A Celebration Of Life

I have written often about the squirrels who live in the roof of the house across from my window over my writing desk. I have named them Pip and Mrs. Pip after a character I created for a series called Grandmothers' Wisdom Stories which I am hoping to complete and publish sometime in the near future.  Anyway, I look forward to seeing them emerge from out of their hidden nest in the roof and go out into the world to seek food, recreation, and just to enjoy the beauty and freshness of Mother Nature's gifts. They have had babies in their tiny home before but usually they have been chased off by the Angry Birds who wanted to steal their nest. This year, however, Mr. and Mrs. Pip stood up to them quite well and kept them out. That did not stop the birds from chasing the poor squirrels every time they poked their nose out, but my furry little friends have survived and, this year, even thrived.

The other day I was at my usual perch in front of the window writing about the unbelievable change from terrible snow storm/4 day power outage to 70 degrees and sunny when some movement out of the corner of my eye caused me to look up. There on the roof was a much smaller squirrel than the ones I have been watching. At first I couldn't figure out where he came from until another one, just as small but just as energetic, climbed out and joined his or her sibling on the roof. It seems that the happy parents had given birth to two healthy, vibrant little ones. I almost got teary-eyed (okay, I DID get teary eyed), like a proud auntie or grandma, when I saw them. They scampered around, checking out the roof, the gutters, the chimney, and then, to my amazement, made a Superman-like leap from the roof onto the giant pine tree and managed to climb all the way to the top, a good 50 feet or more, where the freshest pine cones were. Mom and Dad soon emerged as well and followed the young ones until they made their way back home. Obviously, the kids have been out and about before but this was the first time I had seen them.

Why am I making such a fuss over some baby squirrels? Because of all that has gone down this year and continues to go down. The up and down, often violent weather causes us to wonder if climate change is even worse than we thought. Wars, political in-fighting, hatred and pandemics take up all of our attention. Sometimes it takes something like the appearance of new life, whether it's baby squirrels, or the first green buds on the trees, or the hillside now covered in green where before there was just brown, to remind us that life goes on all around us, and that beauty and compassion is always there if we take the time to look. The squirrels romping up and down the tree aren't worried about wars or politics. They are focused on eating, living, breathing, and loving both life and each other. 

Maybe that's where our focus should be, on the celebration of life rather than trying to control it or destroy it. Maybe watching a family of squirrels living their lives will give us some clues as to how to live our own, in freedom, love, and joy. It may take a village to raise a child, but for me, it only takes two new, furry, little lives to give me hope that life will go on even if we're not looking. I don't know about you, but I intend to spend more time looking. Care to join me?

And so it is. 

Snow Drops or Snow Flakes?

Seriously! Easter Sunday and the snow showers were flying around all day, not to mention the all-out snow storm my sister and I drove through the day before Easter on our trip to The Iroquois Museum in upstate New York. All I keep thinking about, besides how tired I am of being cold, is how badly I feel for the flowers that started blooming during the warm snap we had only to be frozen out and weighed down under the new snow ... and they are predicting another 5 plus inches for tonight!

Someone at church yesterday said that Mother Nature was getting her revenge on mankind for all the destruction humans have been doing to the earth and each other. I have a hard time believing that. I don't think that Mother Nature, or God, for that matter, gets even with humans. Instead, I think we reap what we sow, and we've been sowing a whole lot of greed, hate, and destruction. The earth responds to how it is being treated. Pollution, extinction of whole species, extreme cutting down of trees, threatening the ozone layers, and a host of other things are robbing the earth of its ability to thrive. We did this. Is it any wonder that the atmosphere doesn't know what season it is any more?

I know, you're probably thinking, "well, what can I do? I'm only one person." If we took every single person who says that, we'd have a majority of people who can save our planet one plastic bottle, one solar panel, and one tree at a time. Times a few million, that's a lot! I do what I can, little, old, retired me. I recycle. I use cloth napkins, rags, and recycled or sustainably made paper products instead of regular paper whenever possible. I try to buy organically whenever I can. I garden responsibly (no Round-Up and poising in the ground), unplug what I'm not using, use cloth shopping bags, donate to groups that support sustainable living and animal rights, and let my shopping habits speak for the earth. If even half of the earth's population did that, just imagine what we could accomplish! Never, ever believe that one person can't make a difference.

And so it is.

P.S. After many years of writing this blog every week, I've decided to go to a twice-a-month blog post instead. This will allow me to do more exploring on subjects I want to share with you, as well as to free up time to work on my next fiction book, the second in a series devoted to "third age readers." Never fear, however. Flower Bear will still be around to share with you the wonders of this beautiful garden we call earth, and to speak for Mother Nature and all her creation. It is an honor we take very seriously.

Happy gardening!

April Showers Bring May Flowers ... and Mud Season!

