Saturday, April 02, 2011

The Adirondack and Rosa 'Heritage'

We didn’t expect today to be the day it was. The sun was out and Lauren said, “Papi, I am going outside with Casi (Rosemary’s large male cat). I will be waiting for you.” Minutes later I was out there in my old jeans. I was going to garden for a bit while Lauren played with Casi. Besides Rosemary, Lauren is the only person who can play with Casi. Casi tolerates me, just. Lauren climbed on the back picket fence while I shoveled some compost on to my back lane roses. I did some further pruning and had a peek at some of my emerging hostas and Rosemary’s plants in her sunny perennial bed.

This year our garden is extra ready extra early. The folks, who aerate and fertilize our lawn, inside the garden, and outside on the boulevard, have already done their job. The garden, while bare (dirt shows!), looks nice and neat. The camellias are all in bud and will soon bloom.


As I walked into the house with Lauren, getting ready to partially barbecue a nice small (2lb.) cut of baron of beef (to be finished off in the oven with potatoes, carrots and onions), I spotted our pleasant next door neighbour who is a renter. He was positioning, with obvious forethought and planning, two brand new lawn (deck?) chairs. The barbecue had been covered all season and the umbrella had been there, too. But it seemed that our neighbour knew something we didn’t know. Could it be that he has an inside knowledge on the real arrival of spring?

Rosemary made extra batches of her famous Yorkshire Pudding while I made an extra batch of my famous gravy.


We (Hilary, Rosemary, Lauren, Rebecca and this blogger) all sat down for dinner with the sun still shining outside. We had a drink of blended strawberries with ice, water and some sugar, and for dessert we had ice cream. It was an almost perfect spring day. Not quite, as the Jim’s Adirondack chairs will not be outside until it is a bit warmer. Besides it is supposed to rain tomorrow and I would never leave them out to get wet.

The Adirondacks

The Adirondacks Again

The Adirondacks and Cherry Jell-O