Spring is Here!

Spring is here, Spring is here!
Fairies dancing in a ring.

The Many Faces of the American West

WHAT an amazingly diverse country the USA is!

Our one-week road trip began in Las Vegas, Nevada. Heading west into California we drove through dusty deserts and rocky hills, then crested the range and found ourselves at once in a lush agricultural area.

Nowhere has the influence of topography on weather and land use been so apparent. As we came out of the mountains into the valley, citrus and nut groves and vegetable fields dominated the landscape. It was hot.


Then began the climb back into the mountains. The foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains are marked by scenic oak woodlands, abundant wildflowers and streams. As we ascended, the temperature dropped.


By the time we reached the lodge in Sequoia National Park at 6,500 feet, the land was covered in 12' of snow and giant trees stretched up to the clouds.

The journey back east took us through Nevada's Mojave Desert then into Arizona. This mighty landscape of dry earth, cliffs, scrubby grasses and cactus extended as far as the eye could see for hours and hours. Incredible. I thought I had no awe left in me until we arrived at our final destination, the Grand Canyon.

In the context of such natural majesty, individual people are so insignificant. We have, however, learned to live in an astounding variation of habitats.

More Spring Edibles

THE woodlands behind our house erupt into a marvellous sea of blue just about now. We had to look up what the flower is: Dame's Rocket. More exciting - it's edible! It's actually considered invasive, though hard to believe, as it looks so beautiful brightening up the woods. Only the petals should be eaten and we tried them in a salad. The flowers also pressed nicely and we look forward to using them for crafts when they are fully dried.

Baby Birds Abounding

THIS is the time for baby birds! We were delighted to welcome a family of house wrens to our gourd bird box and watched the parents build the nest, then bring tasty tidbits to their young. If we timed it just right - after the parent had flown from the box but when the babies were still clamouring for food - we could just see their tiny beaks begging for the next delicacy behind the stick wall. They were loud! Both the babies and the parents, whose joyful song turned to a fiercely protective clicking whenever we went in that part of the garden. Then we observed the babies fledging, hopping from low branch to low branch as the parents watched, encouraged and warded off danger.

But that was not all. Around the garden and on walks we noticed baby birds on several occasions. First noticeable by the little cheaping noises, the babies are not obviously smaller but are definitely fluffier and tend to sit or hop closer to people rather than fly away. This week a baby robin allowed me to approach for a photo while its parent watched suspiciously from a tree. We then watched the mama bring food to her baby in our climbing tree continuously for two hours. Then on a walk we saw a red-bellied woodpecker mama and baby high up in a tree and a family of Carolina wrens hopping around in a bush.

Edible Ivory

GERMANS are a little obsessed with asparagus. White asparagus, that is. As soon as the season begins in April, little farm stands pop up at the side of the road and all restaurants from the smallest eatery to the classiest establishment offer at least one special dish featuring local harvest. Far away in the US, we thought wistfully of the tender shoots, until we received a lovely surprise package full of the yummy veggie! We quickly cooked it up and served it traditionally with a hollandaise sauce and boiled potatoes.

Once in Germany at the appointed time, I was looked at in astonishment when I asked if there was any kind of 'pick your own' we could go to. I've since discovered there is great skill involved in harvesting asparagus, which is all done by hand. The shoots are kept from turning green by keeping earth piled up around them, preventing the production of chlorophyll by exposure to sunlight. Workers scour the mounds of earth looking for cracks, which would indicate a spear is about to burst through. Then they dig around in the earth and cut off the shoot at its base. To give the shoots maximum growing time yet prevent them ever seeing a sun ray, a field is harvested two or three times daily. Asparagus season always ends on June 24, the birth date of Saint John the Baptist. After this time, no asparagus may be bought or sold by law.

Empress Tree

REMEMBER the seed pods we found back in the autumn, which when shook, created a percussive maracas-like instrument? After some research, I identified them as the seeds of the royal empress tree. I had never seen these before - actually not even heard of them. Now that we know what to look for, we see them everywhere! They have large, lime green, heart-shaped leaves. But in the spring, empress trees make their presence most obviously known through their flowers. Fragrant and beautiful, they decorate many a garden and road. When they fall, these trumpet-shaped purple blooms are sticky to the touch. Emma loves to gather them and try to make them stick to her clothes.

