Among the few flowers blooming in the garden right now are the hellebores. We have two of them, a pinkish one...
...and a white one. The white is new this year -- Mrs. Kravitz gave it to us last spring when it was part of a haul of free plants she obtained from our local garden center, which was closing due to Covid. We put it in the ground by the bench in the back of the garden, and it looks like it's happy there.
I stayed pretty busy in the library yesterday morning, putting away some holiday decorations, scanning research materials for students, updating my Newbery blog and having a Zoom meeting with all my fellow librarians (who are mostly working from home). My current Newbery book is "Rifles for Watie," a novel from the late 1950s about the Civil War years in the Kansas and Oklahoma territories. It's good so far and seems quite scholarly for a Newbery book, and yet it has enough homespun dialogue and language to capture the time and place. One character was described as "hungrier than a woodpecker with a headache," which I thought was pretty funny.
I came home around lunchtime and in the afternoon a workman began power-washing Mrs. Kravitz's patio. The machine he was using sounded like it weighed six tons and was the size of a diesel truck engine. It went on for about two hours. I suppose I should be happy that she's such a tidy neighbor, but I was about to go crazy by the time he finally stopped at dusk.
It's nice to think that your hellebores are blossoming right about when mine are too -- six thousand miles away!
ReplyDeleteI didn't even know hellebores would grow in Southern California!
DeleteCommon name for Hellebores here is winter roses. They are also called Christmas roses but that doesn't really work here with our summer Christmas.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I've heard them called Christmas roses or Lenten roses. I like the secular names better. :)
DeleteI'm not familiar with hellebores, but they're beautiful. Isn't it the pits when you expect to have a few quiet hours at home? Two hours is a long time to listen to power washing!
ReplyDeleteIt was ridiculous. It just went on and on.
DeleteAt least it wasn't Sunday morning (the power wash). The English have no shame when it comes to mowing their lawns/cutting their hedges at extraordinarily inconsiderate times. In the motherland peace and quiet descends at 1400 hrs on a Saturday and is maintained till Monday. It's an actual bye-law.
ReplyDeleteWhich reminds me, does the school you work in teach languages and cultures different to the British? At a minimum one should be aware that what is one person's freedom is another's invasion. Let's leave it there before I make even more adversaries and people asking why I have been living on this strange island for most my adult life so far. Come to think of it: Why are you and Dave?
Thanks for the Hellebores; they remind me of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale (two sisters - one snow white, the other rose red).
U
We follow an American curriculum and American teaching styles, for the most part. Dave and I moved here in August 2011 for his job at the school. (My job came later.)
DeleteHow very interesting. I had no idea that there are American schools in Britain (or anywhere else outside the States). Who are the pupils? Diplomats' sons and daughters? Intels' and spies' offspring? Are other nationalities allowed in the mix?
DeleteSwiss finishing school greetings,
U
I feel for you re the noise yesterday as our neighbours were having a lot of ivy taken off their very large trees at the bottom of the garden. That bit was OK, but the shredder was in their front garden a mere 5 yards from our front window and the perpetual noise was headache making ! ( all day it went on)
ReplyDeleteUgh! That's the worst! Our neighbors had a tree taken down last week and the chipper was in the street, and it STILL sounded like it was in the next room!
DeleteThe Hellebores are very good at cross-fertilisation...just like hardy geraniums.
ReplyDeleteIf you sow the seeds you may get something interesting
Interesting! I never thought of growing a hellebore from seed. Since this is our first year with two plants, I wonder if they'll self-seed?
DeleteIt depends upon how near they are, or others in the neighborhood..and what the insects get up to !
DeleteThe legendary Mrs Kravitz is like life itself. She gives with one hand (the hellebores) and takes away with the other (the power wash aural torture).
ReplyDeleteLOL -- that's exactly it. If she's not being kind she's driving us crazy.
DeleteAhh, power tools and other unsavoury sounds. The sound of spring/summer/fall here is not of singing birds and the wind sighing through the trees. No, it is lawn tractors/mowers, leaf blowers, chain saws, strimmers and, yes, power washers. Oh, mustn't forget occasional gun shots from someone who evidently has a target practice area set up on his property. We may live in a relatively rural area, but noise pollution is still a problem.
ReplyDeleteSame here! I look forward to spring and summer every year, and then in the midst of the noisy season I think, "WHY do I look forward to this?!" (We don't hear gun shots, though, thank goodness.)
DeleteThey don’t make good cut flowers
ReplyDeleteNot at all! They are definitely better enjoyed outside.
DeleteWhat beautiful tender blossoms!
ReplyDeleteI bet that when the power washer was finally turned off, the silence was, in fact, deafening.
They're kind of prehistoric-looking, but pretty when nothing else is blooming!
DeleteSo nice to see the flowers blooming there. A good balance to the loud noise of power washing.
ReplyDeleteOne takes beauty where one can find it. :)
DeleteYou should have stayed in that quiet library instead of coming home to the noise.
ReplyDeleteIt's true! I was better off at work!
DeleteThose blooms remind me of magnolia blooms. Very pretty!
ReplyDeleteI love the "woodpecker" line.
Your description of that noisy machine made me think of the "leaf-blower" people who seem to be outside my windows at least twice a week. I hate that noise so I can't imagine something even louder.
There is something about the pitch and volume of a leaf-blower that make it possibly the most annoying engine noise ever. Jet-skis are a close second.
DeleteLovely flowers! It will be a while before we have any in our yard (although the deranged forsythia might still have some blooms on it).
ReplyDeleteI was just thinking the other day that we're only about a month away from the forsythia blooming. The seasons turn quickly!
DeleteI'll have to see if hellebores do well down here. so many things can't take our summer heat.
ReplyDeleteIf Elizabeth has them in L.A., they might tolerate Texas! (In the shade!)
DeleteThe photo of the pink flower is just exquisite.
ReplyDeleteThanks! :)
DeleteSince I live in Kansas I checked to see if the local library consortium had the book but they didn't. I can get it on interlibrary loan however, and I plan to do just that. Some civil war activities happened in our area so I thought it might be even more interesting.
ReplyDeleteYeah, try it out and see what you think! I'm finding it quite interesting. Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma aren't areas that many people associate with the Civil War. I feel like it addresses a bit of history that often gets overlooked.
Deleteoh my eyes, they are tricky, I read "Rifles for Watie" as "Waffles for whitey". between my poor vision and Dennis deafness, we are hilarious!
ReplyDeleteHa! If someone were writing a parody book that would be the perfect title!
DeleteYou probably know this quote? BUt I just came across it.
ReplyDelete“All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.”
— Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Pressure washers are certainly loud.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Janie