patinagle

Just a quick garden update.  The redbud tree is alive!  We planted it to honor Chris's mom, but it doesn't like the cold winters up here.  The main trunk died, but the roots are alive.  This is the second year that it's sent up a new shoot. 

So, gladness.  Cheering.  Come on, little tree!  You can do it.

Seriously thinking about using old cat littler buckets to compost kitchen scraps.  Can't discover a reason why it wouldn't work.  I'd love to get one of those rotating bin composters, but they cost $$$ and I don't see why a bucket with a lid wouldn't work as well.  I'd just pick it up and shake it after adding new scraps. 

If any more experienced gardeners want to weigh in, feel free.

It's been a while since I put together an afternoon tea.  I decided to invite my friend and neighbor Judith, who gave me two lovely sets of tea plate and cup, to join me for tea today.  Even though I work closely with the St. James Tearoom, I'd forgotten just how labor intensive it is to make a full tea by hand.  I started cooking two days ago.  Finished as my guest was arriving.  We had a lovely, leisurely chat.  Here's the menu (served with Lemon Myrtle Herbal Tea, as Judith doesn't drink black tea): SAVORIES Cucumber Sandwiches Deviled Eggs Chicken Salad Sandwiches with Thyme and Sage Blossoms Stuffed Mushrooms BREADS Cream Scones with clotted cream, lemon curd, and brandy butter Lemon Poppyseed Cake   SWEETS Lavender Shortbread Brownies topped with Ganache and Fresh Raspberries Fresh Blueberries in Lemon Whipped Cream

I've sponsored a wolf.

Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary is a wonderful place in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico. They offer lifetime sanctuary to captive-bred wolves and wolf-dogs abandoned by the exotic pet trade.

Often what happens is someone thinks it would be cool to have a wolf for a pet, so they buy a pup from a breeder. Then they find out why wolves don't make good pets. Sometimes the owners just can't handle the behavior of an intelligent, energetic, undomesticated animal with very strong jaws. Sometimes they can, but their communities outlaw ownership of such animals. Either way, a lot of these wolves and cross-bred wolf dogs wind up homeless, or threatened with euthanasia. They can't be released into the wild, because they were bred in captivity and don't have the experience to survive. 

Wild Spirit gives a lifetime home to over 50 such animals. They constantly have to turn others away, and are always operating on a shoestring budget. I've helped them out a little here and there in the past, but this year the taxes weren't as bad as I expected, so I've been able to sponsor a wolf for the first time.

I was extremely fortunate to have the chance to meet Storm and actually play with him and his siblings when he was just a pup.  He is one of a half dozen pups who came to Wild Spirit when their breeder decided to go out of business. 

When I got to play with the pups, they were eighteen weeks old, and they had so much strength and energy (squirmy!) that I was truly worried one of them might clock me in the face and injure me.  Now, a couple of years later, I know that Storm could easily kill me. 

Not that he's vicious--he's pretty much the opposite, very shy.  Most wolves are (rightly) afraid of humans, but they will attack if they feel threatened.  They are wild animals. 

I probably won't ever get to play with Storm again, but I'm going to visit him, and if I'm very lucky and the stars are all aligned, I might get to scritch his head a little.  If not, I'll settle for giving him presents now and then, and knowing that by sponsoring him (as I hope to continue to do each year), I'm helping him have as good a life as he can possibly get. 

(PS - The day we played with the pups, I caught a great picture of Jane Lindskold with a wolf pup the same age as Storm.  Check it out on Jane's website.)

Beloved spouse and I took a quick jaunt to Las Vegas earlier this week. Here's a link to some fun pictures of Hoover Dam and the conservatory at Bellagio. I'm putting up a thumbnail of one pic here to tempt you.

Snow again Friday, a couple of inches in the morning and showers off and on all day.  Snow on the ground still yesterday morning, all melted off by evening.  Today, sunshine.  The forest is happy for the moisture, happy for the sun.

My face is back!  Amazing!  I didn't change a thing. 


Something must have been going on Behind the Scenes.

This year Random Acts of Kindness Week is February 9-15, according to the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation. Do something nice for someone!

Monday I was walking past a car whose passenger door was open.  The passenger, an older lady, couldn't reach the handle to close it because the door was too long.  She was calling to her husband, who was at the other side of the car loading cargo, to come help her.  I said "May I close it for you?" and did so.  Easy, fast, and so worth doing.  Her surprised smile will stay with me. 

I recently read Thom Hartmann's The Prophet's Way, which discusses small, private acts of compassion. I didn't think the "private" part was that important but on reflection, it may well be. Doing something kind isn't about being acknowledged for it. It's about the act of kindness itself.

Need ideas for small acts of kindness?  Check out the Spread Change blog.  They've got lots of suggestions, mostly inexpensive and easy.

With the days notably longer, the garden is waking up. I cleaned out the raised beds yesterday. Chives are already sending up leaves. The rosebushes have tiny buds. Some of the pansies have wintered over, and I put out some more pansies to welcome the Spring. The wildflower seeds I ordered came in the mail, so I'm going to work on getting the meadows seeded today. Rain coming in this weekend, which should help.

Every January we have a warm spell. It's a break between storms this year, and a welcome chance for the snow to melt off.

The warm snap always makes me start to think about gardening. This year it looks like some of my pansy bowls may have wintered over. Pansies are so amazing! They don't mind being frozen. I'm giving them little drinks of water to help them along.

It's time to start thinking about getting seedlings going. Last year I grew more plants from seed than ever before. Enjoyed it enormously, so I'm going to do it again.

The front "lawn" is a loss. We've tried pampering it along but the grasses really aren't suited to the climate, and the pocket gophers keep making little trailing mounds of dirt. Lawns are unnatural constructs, especially here. I'm letting it turn into a meadow, and scattering wildflower seeds to help it along. Would love to get some California or Mexican poppies going there.