You Had Me At Hello

Summer...

You had me at hello

You swept me up in your intensity

And the crazy-hatted party goers

you brought to my garden

You arrived dressed in eye-popping colours

Against a backdrop of glorious greens

With the summer comes the sun

And with the sun comes the heat

June, July and August whizzed by

in a colourful, shimmering mirage

Trumpets blared sweet summer's song

filling my senses with their heady perfume

While the fish grew fat and happy

in the pond

So many moments to enjoy

So much beauty to drink in

Some scenes almost too beautiful to believe

That this is reality and not just a dream

In my garden, summer has been gentle,

Fluttery

Feminine

Fringed

Filled with colourful hues,

Stately colour shapes

And bold colour wows!

Autumn is on its way

and when I look back

This will have been a Summer

I will never forget!

Dragonfly Dreams

I live in the middle of suburbia.

A land of sidewalks, paved driveways and every now and then

a teensy, tiny greenspace.

We looked long and hard to find our house

and chose it because of its12,000 square foot lot

 in a well-treed neighbourhood.

But, was I going to find dragonflies here?

Of course not...

That is, until I planted my garden

and they began to visit

regularly.

Even then, a dragonfly pond?

Can you even build one just for dragonflies?

It turns out, you can :)

It took us a few years of experimenting and educating ourselves

before we recognized the Pond Dragons (dragonfly larvae)

that scuttled along the muddy bottom of the water.

This is the first year I saw them emerge...

from my pond...

my Dragonfly Pond.

I am over the moon and beyond happy.

In the first photo:

I rescued a dragonfly from the rising pond water.

Its wings had not yet hardened enough

for it to fly away.

In the second photo:

Something twinkling in my apple tree caught my eye.

It turned out to be a dragonfly drying its wings

in the sunlight.

In the final photo:

- Best of all -

I witnessed several dragonflies

laying their eggs in the moss near the water

which means...

more dragonflies will be born in

Dragonfly Pond!

Dragonfly dreams do come true :)

The Personalities Of Pink

Sometimes pink arrives with trumpets.

Deep and throaty,

they shout out from

the back of the garden.

Their personality is unmistakeable;

tall and stately,

they command my attention.

Sometimes pink arrives with a twinkle,

with a momentary flash

that catches my eye,

as if a fairy has suddenly fluttered by.

Did I really see it?

Or, was it just my imagination?

Sometimes pink plays tricks on me.

It hides behind things,

choosing objects that are transparent,

invisible, 

then takes on their form,

like this spider's web.

Sometimes pink has a job to do.

It colours the petals

that create this fortress,

to hide, from potential thieves,

a fortune of

sun-infused jewels.

Sometimes pink attracts things

that like sweetness,

like bees and wasps

and flies

...and

me!

And sometimes pink arrives

without a sound.

I notice the garden is quiet,

serene, peaceful

and calm.

That's how I know

pink has

arrived.

Lit From Within

The sun intensifies.

It's yellow light

makes everything glow

as if lit from within.

Cicadas and crickets buzz and click

filling the air with their non-stop, jazzy tempo

and sweat trickles down the small of my back

with the smallest of movements

...or no movement at all.

Garden chores have to wait

as I sip drinks stacked full of ice cubes,

And watch everything around me grow

and ripen,

knowing that fall is but a step away.

A Time For Tulips

They seemed in a rush this year,

to meet the sun.

And their colours have been

out-of-this-world,

on fire!

They mirror the glowing rays

that pulled them

from the cold, dark earth.

Atop long slim necks,

their heavy heads sway with the breeze,

dancing to the music

we call

Spring. 

Sunglasses Required

In cold climates like mine

it seems we wait so long

to feel the heat of the sun

that when Spring does

~ FINALLY ~

arrive

nature rushes

~ guiltily ~

replicating the glow of the burning sun

in as many flowers as she can

to banish our complaints.

Well done!

Faux-Sun

Deep in the middle of a February freeze,

with temperatures averaging -15 Celsius/5 Fahrenheit

for the next two weeks,

I've decided to create some faux sunshine

of my own

to chase away the cold.

Yellow

It's been a Yellow kind of day :)