Here's a Snowy Branch of May

WE were lucky to participate in several wonderful celebrations to welcome May. In preparation, the children and I gathered flowers in the back garden to make crowns. We used honeysuckle vine as the base, decorated with little roses and other blooms found in the garden. Of course baby (doll) had to have her own crown. Later, we enjoyed maypole dancing and singing, laughed watching the mamas try to do it, made tambourines and anklets with little bells, ate delicious cake decorated with grass, flowers and a maypole and above all spent many fun-filled hours with good friends.

Here's a snowy branch of May
The branch the fairies gave me.
Who would like to dance today
With the branch the fairies gave me?
Holding high, holding high
Holding high the branch of May.

Dandelion Straws

IT'S dandelion weather again! Alexander has been introduced to dandelion clocks and can no longer pass by one without stopping to say hello and send fairies flying off into the wind. Emma noticed the milky white sap inside the stems, so we drew a while on the pavement with that, then had peashooter races, blowing different kinds of rice and beans across the patio using dandelion stems as straws and discovering which went furthest. We ran out of time for dandelion flower crowns... maybe for May Day.

More on dandelions from two years ago

What's Blooming Now?

OUR garden is exploding into colour and buzzing with flying creatures of every kind! The white dogwoods are at their peak; purple wisteria drapes from the tallest trees and an unidentified large shrub has the most beautiful and fragrant creamy white blossoms. A few rockery flowers are peeking out tentatively, the azaleas are budding and just waiting for a few more warm days to burst into bright pink and the aliums we planted in the autumn are getting ready to make their first appearance.

Alexander is very into smelling flowers right now. This photo is from the orchid house at the Botanical Gardens.

Tree Butterflies

THEY came by the thousands, a swarm of fluttering creatures descending from the sky. They turned out to be seed pods from our next door neighbour's tree, spinning delightedly on their quest to start new life. We ran around trying to catch them, which actually turned out to be a little easier than catching autumn leaves thanks to the winged seeds' amazing design. Their flight was fascinating and beautiful to watch. These seeds have one wing only, paper thin on one end yet somewhat woody. They are scaled, also like butterfly wings. The other end is weighed down by the seed and leads the way to the earth. We collected a basketful and they became food for Emma's baby, currency in her shopping game, boats in a bucket of water, competitors to race down a homemade slide, fairy wings and so much more. They continued to drop in on us, seemingly intent on participating in our whole day. We obliged by making the winged seeds the subject of our art project. We never did get around to checking exactly what kind of a tree they come from, but we did enjoy their company.

Little Nest Eggs

NESTS are fun to build but not nearly as easy as you'd think. We tried several different sets of materials, starting with grass and glue. It was tricky, so we changed tacks to create two-dimensional grass nests for our new hanging chickens. Of course they then needed eggs, which we made by watercolouring paper and covering them with crushed egg shells. Not quite the nest project I had envisaged, but fun nevertheless.

Stick nests were trickier still until we discovered vines. These are wonderfully pliable and can be woven through and around all the brittle sticks that insist on breaking. After a few attempts and genuine awe for birds who accomplish such a sculpture with only feet and a beak, this nest gradually took form and now has pride of place on our nature table.

Seed Pods

RECENTLY we've had fun observing and collecting some interesting seed pods. We discovered some large woody pods that produce a percussive rattle when shaken. When we used them as musical accompaniment at our circle time, we also discovered that if you shake them really wildly, they pop open like dragon mouths and spit out thousands of tiny seeds. This was the Empress Tree seed pod. Photo: http://tree-species.blogspot.com

The Tulip Tree not only has leaves shaped like a tulip, but after most of its cone-shaped seed pod has fallen off, the tulip-shaped base remains. Photo: www.wcisel.com

Though the delicious underfoot crunch of Autumn is behind us, we found ourselves crunching on long woody seed pods on a hike the other day. We have not been able to identify this one, but the long bean-like shapes made great boats for a game of 'pooh sticks'.

