Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Welcome, Summer

As I write this the view beyond the window is temporarily sunlit, through a tiny break in a bank of clouds otherwise as gray, threatening and impenetrable as a fleet of battleships. This is late May in Chicago: glimpses of summer between stretches of cold, wet and windy.

This weekend we were granted a single perfect day, and on that day I helped to restore a friend's backyard. Once an oasis, it had fallen into ruin. We worked hard from Friday evening through Saturday evening: planting, dividing, tilling, grading, hauling, laying sod. It was heaven for me, the long-frustrated gardener with never more than a window box to fuss over.

I am happy to report that all those years of compulsively watching "The Victory Garden" and reading Gertrude Jekyll finally paid off. More than once, a question arose and from somewhere deep in my cranium emerged a surprisingly authoritative answer.

Time will tell, of course, whether things actually grow as we intended. But we are ambitious, and have put our faith in reinvigorated beds of hostas and daylilies; baskets and urns of assorted annuals; a large planting of herbs; and one experimental tomato.

In exchange for buckets of sweat and a few scrapes and bruises, I now have entrée to the garden whenever I like. It's close enough to home that my spinning wheel is now in residence. On Sunday, which was cooler but still pleasant, I sat on the porch and spun more of the Border Leicester for Susan's shawl. If the present pace persists, she can expect delivery in time for Fall 2015.

It's a commonplace that a good meal outdoors tastes better than the same meal indoors, and I think the same is true of needlework and spinning. When I first read Elizabeth Zimmermann's accounts (in Knitter's Almanac) of knitting in a canoe and by a campfire, I thought she must be cuckoo. Now, I get it. Provided you're not broiling in direct sun or being eaten alive by midges, fresh air can turn even plain passages of stockinette into moments of undiluted euphoria.

Our weather turned murky after that, and it's back to working indoors for the next few days, but I've had a taste of what's coming. And winter can't last forever, not even in Chicago.

I adore Gertrude Jekyll. Although I have no idea what she's said on gardening. However, she inspired me to study English Landscape and Society at University, and look at how Italian painting developed into the gardens of Capability Brown....

I totally get it what you said about handwork outdoors (knitting, spinning, whatever). I actually got two days off in a row this past weekend (as a minister, I usually work on BOTH Saturday and Sunday, and the only "weekend" I get is Monday.) Saturday was a work day, and by Sunday (my monthly Sunday off) I was completely brain dead. I spent two entire days sitting in my back yard knitting. I couldn't even bring myself to read. Now all my neurons are lined up again and I'm ready for the week. I think.

Wow, that lucky garden! NO DEER! I can tell by the hostas & daylilies...deer eat everything, even stuff they're not supposed to like. I've seen them calmly munching on my extremely thorny roses bushes.

Such a happy post! Please show us more photos of all the gardening efforts. The little bit shown looks most successful. I like the idea of spinning outdoors while surveying/admiring your accomplishments.

You know, you are right about knitting outdoors. I had a blissful afternoon after a lovely bike ride of knitting a simple bag of stockinette that will be felted once finished. What a 'happy place' I will need to remember when the rains of June appear in the Northwest.

So glad to see your inner gardener released and indulged. Whether on the working end of a shovel or garden fork--sweating buckets, or simply doing a bit of weeding...at some point you realize that there is something deeply satisfying about working with ones hands-- All in all, the same feeling a person gets from knitting-- though admittedly, one rarely needs to shower after a spate of knitting :)

I do almost all of my spinning outdoors (being in South Carolina means that's almost year round). The big bounus is finding birds' nests with my discarded wool woven into them. Makes me feel like I'm enriching the lives of the birds.

Please add a second tomato plant. Once you taste a fresh-from-your- garden tomato, you will know why the French called them Love Apples. You might also add a Burpee Butterbush Squash. Compact plant, beautiful blossoms (which you can batter and saute) and in the fall you can make squash soup!

Lovely post, Franklin. I, too, love EZ's description of knitting in nature. I got to do that a lot on family camping vacations. Still do it when I can, thanks to demonstrating at various outdoor venues. Or just sitting in a park. Same with spinning, although I use a drop spindle. Thanks for sharing. - Joe, in Wyoming

We finally put in a front deck this past winter; until it got hot I would spin on the front deck while looking at the Bradshaw mountains. My neighbors are already convinced I'm that 'eccentric lady' but that I'm mostly harmless so it's made for more than one good afternoon conversation.

