Tick Season Has Arrived

The nymph on the right is about as big as a period. Period.

I hate to mention it, but it's above 28 degrees outdoors. The snow is still on the ground, and the temperatures in recent days have reached a high of 50. So pleasant.

Now for the bad news: Tick season has begun. Yes, ticks like it cool. They creep into action at around 28 degrees.

It's easy to think that snow = cold = ticks are still asleep. But the snow is no protection. The snow lulls us into a false sense of security.

It's time to spray all my clothes with permethrin. Or send them off and let Insect Shield do it for $8 a piece.

We protect our bodies. How do we protect our minds?

Protect your mind by practicing loving-kindness. You don't have to start with loving-kindness toward ticks. Start with someone easy--such as your dog or cat. Protect them from ticks, and thereby protect them from smuggling ticks into your house. Protect yourself and love your pet.

Love Flower

Agapanthus is blooming in my solarium. A friend gave me 3 pots of agapanthus 3 years ago. One bloomed last summer. Now the other two are blooming.

I love its delicate blue flowers on a tall stem. "Love" is part of its name--agape. The love flower (agape + anthos) reminds us to open our heart. It's easy to begin with a flower. Gaze at it for five minutes, ten, half an hour, and feel the joy as the mind quiets to reveal love is all around us, all the time.

I love the friend who gave me this love flower.

Sweet and Sour

Hot maple syrup poured over snow
so it becomes like taffy.
Served with a dill pickle.

Did i tell you that the sugar-on-snow church dinners include a dill pickle with the maple syrup drizzled on the snow? Sweet and sour, New England style. Sweet and sour--like life.

The 8 Vicissitudes sum up sweet-and-sour perfectly.

Gain and loss,

Pleasure and pain,

Praise and blame,

Fame and disrepute

come and go like the wind.

Stand like a great tree 

in the midst of them all.

As much as we only want the sweet of life, the sour is often served up soon thereafter.

When i am praised, i don't take it seriously, because i can guess what's coming down the pike--today, next week, or next year. Blame. Ouch!

Take the sweet and sour together, and you have the whole world.

Drilling for Maple Sap

The drills were out today--drilling holes in maple trees to tap them for sap. Oh, boy. I know what that means: fresh, hot maple syrup coming my way very soon. Maple syrup church dinners with hot syrup poured on snow. Oh, my. I'm melting just imagining it.

But first: 40 gallons of sap boils down to 1 gallon of syrup. Sort of like our life. 40 years of experience boils down to a small amount of wisdom. Now i know better than to....  Now i know when to shut my mouth. "Life is short" and other pithy sayings.

Wisdom. Isn't that what we really want? Peace and wisdom.

Drill past superficial appearances. Drill down into your base of love and kindness. That's where the sweetness is.

Red-Twig Dogwood

Red-twig dogwood (Cornus sericea) is especially beautiful in the winter when its red twigs stand out against the white snow. My red-twig has variegated leaves, which make it interesting all summer long. The dogwood flowers do not look like dogwood flowers; instead, they look like an umbrella cluster of small white flowers.

I have to prune it back to the ground every two or three years in order to obtain the bright red young growth. Old branches are thick and brown, sort of like old people.

Ah, the beauty of youth.

Half-Price Roses

On Valentine's Day, my sweetie had knee surgery, so 3 days later, when he drove to town for physical therapy, he brought home a bouquet of red roses.

"Happy Valentines Day," he hugged me. "The roses were half price."

That's my McSweetie--scotch with his dollars. Sometimes, he's a thrifty Scotsman; sometimes he's frugal. Sometimes, he's just plain stingy.

Generosity is the antidote to stinginess.

My McSweetie was generous to me: red roses for Valentine's Day.

Pileated Woodpecker

A pileated woodpecker is visiting our maple tree. Again. She was here last winter and left foot-long holes in one of the big branches. A living branch. The one next to it was dead. But i have to trust that the woodpecker knows her business. She knows where to find carpenter ants.

So it is with our bodies. My body looks healthy, feels healthy, and then the doctor finds something and cuts it out.

Maybe the pileated woodpecker is a tree surgeon?

Photo courtesty of audubon.org

Old Potatoes

All my red potatoes have sprouted down in the basement, even though i covered them with a towel to keep them in the dark.

Planting season is 3 months away, so i won't keep them for seed potatoes--although that idea is quite enticing.

