and then, in one stroke, it was back on trail..."

"THE FINE SHOWERS OF THE LAST COUPLE OF DAYS have changed to more serious downpours. The little drummer boy in the down pipe is doing his rolls more vigorously than long. It is just as well. The garden needed a good soaking before leafing. Only a pity that the birds have had to take shelter. It is hard to sing with your mouth full of water, I suppose..."

"VERY HEAVY FOG THIS MORNING. THE OLD CHERRY plum tree has tried to make an appearance all day but without much success beyond a vague, ghost-like figure. The completely still air makes things even spookier. You can hear the birds when they set off from the water but you can’t see them. It sounds like glass chains rattling. Somewhere a seagull coughs..."

"THERE SEEMS TO BE AN INTERESTING CONVERSATION going on among the birds. Their voices have become so distinct that you can believe they’re discussing something beyond the come-here and go-away routines, the simple rows over worms. Something more philosophical, which causes them to mock and laugh or object persistently as they exchange views on the subject..."

"ON THE BRIGHT BLUE SOUND A COUPLE OF SWANS DRIFTS BY, apparently not in a hurry to go anywhere. They seem to have found the perfect bend of the Wolf Sound, admiring the sights. Seeing it with their eyes is easy on a lovely morning as the imagination takes off like a flock of starlings swiping across the sky in waves of delight, easy as the wind..."

"IT FINALLY HAPPENED. LAST NIGHT, WE HAD A LOVELY drizzle after another unyieldingly hot day with temperatures moving into the mid-thirties (mid-nineties) in the afternoon. Usually, I can smell rain a mile away, but this came quite unexpectedly. I was moving a few buckets of water around in the garden when it suddenly started. Very lightly at first, but then almost like a shower. It sounded as if rice was being poured. I turned my face upwards, savouring the feeling of nice, cool rain..."

"AFTER TWO DAYS WITH HEAT AND HUMIDITY BUILDING UP, we had the most magnificent thunderstorm last night. Fat, white lightning broke the sky just after dark and a hard rain came down as if fired from a shotgun. The first huge clap of thunder sounded like a whole room of heavy furniture going through the floor..."

"FIELDS OF GOLDENROD IN FULL BLOOM ARE PROMINENT features of the landscape around Calvesgarden in September and October. Waving gracefully also along the roadsides, they indicate the end of summer..."

"THERE'S THE USUAL TROUBLE WITH KEEPING TRACK OF TIME in late October when the clocks are turned back an hour. This year, I can stay in Calvesgarden for a couple of days, getting accustomed to the deplorable interference with the calendar. Pope Gregory XIII would turn in his tomb if he knew. The amount of energy saved is negligible, I’m sure, compared to the disturbance caused by the rustling about with the heavenly bodies. Either way, darkness falls like a rock now..."

"THE WINTER CALENDAR INVITES BREVITY. THE YELLOW WITCH-HAZEL IS BLOOMING and the reddish pink imperial crown bush, Viburnum Bod. ‘Dawn’, has bloomed since December, that’s about it. Not much about which to write anywhere. The garden looks beautiful all covered in snow, of course, but otherwise, the advantages of it are negligible, I’d say. Garden correspondents in particular have more fun in the spring..."