Is It Spring Already?

ON a lovely sunny afternoon, we noticed tiny pieces of evidence of Spring. We went on a 'shoot hunt' in the garden to see how many new shoots we could see, and were amazed.

We found daffodils, tulips, day lilies, garlic/onions, aliums, hostas and some mystery bulbs where I couldn't remember what we'd planted.

A little brown bulb went to sleep in the ground

In his little brown nightie he slept very sound

Old Winter he roared and raged overhead

But the bulb didn't even turn over in bed

When Spring came laughing over the lea

With finger to lip, just as soft as can be

The little brown bulb, he lifted his head

Slipped out of his nightie and sprang out of bed!

The Red Stuff

ON a tip that the red stuff is now blooming at Arabia Mountain, we took a trip there to see. This is one of Georgia's many granite outcrops, and plants and animals here are often very specialized due to the stressful environment. It was quite an amazing sight! Great expanses of seemingly dead grey rock interspersed with explosions of colour and - after the night's rain - rivulets of water, sparkling in the sun. There were yellow, purple and white flowers, and great carpets of this strange red stuff.

Diamorpha grows in the shallow, sandy soil of depressions in the rock known as solution pits. Really shallow soil - as in about one inch. It's a succulent, like a cactus. It has adapted to heat and periods of drought through several strategies, such as storing water in thickened leaves, and its red colour which protects it against radiation from the sun, and can survive due to the lack of competition.

Certainly a very unusual landscape.

Our Little Nest Egg

I have a whole new appreciation for the homemaking skills of birds. For our spring nature table, we tried to make a birds nest. The operative word being 'tried'. It took three days worth of outside time, and many start-overs before we had something that I could hold in only one hand without falling apart. How in the world do these little birds perform such a feat of engineering without even opposable thumbs? The project turned from a simple 'let's see if we can do this' into an obsession, and as Emma scuttled around the garden bringing me different supplies, I swear I heard a bird laughing. Eventually, we figured out that twigs and grasses have differing levels of suppleness and looked more closely at the materials we collected to find the best kinds. Thin, winding wisteria branches worked out well; Emma hypothesised that because this plant grows round and round trees, it is good at going round and round nests too. We finally got a passable framework together, and Emma found some soft grass to line the nest. It now sits proudly on our nature table, holding three beautiful wooden eggs, hand-made by a friend for last year's Easter egg hunt.

Sing a Song of Spring

THOUGH we've had touches of Spring creeping into the house for a while, today is the official beginning of Spring. Since it was the bees that first caught our attention and triggered yesterday's lawn investigation, we decided to bring some of the purple henbit indoors for our Spring nature table. Emma told me the real bees wouldn't like being indoors, so instead ran to get the little bee we crafted last year, and balanced it carefully in the vase.

Inadvertently, I admit, we now have several different habitats represented: the vase of purple henbit for a country meadow, a sprig of new pine from the woods and a bright yellow primula for a neat landscaped garden. And various treasures brought back from walks. A child's habitat.

We learned a new song for the occasion. Here's the English translation from the original German:

Sing a Song of Spring

F.W. Moeller

When the green buds show, and the March winds blow,

And the birds all call across the meadow

Gay as bird on wing, we'll go wandering

Sing a song of spring the wide world over.

Warm will shine the sun, far from home we'll run,

Greeting ev'ryone so kind and friendly.

As we go we'll sing, tell the world it's Spring,

Make sweet echoes ring the wide world over.

Spring Awakening

WITH weather in the 60s, the garden has started to burst into Spring. It's supposed to get colder again - let's hope frost doesn't kill all the new growth. Here are some signs of the new season in our garden:

Trees bursting into bud. This is a sweetgum.

Tulip and daffodils are shooting up. No crocuses yet.

And Alexander's first experience of grass and sand! He was so fascinated by the texture of sand that none of my usual ruses to get him to smile into the camera would work. He could not tear his eyes away from this strange substance. (Grass was apparently not quite so exciting.)