Instead, i'm cutting off the sprouts and grating up those wrinkled red skins to make hash brown potatoes. Yes, the skins are wrinkled. They look old. The potatoes are not pretty, but they still are a vegetable contributing to my well-being.

We get old and wrinkled too. We sprout hairs in unexpected places. We sprout brown spots in unwanted places. But we are still good for something.

An old person eating old potatoes. Why not?

Frozen North

It is C-O-L-D here in the North Country. Freezing. Below freezing. Way below freezing. Frozen. Frozen hard.

And the sky is blue. The sun is shining. It's a beautiful day.

The house was cold when i got up this morning, but 5 hours later, it's tropical in here thanks to passive solar sunshine.

Just when i want to categorize something (or someone), i see that the opposite is also true at the same time. Cold AND hot. Inside AND outside.

Identity is a peculiar thing. It keeps changing. Just like everything else.

Blooming Paperwhites

On New Year's weekend, a Dharma friend came to our guest cottage for a self-retreat. He gifted me with a narcissus bulb, which is blooming now.

I offer him a gift. He offers me a gift. Generosity all around.

Happy Heart Day

I love going to the Kids' Craft Fair in early December to buy handmade gifts from kids. A scarf from a 10-year-old knitter, cardinal cards from a 9-year-old artist, votive candles from an 8-year-old.

I bought a few sunflower seed hearts specifically for Valentine's Day. The seeds are glued together with gelatin, which dries clear and invisible.

I'm wishing a Happy Heart Day to the birds who visit our bird feeder. Generosity makes my heart feel happy.

And a Happy Heart Day to you too, dear reader.

Ceramic Birdhouse

While i was at the hospice thrift store, i found a ceramic birdhouse. I bought it for $3. It's cute with painted flowers and butterflies. But ceramic?

For now, it's decorating my solarium. In the spring, i'll take it out to the front step with the flowerpots. I do wonder how it will look hanging from a tree.

The ceramic birdhouse has two drainage holes in the bottom. That's good. But how am i going to clean it out next fall?

The entrance hole is big, so maybe a mid-sized bird will make a home in it. Little birds would be at the mercy of big bird (or squirrel) intruders.

Some things look good, look beautiful, but turn out to be useless.

A lot of the things we decorate our lives with turn out to be clutter.

Maybe the ceramic birdhouse will turn out to be clutter too, and i'll clean it up and give it back to the hospice thrift store so they can sell it to someone else.

Tulip Bouquet

When we returned home from our Caribbean vacation, we found a bouquet of tulips in the kitchen from our house-sitter. What a lovely and generous gift.

The house was warm and clean. Tulips on the table. Welcome home!

How would it feel to welcome every event? Welcome snow. Welcome slippery roads. Welcome seeing. Welcome hearing. Welcome feeling. Welcome thoughts.

Welcoming everything is another way to come home to our true self.

Searching for Hyacinth Forcing Vases

I often cruise through our local hospice thrift shop. I'm always looking for hyacinth forcing vases. Wine decanters work perfectly with a narrow neck to hold the bulb and nearly a quart of water to see the swirl of white roots.

Right now, my basement has 50 vases of hyacinths getting ready to bloom. Today, i gave away 3, so, yes, i'm already preparing for next year's batch. I never have quite enough forcing vases.

I love his win-win-win of shopping at the hospice thrift store. I get to support an organization i love; i buy forcing vases; and they are inexpensive--sometimes just 25 cents, sometimes a dollar.

So when i'm giving away hyacinths i can freely offer the vase as well.

Bowing Birch Trees

The last ice storm bent birch saplings to the ground. Those birch trees can touch their fingers to their toes.

The trees surrender to the weight of ice. Can we surrender to Life? Let go of our need to control things? Let Life take us where it will.

Sometimes, we just have to bow down of Life. Not my will, but thine.

The birch trees are beautiful.

Purple Heart

Purple heart (Tradescantia pallida) grows in masses here in the Caribbean. I love to take cuttings of it at home because it roots easily in water. Using it for a massed planting in my flowerbeds always brings comments. "What are those purple leaves?"

Those purple leaves are related to spiderwort.

In this election year, as we become acutely aware of so-called "red" and "blue," we might unstick our minds from that concept and realize that everyone of us had red blood in our arteries and blue blood in our veins. In one sense, our hearts are "purple."

Loving what is, even when it is difficult.