Flowers are My Spirit Animal

Last week a new friend shared an article with me about seeing God in nature - Through the Creation to the Creator. She and I had been talking about my love of trees and flowers, and so she copied the article and gave it to me the next time she saw me. It's a fairly dense essay. I think it may have originally been a seminary lecture.

Here's a taste of it, including a fantastic chunk of an Elizabeth Barrett Browning poem:

The world is a sacrament of the divine presence, a means of communion with God. The environment consists not in dead matter but in living relationship. The entire cosmos is one vast burning bush, permeated by the fire of the divine power and glory:

                 Earth's crammed with heaven,
                 And every common bush afire with God;
                 But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
                 The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

I've been thinking of that stanza this week as I've watched our new yard surprise me with bright new bursts of color every day. It's our first spring in our new home, so I had no idea what, if any, early blooms to expect. Auggie's morning perambulations are a blissful scavenger hunt. Daffodils! Crocus! New shoots of to-be-determined flowers muscle their way through the winter debris, impaling brown leaves with their shocks of green. And today, on this drizzly, stormy day, my heart thumped with joy when I realized that the Random Twiggy Bushes In the Back were, in fact, Forsythia. Forsythia! In my yard! Not even the threat of new snow flurries tomorrow can dampen my spirits. There are forsythia in my yard.

Can blossoms be a holy thing? They feel like that to me. My mom and I used to call each other the first day that one of us saw an actual bloom on a flower somewhere, often when snow was still melting, winter taking her dear sweet time to drip away. "I saw a crocus today!" was usually how that phone exclamation would start. When you are watching, scanning every berm and bed and patch for that first pop of color, the first flower of spring is like a burning bush. It does seem a bit like holy ground. Hope just forced her way through the frozen dirt to explode right in front of our feet..

Not from our yard, but still amazing.

I recently started a job working for a florist. It's pretty much my favorite thing ever. I may go back to the Non Profit life eventually, but for me, in this season, working with flowers all day is the source of a deep river of joy. It feels like a gift, and I'm choosing to wrap my arms around it, at least for a while.


The only thing that keeps me from being off-the-rails ecstatic about the job is the knowledge that the floral industry has an enormous environmental footprint. It takes a LOT of water, chemicals, fossil fuels, and intense human labor to bring the beautiful blooms from field to vase. I'm just putting that out there, because some days I really wrestle with being part of it. I've talked with florists, including my current employer, about "greener" options like locally-grown flowers and pesticide-free or Rainforest Alliance Certified flowers, but I've been told that there just isn't enough consumer demand for those things, and so people aren't willing to pay the extra cost and a business would struggle to stay competitive. Local flowers in Illinois are a very seasonal commodity, so that would only be an option for a few months a year anyway.  

I assuage my queasiness about it by telling myself that my choosing not to work at a florist is not going to revolutionize the industry. A job boycott? Of one? I don't see a lot of ripple effects from that, other than the effect of my being sad to not get to be around flowers all day. Maybe I can find some simple ways to green-ify what we do, or connect to local options when they are in season. I don't know yet, but I'm going to be on the lookout. 

What do you think? Is it an ethical compromise to be part of an industry with a negative environmental impact? Do the emotional and relational benefits of brightening someone's day with flowers or bringing the beauty of God's creation into people's Big Life Events counterbalance the squickiness of the fact that those particular specimens of creation were produced with the help of noxious pesticides and through the back-breaking labor of field workers? Some may say that I'm just looking for new topics for my Debbie Downer repertoire. Maybe. But I want to be a conscientious consumer AND worker. It ain't easy.

I'm thankful that there are flowers popping up of their own accord all over my yard. I'm thankful that I have a job that speaks Beauty to me and sings quiet songs of gratitude to the Creator while I work.  I marvel that God is so incredibly good that it occurred to God to make all these crazy flowers in the first place. Presumably, there could have been a less beautiful way to ensure pollination and honey-making. A blander option for nectar or seeds for birds or ingredients for healing teas. But no! Myriad variety, fragrance, color, and purpose. What an extravagantly beautiful way to orchestrate an ecosystem!