I had to laugh about the shawl being ready by 2015 -- I think you may be on the road I'm also on -- the one to *you know where* cuz it's paved with good intentions, but bordered by not NEARLY enough time.

I too am relegated to windowbox gardening and get to full-scale garden vicariously through my friends. Someday I will have a yard witha big garden. And when I do, I will sit amongst the hostas and knit. Bugs be damned.

Even in Chicago winter can't last forever - that's true. Next thing you know it'll be 95° with 80% humidity. Actual spring weather in Chicago is as rare as hen's teeth. The only true spring (several weeks of mild weather - warm enough to plant peas & cool enough not to kill them off) I remember was in 1979 - after the record snowfall of the winter. If you get any further urges for extensive gardening, you are welcome to come out to oak Park & dabble in our large, unkempt yard.

My late afternoons have been made more pleasant with my spinning on the front porch. The cats are fed and romping about the yard, people are walking home from work, and the neighbors are out and about.

I'm happy that you have a little Eden of your own to retreat to. He's an excellent friend to let you have free range in his space.

I love looking at bobbins of handspun. it makes me happy. We put in a garden this weekend too, but digging out the blackberries first was backbreaking work. We have won the battle but not the war. I now have 3 peppers, a row of chives, a row of peas, two kinds of parsly and one oregano plant. More to come! I haven't lugged my wheel down to the north 40 yet, but who knows. the weather is certainly appealing here in Northern CA.

i totally agree with you, my two passions are knitting and gardening. being laid off from my budget analyst position and not being hired after gazillions of interviews (anyone notice it is a bad time to find a job) i'm trying to create a business. i sell organic starter plants at the farmer's market. each week is better then the previous one and i enjoy it. now if someone would pay me to knit.

i often knit outside, at the beach, at my kids baseball or soccer practice and games. living in hawaii, knitting outside is a frequent occurance.

I love the juxtaposition of stunning pictures of gorgeous flowers and outstanding photographs of a happy spinning wheel with, a bit further down on the page, a blurry black and white photo of a man whose head has been hacked to bits.

The painful, the lovely, the ugly, and the quirky are what I tend to notice most about the world, for good or for ill. You don't blink at any of them, and your writing is remarkable.

(My verification word "victort" sounds like a tisane of flowers and herbs sold to benefit research of HIV/AIDS or breast cancer.)

Ahhhhh... hostas and daylilies. Those are some pretty foolproof plants. We joke around here that after The Apocalypse, it's going to be the cockroaches and the hosts that are left. ;) Lily of the valley is in that category, too. If you like the fragrance, you might consider shoehorning a few in. Just be prepared for them to SPREAD.

I think that garden is going to be just gorgeous in a few weeks! (Not that it doesn't look pretty spiffy right now, per your lovely photos. Just...daylilies make summer pretty. :)

My own garden project right now consists of de-turfing a large chunk of my front yard so that I can start putting in a rain garden. Wanna help? Chicago isn't THAT far from Minneapolis! *grin*

If you want to get in some more gardening time, I have a back yard in which my daughter started a garden several years ago. When I opened my yarn shoppe 3 summers ago, my poor back yard dropped down on my list of "things to do." We could combine a class and gardening. Anything else I could do to help? And I love the first picture.

Was thinking what to write as a comment and realised that here I am gazing at a screen when the weather outside here in Cornwall is absolutly gorgeous. Why aren't I outside - I only came in to check my emails and once again got sucked into reading blogs - sorry I'm off!!!

I love spinning on our porch so much, I've named my newborn blog after it. I'm hoping to spend part of my weekend there, enjoying the roses and daylilies after the deluge of rain we've had most of the week. The builder put ceiling fans on both the back and side porches of our house; genius!

The Border Leicester spinning is beautiful, as are the flowers. I hope you have better weather this weekend!

Your wheel looks gorgeous in the garden. That was a very lyrical post about gardening. Nice. Makes me want to go outside and pull a few weeds. Maybe I'll just drag my wheel out there instead. Thanks for the motivation. :D

That's a lovely scene Franklin; I'm loving the yarn you're spinning––so even and peaceful. I'm so looking forward to spinning in The Botanical Gardens, as soon as this weather lets up. Maybe it's because Sarah Palin is here.

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