Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

I took the bus to Cambridge today to visit some lilacs near Harvard Square. These lilacs are in the front yards of several houses near Mount Auburn Street (on Ash Street and Story Road), not the impressive collection at the Arnold Arboretum, but they're much closer to transit. There was enough rain yesterday and today to wash away some of the pleasant lilac scent, but there was enough to enjoy when I leaned over to smell the flowers. Most of the flowers on those lilac bushes were already open this afternoon, and they're forecasting more rain for each of the next several days, so this may have been my best chance (especially given my upcoming medical appointments), though I may look for more lilacs near my apartment tomorrow or Tuesday.

I stopped on my way home at Lizzy's to replenish my supply of ice cream. I wasn't thinking about ice cream until Adrian reminded me this morning to take the insulated bag with me, so I'm glad she mentioned it. (Ice cream without nuts, seeds, or pieces of fruit is on the list of things I can have as part of the pre-colonoscopy low-fiber diet tomorrow and Tuesday.) or I might have bought a pint of strawberry or ginger.)

I am stressed because of [redacted], and feeling creaky, but cattitude and I just went for a walk, and there are lilies of the valley in bloom a couple of blocks from my apartment.

They're in a sloped yard behind a retaining wall, which puts some of the flowers at or near my nose level, so much easier for me to enjoy. Many years, I crouch or even lie down next to lilies of the valley growing on flatter streets, which would have been a bad idea right now.

Clarification, since someone was confused by my description: these are the usual small lilies of the valley. It's the ground they're growing in that was at about my chin height, in a sloped yard next to the sidewalk. It's a hilly neighborhood.

I went out for a bit this afternoon while adrian_turtle and cattitude napped: I got a couple of things at the tiny end-of-winter farmers market, then took the bus one stop, walked down Ash Street smelling the lilacs (and an apple tree), walked a little more, and came home.

I suspect I won't be getting to the Arboretum to visit their lilacs this year (Lilac Sunday as an organized thing isn't happening, but the Arboretum is open), and I mind that thought a lot less than I did a couple of days ago.

Also, someone walked past (on the other side of the street) while I was sniffing various lilacs, and said something cheerful and positive ending with "and your hair matches."

cattitudeand I went over to Alewife to do some birding today. This was the first time I'd been there since I had cataract surgery, and I am so glad to be able to see well enough that birding (and looking for frogs and such) is fun again, rather than frustrating.

We started just outside the Russell Field exit of the T station, with a Great blue heron nest Cattitude had seen about ten days ago. He brought a camera today mostly in the hope of photos of nestling herons; someone came past while he was pointing his camera at it, and asked if we knew what kind of birds those were. She then said she'd been walking past and trying to figure it out; I remarked that I thought this was the first time we'd been asked that since we left Inwood, when it happened fairly often (because people had gotten used to seeing us bird-watching). I only spotted two birds; Cattitude, looking through the camera's good birding lens, saw three, so at least one young heron.

Then we walked around Alewife Reservation, slowly and carefully; slowly because of recent hip and knee pain, but we would have stopped frequently in any case, to look at, or for, things. We saw a good variety of birds, including red-winged blackbirds, a flicker, grackles, Canada geese (two adults plus goslings), I think a song sparrow, and of course a few mallards. One of the red-winged blackbirds landed on a railing, near where two people were sitting; hopped toward them and looked meaningfully at something they were eating; and then flew under the bench to pick up crumbs. I am used to mallards, geese, and gulls being that tame, but hadn't seen red-winged blackbirds do that, though I know they can be bold, having once gotten closer to a nest than the birds liked.

We also saw several turtles, a few frogs (I mostly took Cattitude's word that those dark lumps in the water were frogs, rather than rocks or carvings of trilobites), and flowers. Lilac season isn't quite over, and I think I smelled lily of the valley while we were walking through Alewife reservation, as well as the fine patch we stopped to sniff while walking along Highland Avenue to the bus stop.

I think I found a good balance between having fun, and turning back when I needed to; both my hips and then my left knee were sore by the time we got down to the train platform, but resting quietly at home helped a lot. I have since done a few of my PT exercises, and didn't feel the need for acetominophen to supplement the naproxen (NSAID) I took before we headed out.

After what seems like a very slow start, the forsythia bushes in our neighborhood now have lots of flowers open. (It has been sunny for the last several days, and very warm yesterday and today—I think today's high was something like 81F/27C, and tomorrow is forecast to be even warmer.) This feels late to me, but I'm not sure whether this is just not being used to living in Massachusetts, or that it feels vaguely out of order, in that the daffodils in front of the house have been blooming for a couple of weeks.

The nearby garden center now has six-packs of lettuce plants, and some potted herbs. I bought some potting soil today, to use with the seeds I started a few days ago, while trying not to worry about the likelihood that I should have started my seeds sooner than I did. (The seeds are currently in little disks of peat moss, just starting to sprout, and I am going to need to move at least the tomatoes into slightly larger pots before planting them outside.)

We also have enthusiastic cardinals singing in trees nearby; last summer we had at least one fine brood of cardinal fledglings darting across the yard.