Spring in the Midwest is kind of a communal healing and restoration. Especially after this winter. I think of these early flowers as the main ingredient in a tincture of renewed hope and thanksgiving. The huddled bulbs and bushes have made it through the winter under their thick coats, and so have we. New life from the daily dread of snow and gray. Our yard, at least, is aflame with green and yellow blessings.

Up with Veggies!

Several Mondays ago, I whipped out my hammer and hodge-podge of random upholstery tacks and nails and went to town on a pile of natural burlap and a plywood scrap (from our friendly neighborhood Habitat for Humanity ReStore for $3) to make my Vertical Garden dreams come true:

My wonky little scrap of plywood.

Supplies: nails, hammer, burlap.

Technique: eyeball your burlap strips (double thick) into thirds and tack up some pockets.

Editor In Chief supervised my lazy math and reminded me that a  ruler or tape measure would have been handy.

I tacked up my vertical garden slab, but none of my plants were robust enough to plunk them into the burlap. Remember my little basil and tomato sprouts?

They were sweet little munchkin nubs when I built the Vertical Garden.

I waited impatiently for weeks (over a month!) for them to get bigger. And today I decided they were finally ready. But I had 6 pockets in my vertical garden, and only one tomato and 2 little basils had actually survived my ignorance and instruction-non-reading, so Les and I went to the Farmers Market to get them some friends. 

This afternoon, I gave Tomato his own room and transplanted his basil brothers to one of The Pockets.

My how you've grown!

Yay! You were just seeds a couple of months ago! And now you look like food!

Here's my Vertical Garden with all of her pockets stuffed with herbs and stuff!

1. Upper Left: The only 2 green bean sprouts to survive the Heat/Rain/Rain/Heat/Bugs of the last couple of weeks.
2. Upper Right: 3 different types of thyme
3. Center Left: The Basils!
4. Center Right: Rosemary and I think Lavender (crazily, I can't remember, and it smelled more like Rosemary to me than Lavender when I planted it)
5. Lower Left: Mint
6. Lower Right: Feverfew - pretty little flowers, and good for drying and mixing into tea for headaches, which we sadly get a lot at our house.

I'm hoping that by making this garden tall rather than low, it will get a lot of sun. I moved the whole operation to fit under the roof overhang, because I noticed that my tomato and basil leaves were turning a bit yellow from a little toooo much water. I want to be able to have a bit more control of their moisture.

Now, I'm sure there is a proper way to plant these bad boys. I know several of them spread like mad and may need to be moved into bigger containers. But I wanted to try this, since the whole thing cost a whopping $8 ($3 for the wood, $5 for on-sale burlap). It's an experiment, like most of these endeavors.

Oh! I also bought a 6-flat of green peppers at the Farmers Market, and planted them in halves of the Trader Joe's coffee cans I've been hoarding (with holes poked into the bottoms/lids for drainage.) I knew they would come in handy for something.

The other little starter pots are the beans that I haven't quite been able to give up on yet. They have slim signs of life.

I did have to give up on the peony bulbs I planted. Sad. They just never came up. So I assuaged my grief with these lovely little dahlias, grown by a more capable farmer, and transplanted into the pot I bought for the peonies.

In addition to my joy at finally filling the Vertical Garden, adopting some flowers, and using the coffee cans, I ALSO skipped to the car with this little beauty tucked under my arm:

My long-dreamed-about Meyer Lemon tree. Yep. I'm going to grow lemons on the porch. The grower assures me that they will fruit even at this sprouty age. She can grow up to 5 feet tall, and needs to stay indoors in the winter, but during the spring, summer, and fall, she should make us some lovely sweet lemons. Oh, be still my heart. If that actually works I am going to freak out with joy. Living in the Midwest for so long I forget that people actually grow fruit in their yards in our very own country.

Last but not least, I also gave my own dahlia bulbs a late-starting shot by planting this little guy who had courageously sprouted inside the bag that I was planning to wrap up and put into storage until the fall.

