It seemed buddha’s lap would soon reappear amid the melting snow, but today we got another four inches or so of new snow. And Buddha got a new white coat and hat.
Buddha gets a new white coat and hat
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Tag Archives: garden
Buddha among the Flowers
State of mind
I’m thirsty.
I’m thirsty, and there are weeds in my garden that I can see from the study window.
I’m thirsty; there are weeds in my garden that I can see from the study window; and the protagonist of my novel has a major character-development problem that will be devilishly hard to fix. I’ll probably have to rewrite the first four chapters. Again.
I think I’ll go get a bottle of cold water out of the fridge.
I think I’ll do that and then put on my gardening shoes and go out and pull some weeds while the ground is still soft.
Who knows–maybe by then it will be time for dinner.
Whimsical buddha
You never know when or where you might get an idea for a new blog post. Or for a new story or novel, for that matter. Or for how to live your life. It’s not just the dark inner creative places where these things bubble up from; it’s also the sum of your experiences and your relationships and your emotions and thoughts and dreams, and your way of making connections among these things.
Looking over the statistics for this blog for the last few days, I noted a search that had resulted in two views. The search term was “whimsical buddha”.
What was this person looking for? And why? Did he find it?
Would I be disappointed if I knew?
Well, I don’t know, but I do have a whimsical buddha for my mystery searcher, wherever he is, if he’s still looking. The buddha sits in the garden at night in the drenching early April rain. “He looks so forlorn,” I say to Dan. “I feel sorry for anyone who has to be out in the rain on a night like this.”
“Oh–just a minute,” replies my kind-hearted husband, and the next thing I know he too is out in the cold rain carrying an umbrella, to lend the poor buddha a hand.
September rain
Bowing down in the rain, the hosta places its flowers in the Buddha’s lap.
Deer oh deer
It’s spring, and the hosta have come up all over the garden. This is good news, not only because it means the weather is warmer and the garden is prettier, but also and more to the point: The deer did not manage to kill off all my hosta when they clipped them down to bare stalks last fall.
Even the expensive designer blue, cream, gold, dark green, and chartreuse hostas in mix-and-match stripes and leaf-margins are back. Given the amount of shade here, the leaf-patterns of these hostas are an important part of the garden: The shy and retiring Allan P. McConnell, Aristocrat, flamboyant little Feather Boa, Grand Tiara, Great Expectations, June, Touch of Class, and the hard-to-find Venus, with unprepossessing green leaves and marvelously large and fragrant flowers in August. There are also lovely swathes of narrow-leafed and wide-leafed green hostas and twisty green-and-white-leafed hostas that are legacy plants from the previous owner and that we have propagated across the garden over the years.
So now, my job, as I see it, is to make sure that the deer don’t get these hosta again.
Last weekend we went to Lowe’s, and I bought two different types of deer repellents. I installed the one and sprayed on the other. Yesterday, I did some research on the Internet to see what else I might do. I found that there are many products on the market, including those that smell bad to deer, those that taste bad to deer (don’t use these on your vegetable gardens, though), and both. My favorite of these is a substance called “Milorganite”, which is made from Milwaukee sewage. Really! And–it’s organic!
There are also many recipes for deer repellent that can be made right at home from readily available (or, well, obtainable) ingredients. These range from eggs to liquid detergent to hot peppers to garlic to hair clippings to urine (don’t ask).
But of all the recipes posted by helpful people on various Web sites, my absolute favorite is from Hanxter at www.deer-departed.com. Please click through and read it! Even if you don’t have a deer problem! This may not be the most effective solution to the deer problem, but hey — turnabout is fair play.
I wonder if they have a hunting season in Newton.