This is mostly the post I should have written yesterday or the day before. Tuesday morning I went out to Brooklyn to get the third (of three) doses of hepatitis B vaccine. The city Department of Health has three sites for free, walk-in vaccinations, and this one seemed easiest to get to, just a few blocks from the A train in downtown Brooklyn. (I got the previous dose at the end of summer, at a Department of Health site in Chelsea that closed about three days later.) So that's taken care of, and I can feel both a bit safer and a bit virtuous.

Downtown Brooklyn is also a fairly easy bus ride to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and, as it turns out, the Prospect Park Zoo. I was thinking Botanic Garden, then saw the zoo entrance, and figured why not, I'm a member, so it won't cost anything. It's a fairly small zoo, but I saw a couple of sea lions, an otter, a pair of emus, some turtles, and some very cute red pandas. OK, that's redundant, but it was fun watching one walk carefully down a steep branch.

Then across the street and into the Botanic Garden. Admission is free on "winter weekdays" (that's through March 9); I'm not at all sure I'd have paid $10 to wander through the grounds this early in spring, even an early spring. The garden's web page said something about a Japanese flowering cherry. I didn't find that, but I did see a very nice camellia tree, covered in pink blossoms, near the Japanese garden (just off the "celebrity path"). Unsurprisingly, most of what's visible outdoors is bulbs: snowdrops and crocuses, a few dwarf irises, winter aconite, and daffodils in a couple of places. (I only poked into the conservatory briefly, because I didn't want to deal with the stairs.) Near the conservatory are a couple of witch hazel trees fully in bloom, and a visually unassuming tree labeled "wintersweet," a fitting name. I also saw a very impressive spreading white bush; when I got close my thought was pussy willow, from the bud shape (and they are somewhat gray close up), but it didn't have the pattern of long, basically vertical branches. I have uploaded photos of the camellia, wintersweet, winter aconite, and not-pussywillow to Flickr.

Today (March 1) I went to the gym; I had had a tentative appointment with Emilie, but was unsurprised when she called to cancel. While I was there, one of the other trainers praised me for sticking to my program by myself.
( just numbers )

I planted some marigolds in front of my building this afternoon. They're bright and colorful, and I hope sufficiently tough.

This is the first gardening I've done in a couple of years. Last spring, that (and quite a bit else) was eaten by the gall bladder surgery, and for a couple of years any fall bulb planting got put off until it was too late.

After planting, and coming upstairs and showering, I went back out and took a few photos. I may try for better photos later, but I wanted to get some right away. (It's obvious from the photos that these are just-planted.)

( cut for images )

I planted some marigolds in front of my building this afternoon. They're bright and colorful, and I hope sufficiently tough.

This is the first gardening I've done in a couple of years. Last spring, that (and quite a bit else) was eaten by the gall bladder surgery, and for a couple of years any fall bulb planting got put off until it was too late.

After planting, and coming upstairs and showering, I went back out and took a few photos. I may try for better photos later, but I wanted to get some right away. (It's obvious from the photos that these are just-planted.)

( cut for images )

Note: This is a cross-post from my LJ account, and I suspect the images shouldn't work on Dreamwidth. I can't tell if I'm seeing them because they're cached or because LJ's software isn't set up to block Scrapbook image requests from offsite. I also put two of them on Flickr. If you're reading this here and haven't looked at it on LJ, please let me know whether you see images or only the alt tags.

cattitude and I are just in from a walk in the park. First we went along the water, our usual path around the soccer field and then uphill toward the north tip of the park. We saw violets and three kinds of tiny purple flowers*, and lots of periwinkles (more once I cleared some of the dead oak leaves out of the way) and a few white flowering shrubs and plenty of yellow daffodils**. We went back downhill and into the woods the other way, because Cattitude wanted to look for Dutchman's breeches, a not-very-common wildflower. They bloom for about ten days in the Spring, and last year we didn't see them at all.

There had been one patch of Dutchman's breeches in Inwood Hill Park, for twenty years or more. In the last year or two, they've spread impressively: more flowers in the area where they used to grow, and spread across a path and significant southward. We both had our cameras, and with any luck we have some pictures of them. If I got any I like, I'll put them here and/or on Flickr.

ETA: I have put a few photos, including one of the Dutchman's breeches, a few other park pictures, and a nice crystal from last weekend's trip to the museum, on Flickr. My userid there is rosvicl.

*we have photos, and if I manage to identify them from that and the web, I will post an update or addendum

**the last few years, New York City has had enough daffodils to suggest a Dutch bulb nursery. I like them.

Another first: first day this year that I felt I needed sunscreen, because it was the first day I went out in a tank top. I spent an hour or so sitting on a lawn in the park, reading and nibbling chocolate and enjoying the warmth. The maples are flowering, and some of the bushes are starting to leaf out, but there's a serious contrast between today's warmth (with blue sky and occasional insects above me) and how early the season looks.

It is a bit early for me to be comfortable sitting outside in a tank top; it's also late for the maples to be flowering (and some aren't yet) and so much else to still be bare.