 

You'd think after living up in this neck of the woods for 30 years, I'd be used to the idea that, while other places might be enjoying the first daffodils, we're digging out our rain boots and "wellies," as the Brits call them, keeping them by the door and hoping that mud season will be a short one this year.

Allow me to explain. Mud Season, as we call it here, starts around the end of March when the snows begin to melt off and is replaced with days and days of rain. If we are extremely lucky, we may get a day or two a week of sunshine and temps above 45. Then it's back to the rain. I know the farmers need it to get the fields ready to plant, but here in town all I want is to be able to look out of the window and see the daffodils, and the snowdrops, and the crocuses, all pushing up and bursting out with color after the cold and drab winter. Right now I have to be thankful for the neighbors' green lawns (from all that rain), while everything else is mud covered, mud splattered, and must plain muddy!

But fear not! What is my remedy for Mud Season? Indoor gardening! I've put away the winter decorations in my tiny tabletop garden and pulled out those that tell me it is, truly, spring. I've even purchased my first packets of seeds from the garden department at the store. It's a bit too early to start my basil and spearmint seeds, even indoors, because of the very real possibility of an April frost or snowstorm up here that turns the temperatures indoors damp and chilly regardless of how many grow lights I have going (maybe this is the year I buy an indoor greenhouse?). Nevertheless, just seeing the packets of seeds, the pots filled with soil, and my tiny garden tools laid out, helps me remember that, once Mud Season has passed and those first, tiny shoots poke up through the ground, Spring will have genuinely arrived inside and out, and the growing season will be here. Thank heavens for that!

And so it is. 

Nature's Liquid Gold

When I moved to the Village Of Marathon, 30 years ago this month as a matter of fact, I only had a slight idea of how this change to small town living was going to affect me, and what new wonders I was in for. I didn't have to wait long for the first one to put in an appearance. Only a few weeks after I was all moved in to my apartment on the top floor of a beautiful old craftsman home, sitting on the banks of a sweet little river, I was awakened one morning by the sounds of men's voices, a rhythmic tapping, and what sounded like metal cans being clanked together. I sat up in bed, opened the curtains, and was privy to my first ever lesson in tapping maple trees!

Since this was before I became addicted to gardening, I had no way of knowing that the trees which lined the street in front of my home were maple trees. It was March, after all, way up in northern New York, so the branches were bare of the leaves that might have identified them to this novice. I got dressed and went outside to see what the guys were doing. They had a pickup truck that was loaded in the back with metal pails and what looked like tiny water faucets. The would go from tree to tree, putting in a tap (what the little faucets were actually called) about 2-2 1/2 inches deep, and suspending a metal pail from the tap. The men were kind enough to take the time to explain the entire process to me, from the tapping of the trees to the finished product - maple syrup. They told me that our town had an abundance of maple trees and that they had been tapping them since the town's very beginnings in 1861. Every few days the men would go around and empty the pails into giant buckets lined up in the back of the truck and return the pails so they could collect as much as they could while the sap was still running, only a few weeks out of the year. The buckets were taken across the river to the other side of the village to a wooden building called The Sugar Shack. There the sap which had been collected was poured into a giant vat heated by a roaring fire 24/7, which the men watched over in shifts. The idea is to evaporate the water and boil down the sap to its syrupy essence. The final product is then bottled and sold, much of it, as I was to discover, at the town's annual Maple Festival which happened every Spring rain, snow, or shine (I've attended in all kinds of weather). 

As it happened, The Sugar Shack was also just across the river from where I lived and for weeks the smell of maple syrup wafted over the entire village. Is it any wonder that the local diner and coffee shops had an onslaught of folks ordering pancakes for breakfast? I couldn't wait to get my first taste of real maple syrup tapped from the very trees in front of my home!

Even though I no longer live up in Marathon, having moved about 45 minutes south to be closer to family and friends, I still go up every year for the festival. We weren't able to have one for the last two years due to the pandemic, but this weekend coming up we will be celebrating not only the beginning of spring and the first maple syrup of the season, but the return of the Maple Festival. It's not just about the food, the crafts, and the all-you-can-eat pancake breakfasts ... and, of course, the crowing of the Maple Queen. It's about community, and tradition, and the things that live on regardless of pandemics and fear. It's the coming together of complete strangers once a year when we're all family, all part of of the greater community called humanity, for one weekend a year to enjoy Mother Nature's gifts to us. It's what reminds us of what is important (and the maple candy is worth the trip if nothing else!). The fact that thousands have been known to show up over the course of the two-day event is a testament to family, tradition, spring, and a love for Mother Nature's liquid gold. 

And so it is. 

Spring Has Sprung!

At 11:33 AM yesterday, Spring arrived. Did it matter that it was cold, windy, and rainy out when it happened? Absolutely not. March may be the month that has trouble from day-to-day trying to figure out what season it is, but the Spring Equinox has arrived and with it the hope and promise of new beginnings.