Come on up and join the Porch Party!

I'm super excited about these new plant friends! Keep your fingers and green thumbs crossed that they actually do their thing and I don't kill them off before they bloom/fruit/veg.

Porch gardening, and justifying my peony pots

Go look at some greeny-green gardening sites and books, and most of them will urge you to focus your energy, space, and resources on EDIBLES ONLY. Flowers take up space, sunlight, water, and lots of mental and physical energy. Practically speaking, they are - gasp! - wasteful.

But since I can't imagine a garden without flowers, there was no was I could stomach that indictment. I just had to find a way around my practical brain. No problem. I am an Epic Rationalizer.

The biggest hurtle I came up with was the water. We get plenty of sunlight, the pots don't take up that much space, and if the bulb kit I bought can be trusted, they shouldn't require a lot of other special TLC. So, where can I get some extra (otherwise wasted) water?

I looked into rain barrels, and though tempting, they are kind of expensive and would require me to alter the eaves and gutters on our rental. Our landlord is already a bit twitchy about our little menacing dog, so asking if I could take a hack saw to the gutter pipe seemed like pushing my luck. I took a trip to the hardware store to survey my options, and came up with this:

When I was a kid, I remember that my grandma kept a bucket in the bathroom next to her tub. And I asked her why. She told me that she uses the bucket to catch all the water that goes down the drain while you wait for the water to get warm, and then any more water that drips out of the faucet while you are in the shower. She used the water to water her plants. And wouldn't you know it, I fill up the ENTIRE 3.5 gallon bucket every time I shower. Geez oh Pete, that is a lot of totally wasted water!

But my plants don't need 3.5 gallons of water every day. So I got this too:

A big plastic garbage tub with a snap-on lid. I filled this baby up with just a little over a week's worth of showers. Now when I go out to dump my shower bucket, I check on my plants, and give them a little drink if they are looking dry.

And today I started a bunch more of my organic veggie seeds. Cherry tomatoes and green beans. In little starter cups and an egg carton:

 Check it out! My itty bitty basil sprout is now joined by a whisp of tomato sprout! All the shower water and sunlight are actually working. I have to say, I'm amazed.

I think Aug thinks that if he lays in the sun, he might keep growing too.

Anyway, now that I have more than enough water for my plants, I have no problem planting my dahlia bulbs as well. As soon as I get some more big containers. The peonies haven't shown any signs of life yet, but I'm hopeful.

Thanks Friends!

For the last couple of days now, I've had trouble posting reply comments to all your great responses to my posts! I have no idea why blogger isn't letting me post comments, but I didn't want you to think that I haven't been reading them.

Thank you for taking the time to post a comment, or send me an email, or give me a call because of something you read on G3! I'll keep try to get into my comments section, but in the meantime, know that I appreciate you all a super ton.

If I had lots of cash, I would send you all some flowers. Local, farmers market flowers. And I'd have them delivered by bike. And they would look like this:

Ok, ok, so only the peonies came from the farmers market. The snapdragons came from Whole Foods, and the hydrangeas came from Dominicks. But I'd send you the peonies, and you would smile because they smell so incredible and because they were grown in a family farm in Michigan.

When I called the grower this week to request as many of the ivory peonies as he would sell me for the wedding on Saturday, he said that he was out in the "peony field" at that very moment. Can you imagine? A whole field of ruby, magenta, white, and even lemon yellow peonies? Imagine it. Let it be your happy place.

Heirlooms

In honor of Mother's Day weekend, I'm going to indulge in a bit of mommy-love by sharing some things with y'all that I learned from my mom about Green, Gray, and Grace.

 

First up: What I learned from my mom about living Green

 

1. Use what you've got.
My family grew up in farm country, in a house that mom and dad built themselves (with the help of some skilled friends and family) soon after they were married.

 

Our house, decked out for Les and my wedding.

