Scents and other simple pleasures

Every morning now I sit on the deck and drink my second cup of coffee after returning from the gym. I do this because this is the time in spring in Pennsylvania--most of the northern East coast really--when the Russian Olives and lilacs are in bloom and the breeze is heady with their thick sweetish scent. For having such small trumpet-shaped flowers, the Russian Olive--it's a shrub that grows wild here--sure packs a heck of a punch.

Just before dusk, I'm back in the garden--watering this time, because we hoed all the patchy parts of the lawn which the weeds claimed as theirs and spread some grass seed. It looks kind of ugly now but that'll change in a few weeks.

Sometimes, when I'm working in the garden covered in dust and sweat and sneezing because of the pollen, I stop full of amazement at myself. As a kid back in Ireland and an adolescent, I despised gardens and gardening, didn't give a shit about flowers and things. Now I'm out breaking my back to get it all beautiful and in shape just so we can sit out on the deck in the evenings, drink wine or sometimes beer, and listen to the finches, wrens woodpeckers and cardinals in chorus. We even put red flowers in the pots on the deck so we'll have humming birds stopping by in mid-summer to drink the nectar. Times sure change.

On an unrelated note, Debra Hamel of Book Blog has a new site called Twitterlit up and running. It gives the opening lines of published novels (mine is currently her first pick of the day, which pleases me very much) and if it tweaks people's interest to know what works they are, it then links to Amazon.com so you can investigate. Here's thelinkif you'd like to check it out when you get a mo'.