There are two times in the year when the idea of new beginnings appeals to me. One is in September which is traditionally the start of the school year. That is when I like to learn something new, study something I've never studied before, and challenge my intellect. The other time of the year when I celebrate new beginnings is the first day of Spring. That is the time when I want to challenge myself inside and out, to get back to walking once the snow and ice and has finally departed (however, up here in March, that possibility hangs around until April), give my apartment a good spring cleaning and maybe improve the flow, and start preparing my tiny tiny tabletop garden for the growing season. Perhaps this year I'll try a new plant, or make yet another attempt at starting seeds indoors (I swear I'm going to master this). It's also about growing myself in some way, perhaps with a new spiritual practice or, better yet, a new writing project - which is exactly what is happening this year. It really doesn't matter what I do as long as it is new, fresh, and holds the promise of growing into something beautiful. In fact, the robin singing outside my window right now is telling me that it's time to get up, get moving, and get growing!

And so it is.

Signs of Hope

 On Saturday our area was hit with what the weather forecasters were calling a 'bombcyclone." The snow came down so heavily at times that I couldn't see out of the window, and the winds were whipping so badly that I was sure a tree was coming down any minute. It was a tense 24 hours for sure. While we didn't get the foot or more of snow they were calling for, 9.5 inches isn't anything to sneeze at, either. So besides prayer and a good supply of candles and batteries (just in case), what got me through the "dark and stormy night?" This:

No , not the cat thermometer. The geranium bloom. I woke up to a blizzard roaring outside, and a sign of spring to come on the inside. I have never had a geranium bloom in March, even though it is growing indoors. It was as if the geranium knew I needed a sign of hope, hope that spring would get here soon, and the promise that it would arrive eventually when the time was right. It reminded me of the old Native American saying: 

"Even in Nature, no storm can last forever."

Sometimes we need to look for signs of hope and promise when all seems dark and hopeless. The fact that I woke up today is a sign of hope and promise. The fact that the sun finally returned today , and in full strength, I might add, is a sign of hope and promise. The fact that I finally saw tiny paw prints in the snow on the roof outside my window, a sign that my little squirrel neighbors, whom I have not seen since the storm hit, were okay, is a sign as well. The fact that, after 30 years living in upstate New York, I should have faith by now that regardless of what is going on outside my window, spring is only a few more weeks away. All I needed was a sign of hope and promise, and Mother Nature came through for me once again. She always does.

And so it is.

To Seed, Or Not To Seed

It occurred to me the other day that I have been living in the upstate New York area for 30 years as of March 1st. Part of it was spent about 45 minutes north of where I am now in the beautiful area known as Marathon. The rest has been spend "down south" of there in the village of Endicott, a lovely combination of country and town all rolled into one. So you'd think after all this time, and all the years I've spent learning and practicing gardening, I'd be able to know when to start my seeds indoors. If I've learned anything from the school of hard knocks, aka gardening via the self-taught method, it is that all it takes is a move a few miles north or south to change the position of the sun, the wind, and even a slightly different climate to move the start date of seedlings up or down a few weeks or even a month or more. Even if you take the predictions of the Farmer's Almanac as gospel, Mother Nature has the final say. One year the conditions will be perfect to start your seedlings indoors in March, and the next year even mid-April will be too early. The worst blizzards I have experienced in the 30 years I've lived up in this area have arrived in mid-March. I guess Shakespeare was right when he warned: "Beware the ides of March!" While I can certainly make use of grow lights and heaters, what goes on outside the walls of my tiny home has as much to do with starting seeds as what I do inside.

I like to think that life works the same way. We want to plant new seeds in life, to start something new, and make positive changes, but the conditions have to be just right. Start it too soon and the seeds won't be strong enough to grow into seedlings. Wait too long and the season will have passed. So how do we know how and when to plant those seeds? We can start by getting the right soil, compost, and lighting, preparing the ground or pot. If we're trying to plant positive changes, we can start by letting go of what's no longer working and replacing it with positive thoughts and actions, preparing our inner soil just the way we would the soil in our pots. Then we begin watching for signs. Most often those signs come from within. We'll start talking to ourselves in a more loving manner. We'll start taking better care of ourselves.  We'll wake up one day and our spirits will know that this is the day! The sun will be shining, the air will smell like spring, perhaps we spy a few tiny green sprouts on the trees outside. Inside, our hearts will be telling us that it's time to open that seed package and sprinkle the tiny messengers of change over the soil you've prepared to receive them. Then just wait. Water, shelter them from unexpected cold, give them love and light, and behold, a beautiful new way of seeing the world will begin to grow. Before long, a whole new life will have bloomed! So get ready, prepare your ground of being, and listen. Spring isn't far behind.

And so it is.