The house included lots of local material, which probably made my parents seem a bit like hippy kooks at the time, but really, it was a combo of financial cheapskateness and the abundance of things like field stones and re-purposed barn beams from my mom's family farm. They didn't go the thrifty route for everything. The siding is the original redwood from 40 years ago. Buy quality stuff, and it will last you forever.

 

The steps down to the garage are scavenged surplus rail road ties. Still the originals.

 

 

2. It's dumb to use electricity when you don't need to

• In the summer, mom used a clothes line instead of the dryer.
• The house was built with huge south-facing windows that heated the house up nicely in the winter, and were shaded by big trees in the summer.
• Open the windows if you are hot. Put on a sweater if you are cold.

 

3. A lot of good-old-fashioned thrifty habits are good for the earth too!

• Use cloth diapers instead of buying disposable (we were all Tidy-Didy-Diaper babies).
• Bake your own bread, make cake from scratch, pie crust is not as challenging as everyone makes it sound.
• Your shirt has a hole in it? Here's a needle and thread. Same goes for your jeans.
• We learned to sew at a young age. Making your own doll clothes, or simple skirts or purses is fun, and no one else will have the exact same stuff.
• Grow your own veggies. Make compost and use that instead of expensive, nasty fertilizer.
• Every time you get something new, something old has to go to Salvation Army (Ok, so we rarely, if ever, followed through with this directive, but she tried).

 

And if I had to choose the best Green thing that my mom passed down to me, it would be this:

 

Everything everything everything that God made is beautiful. Amazing. And precious.

 

I remember walking around with mom in the woods behind our house and not even needing to demand that toddler-tyrant drone of "What That??" because she was touching and naming everything for me with such wonder and pride.... "Elm tree! Columbine! Look! A momma cardinal! Hear her?"

 

We learned the names of plants, birds, animals, trees, weeds, stones (limestone! slate! I think that might be a geode!) with enthusiasm and great interest. I've forgotten some of them now, but I find myself telling our dog Auggie the name of every plant and flower we pass on our evening walks. Because I need to share the wonder with someone. The amazement of a fluffy hosta twirling free from a tightly-wound straw of green stalk. The eager anticipation of irises shooting straight out of the ground like arrowheads.

 

Mom didn't go to college, but she was a voracious reader. And she grew up close to the earth - on a farm, with 5 siblings. She worked in a doctor's office for over a decade. I believed she knew everything about anything that was important. Until she died in 2009, I called her every spring to talk about the first flower buds, or to ask her what setting I needed to use on the sewing machine to sew on denim, or to remind me of that soup recipe. She knew where to plant things, how to can vegetables, and where to buy the best yarn. She knew how to get stains out of the carpet, and when it was safe to transplant pansies.

 

 

I miss her every day. Especially around Mothers Day, when I used to hunt for a new peony plant for her garden, or a wind chime or a bird feeder to give her. I miss her in this whole G3 experiment. I want her to show me how to bake bread and freeze corn. I want to ask her about life on the farm. I want to show her how much I learned from her, how much of her I carry around with me every day. How much grace.

Good things to come

May is almost here, and a new month brings with it a whole slew of blog ideas, projects, and spring awesomeness.

Here's a sample of some of the things I'm cooking up:

- Gray hair update (finally starting to look dramatic), with "Going Gray" book review
- Some newly-focused Grace posts
- Book reviews for "Everyday Justice" and "Made from Scratch"
- A monthly project! May = quantify AND refuse/reduce plastic packaging

Oh, there are a lot more ideas, but I don't want to over promise, seeing as how so far I haven't been as consistent a blogger as I intended.

And do you know what else happens in May?

Here's a hint:

Ridiculous local peonies from my wedding last year.

Peonies! Lily of the Valley! IN PEOPLE'S YARDS. In Illinois.  Every time May rolls around, I start to dream, breathe, and live for fresh local flowers. The Farmers Markets get rolling, and I pine painfully for a yard of my own where I can plant heady blooms, herbs, and edibles.

Hurry up, May! We're eager for you and all your greeny, graceful glory.