Fingers crossed

I'm overdue for an LJ update. Specifics to follow within the next few days, I hope, but the general report is of good times, friends, gardening, shish kabobs, grilled veggies, unseasonably cold weather, summer plans, and the like.

Tonight, though...tonight is a night of anticipation. A totally unexpected, unanticipated, really neat thing might happen. I first had word of the possibility last Friday, and heard Tuesday night just how very real the possibility is. IIUC, a decision is due Wednesday. It's a big decision for the friends involved. Sorry, no further specifics at this time. The possibility and the really neat thing are clearly not mine to tell, especially while the decision is being considered. But it's something I'd find neat. Really neat. Even just the possibility is delightful to contemplate. And it could be true, it could be happening, starting as soon as tomorrow. Well, as soon as later today.

My fingers are crossed...for luck, not lies. (Ghads, I'd forgotten about the childhood practice of crossing ones fingers behind ones back when telling a fib until the moment I wrote that.) Mostly, I hope that whatever these friends decide proves to be a most excellent decision for them. And if it turns out that most excellent decision is the one that brings the totally unexpected, unanticipated, really neat thing my way, well, that'd be mighty fine, too.

Regardless of how it turns out, I'm getting full pleasure from the night of anticipation, and send my thanks into the LJ electrons for that.

One of those "M" months

It feels like March outside, but looks like May. Green has returned, in full force; it's outside every window. Pretty. I could do without temperatures in the 40s, let alone daily highs in the low 40s. And last night's winds were remarkable, both for the sounds they generated and for the way they dumped both sturdy canvas chairs into the pond, after the chairs were fully water-logged and therefore even more than usually resistant to moving on their own.

But the green, all those spring greens, and the way the woods have flattened. During the winter, I can see hundreds of feet into them; they stretched on and on. As spring approached, their depth lessened as the trees grew thicker with buds, then leaves emerged, blocking the view of the trees three and five layers further back. Early on, the only green to be seen was in the shoots of skunk cabbage and Indian Poke. Now I can't even see the ground where they grow, much though it's a mere 20-30 feet from the edge of the woods. So much though it feels like March, I know it's May. And as soon as it warms back up, I'll plant the raspberries and garlic chives Priscilla dropped off last Sunday.

batwrangler, I planted the welcome violets you brought underneath the magnolia tree. The water plants Leslie brought are installed in the shallows of the pond, and the lilac bush from Mark and Priscilla is up at the point of the steep slope I abhor mowing and plan to convert entirely to garden space. The raspberries will go along an edge of that, too, presuming I can stand digging enough of the rocky soil to tuck them in. Just the point itself was quite an effort; contemplating the entire slope is, um, intimidating. Even for someone who dug up nearly half her lawn for garden areas just three and four years ago.

Three perennials I picked up at the Brimfield Ambulance Fund plant sale are in the mini-garden with the poppies; it's still sparse in there. I'll be curious to see how the lambs ear does.

Elsewhere, it's flowers, flowers, flowers. Bleeding heart, primroses, and a couple dozen clumps of IDunnoWhat flowering ground covers in pinks, purples, blues, and whites. One might be a veronica; it's got the spiky flowers. The others are mounds, with a kazillion small blossoms.

Some of the shrubs have started flowering, too, as has the magnolia itself. Now if it would just warm back up again. Please? Soon?