Day 2

I thought a lot about ants today. There are ants in the kitchen, in some of the house plants. I don’t really mind although I hear a lot of complaints from those who do. To my mind, it’s their season. They are busy at work aerating the soil, cleaning up waste and, most importantly, opening peony buds. Peonies are just so impressive in their florid flooziness and their sweet scents… and that all of that showy goodness requires the work of some fastidious assistants who are just trying to feed their family. I like to think of the ants as roadies for a Dolly Parton type of flower show.

I watch a lot of ants scurry up and down our cherry tree…. it’s time for them to raise aphids to feed their babies. I found a leaf with a herd of aphids being tended by one black ant. It’s a tiny world I know so little about. At some point I will try to stop the ants from raising their herds in my cherry tree. They damage the fruit…and I do love cherry pie…so I’m not always so understanding. Right now I can still afford to be curious and amazed.

It used to be said that the weight of all the Earth’s ants would outweigh the humans combined weight. I think this no longer holds true with 8 billion of us now. I think this means a lot of people are complaining about ants. There are still more of them than there are of us.

I ran out of time to make you a decent drawing of ants… this will be forthcoming but for now you can look at this photo I took. I hope you are not grossed out and can see how amazing this really is. This ant is upside down, under a leaf, five feet up off the ground. It is tending a brood of aphids to milk their secretions for the ant babies under ground. That’s a pretty good commute to get “milk.”

Day 1 Tickled or How I Roll

It’s a beautiful day here in Southern Vermont. The sun is shining. A gentle breeze plays in our flowering cherry tree. The birds are singing and shamelessly mating (now showing in the kitchen window). The air is aflutter with bees, butterflies, and so many unidentified pollinators. The frenzy of warmth and springtime is soooooo distracting!

This morning I spent too much time setting up an email address associated with this event. Why did I tie myself to this administrative task? Can’t I play outside instead?

Procrastinating the production of promised art I went out to look at the garden. I cleared some dead stems. I piled up a few leaves, pine needles, and sticks. I stuck my hand in the mulch and soil to unearth some plants coming back to life. I cleared the winter blanket off a Chinese Wild Ginger plant – literally sifting through the dirt and, Son of a Gun? I saw for the first time that this plant blooms! It was FULL of flowers. Earthy, bruise-colored flowers crowded around the base of its stems, barely out of the dirt (and not a little dirty, in another sense of the word…)! I sifted earth and found a gem or seven. Then I went to look at my Western Wild Ginger plant. It was secretly blooming as well!

Huhn. These blooms have been hidden for all the years they have been thriving in the shade. We’re talking 3-10 years for these plants that I, myself, planted in this garden. I had no idea.

Well, what can I say? Did I manifest this or did the Earth and this event manifest me? What a way to start! I found gems on my very first day! Of course, it could be argued that I just surprised myself with my fleeting, overtaxed memory. I planted these plants, surely, I must have known they would bloom! But I like this story better: I set an intention to find beauty in the dirt and lo and behold it came true! It was just like a wish granted by a genie buzzing out of the Earth, our magic lamp providing everything we need, being dusted off and polished for the new season.

Chinese Wild Ginger

Chinese Wild Ginger Bloom

Wild Chinese Ginger Watercolor in Birdsong

Western Wild Ginger

Western Wild Ginger Bloom

And if that weren’t enough – While I was painting amongst the ruckus of the birds and the running frolicking squirrels – two WOODPECKERS showed up.  Here they are:

two woodpeckers