Showing posts with label summer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label summer. Show all posts

Saturday, July 31, 2021

Summer days in July

It is still summer in Oslo, in fact, it's been quite a warm summer from mid-June until now. My garden is thriving; we've already eaten zucchinis and cucumbers that grew quickly in the summer heat. We will have a bumper crop of tomatoes this year--both regular and cherry tomatoes. Whenever I am away from the garden for a few days, as I was now while we vacationed in Hedmark, and then come back to the garden, I am always in awe of just how much growth can occur in the space of a few days. Yesterday was the first day I was back in the garden after having been away since Monday. There were gooseberries and raspberries to pick, and the blueberries are also starting to ripen. I still have a formidable job of berry-picking ahead of me. The two gooseberry bushes alone are weighed down by the sheer numbers of berries on them. As I was picking raspberries, I was competing for each berry with the honeybees, who are now sucking the nectar out of the raspberries. They did that last year as well, but there were very few of them. This year it's as though all the worker bees descended on the raspberry patch. 

Today is the last day of July, and next week it will be back to work for most of us. I will finish out the month of August and then I am free forever of the work world. But that is another story for another time. Today I want to share with you Mary Oliver's beautiful poem The Summer Day. The feelings and thoughts she describes in her poem are about where I am in life at present--willing to immerse myself in the nature around me, willing to abandon myself to the awe and wonder of it all. A garden is God's manifestation of a miracle in nature; how a pollinated flower produces a long hanging cucumber is a mystery and a miracle at the same time. I never cease to be amazed by the power and beauty of nature. I have said it before, but it's worth repeating--it is no surprise to me that paradise is described as the garden of Eden. Paradise for me would have to be a garden. 


The Summer Day 


Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?


Monday, August 19, 2019

Our garden in mid-August

I haven't posted many pictures of our garden this year, but that's because it took so long for it to really take off. But during the past several weeks, it has grown like wildfire--the pumpkin plants have long trailing vines now and the pumpkins are looking good, the zucchini plants have already produced three large zucchinis, the greenhouse tomato plants have produced a few tomatoes, the dahlias look lovely, the gladiolas and hollyhocks likewise. The marigolds, cornflowers, and sunflowers are also doing well. My bean plants are producing string beans, and the carrot and potato plants are growing well (hopefully they'll produce well). It's been a banner year for berries of all sorts--strawberries, red currants, black currants, gooseberries, blackberries, and blueberries, but strangely enough, not raspberries, at least not in our garden. I planted two panicle hydrangeas, which are hardier than the usual hydrangeas and which seem to bloom for quite a long time, and two potentilla shrubs, which produce lovely small yellow flowers. They also seem to be quite hardy. I hope the warm weather continues into September so that the tomatoes, potatoes and carrots can grow to full maturity.

Here are some photos of the garden that I took yesterday and a few days ago......

Cinderella pumpkins growing happily

Lavender, gladiolas, dahlias, and Coreopsis flowers

one of four giant sunflowers 




Cinderella pumpkin patches

entrance to the garden

panicle hydrangea

tomatoes growing on the outdoor tomato plants



Saturday, August 17, 2019

Innisfree Garden in Millbrook, New York

I visited Innisfree Garden with Jean on my recent trip to New York. I had read about this garden online; it is a 185-acre public garden located at 362 Tyrrel Road in Millbrook, New York, and is "recognized as one of the world’s ten best gardens". Its existence is yet another reminder that there is so much to see and do in beautiful New York State. As the years pass, I realize more and more how privileged we are to call this state our home state. It is also very nice to be able to visit different places with my good friends now, some of whom are retired and enjoying the freedom from the daily work routines that they followed for so long. "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens"; that is how it feels now, even for me who is still working. I am winding down my own work life, and preparing for the eventuality of retirement. I will write about that in a future post.

You can read about Innisfree Garden here: http://innisfreegarden.org/  When we arrived, the woman sitting at the entrance booth told us that it would take about 1.5 to 2 hours to see the entire garden, and that was about right. We could have used more time, but the weather report for that day was thunderstorms starting in the early afternoon, so we decided to get to the garden at mid-morning and leave before the storms started. The walk around the lake would take about one hour if you didn't stop along the way at the different sculptures and gardens. But if you don't stop, you won't experience the beauty and peace of the garden. Walking around the lake reminded me of walking around Lake Derwentwater in England's Lake District, but that walk took much longer. I took a lot of photos as I usually do, and am posting some of them here. I would love to return to Innisfree Garden in the autumn and winter months, as I am sure the garden would have a different feel to it then, probably due to the variations in intensity of the light. I will return to it at some point. I would like to know who decided to call the garden Innisfree, and why they chose that name. I am certain that whoever did so was a William Butler Yeats fan.





























Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Biking along the Danube River in Austria

This year's summer vacation took us to Passau, Germany, which was the starting (and return) point for an eight-day boat/bike trip along the Danube River. The trip, which is called The Danube By Bike & Boat, is offered by UTracks. We biked along the Danube River mainly in Austria, but also part of one day in Slovakia. Our 'hotel' was the boat Theodor Korner, which took us to the different towns where each daily biking trip would start. We biked from Mauthausen to Grein (a beautiful village with a castle and old theater--the Stadttheater), from Devin to Schloss Hof (impressive palace with lovely gardens) to Bratislava in Slovakia, around the city of Vienna, through the beautiful Wachau Valley (wine country) from Krems to Melk, from Melk back to Grein, and then from Obermuhl to Engelhartszell (total biking distance including Vienna was around 210 km/130 miles). From Engelharszell, the boat sailed back to Passau and we disembarked.

The trip included three meals per day, a cabin on the boat with private bathroom, and bicycle rental. It was extremely well-organized and went off without a hitch. A big thank-you to UTracks for the professional organization of the trip and the support at all points along the way. We didn't lack for anything.

Austria is a beautiful country, and the Austrian Danube bike path is impressive. If you'd like to read more about it, you can find more information at these links: https://www.donau-oesterreich.at/en/danube-cycle-path/  and  https://www.danube-cycle-path.com/austrian-danube.html.
Here are some photos of a memorable fantastic vacation; I'd do something like this again in a heartbeat.....

bike path along the Danube River

one of many small cafes along the bike path 

one of many wheat fields along the bike path

an idyllic small brook 


approaching the lovely village of Grein

Greinburg castle

Sala Terrena at Greinburg Castle--mosaics made from tiny pebbles from the Danube River

courtyard at Greinburg Castle
Schloss Hof palace

bike path leading away from Schloss Hof

St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna

bike path in Vienna

the beautiful Wachau valley--wine country

view from the town of Durnstein in the Wachau region

one of many roadside shrines in Austria

our boat--the Theodor Korner

approaching Grein on our return trip

one of the quaint ferries that take bicyclists over the Danube

Engelszell Abbey, a Trappist monastery, in Engelhartszell














The world we live in

 A little humor to brighten your day from one of my favorite comic strips-- Non Sequitur .......