Spring is my favorite season. This one has turned out to be particularly spectacular. The photos don’t lie! Hope you enjoy them!
Fragrant Nicotiana (Flowering Tobacco) has the most incredible scent!
These Delphinium are such a vibrant blue!
If only you could smell these sweet peas!
California Poppies closed up for the evening.
Foxglove. My favorite English Flower.
A mass of fragrant color!
Mexican Primrose and Linaria.
PINK!
Jupiter’s Beard
I’m like a kid in a candy store.
The rain is here and the flowers are singing! The caterpillars are happily stuffing themselves with milkweed leaves. I hope you enjoy these most recent photos of my garden. I have a feeling it’s going to be a spectacular spring!
Pink ranunculus
Daffodils!
Iceland Poppies
Sweet peas and Freesia
Caterpillars chomping on Milkweed leaves
Magenta Freesia
Yellow Iceland Poppies
Narcissi
Tulips!
The roads are finally open again and my daughter, Isa and I took a drive through Montecito this afternoon. It was so much worse than I could have ever imagined. News stories on television don’t really show the full extent of the destruction.
Santa Barbara was hit hard at beginning of December when the Thomas Fire burned the mountains above Montecito. Then on January 9, we had a 200-year rain event where half an inch of rain came down in five minutes. This triggered a devastating mud flow. Twenty-three people were killed and many of the homes saved during the fire were damaged or destroyed by the mud flow.
While there have been numerous stories of tragedy and loss, I’ve also heard stories of the incredible generosity and kindness of people in our community. It’s inevitable that we initially focus on all the bad things that have occurred–we cry. We grieve. We get angry. Then we try to find the good.
I wasn’t personally affected the tragic events of the past two months, but lately I have felt so lost watching the suffering of others. After Isa and I returned home from our drive, I looked around my own neighborhood and felt so grateful. My home is safe and not full of mud. I suddenly felt the need to document the beauty around me.
For now, I’m one of the lucky ones. And I’m so thankful.
One of my favorite flowers: Stock. Such a lovely, spicy scent!
A caterpillar chomping on my milkweed plant.
First tulips of the season
Love this magenta!
The spring garden is planted!
Lake Los Carneros
Happy little pansies.
The color of Iceland poppies are so vibrant!
Isa and the dogs on a walk around the lake.
I love to take drives. I especially love to take drives when my almost thirteen year-old is sitting next to me. Because when she’s in the car with me, she talks. It’s like we’re traveling along in a private capsule where she’s comfortable enough to give me a tiny glimpse into her seventh-grade life. The life I’m rarely privy to now that she’s in junior high.
As we drive up San Marcos Pass into the mountains of Santa Barbara, I’m taken in by the beauty of where we live. Even more though, I find myself captivated by hearing about the details of my daughter’s life. How which friend said what; who likes so and so; how that boy was being mean to that girl. I absorb every mundane detail because I know it’s temporary. Before I know it, there’ll be silence.
And I’ll be driving alone.
So we meander along the road and admire the incredible scenery. She talks. I listen.
And I’m thankful for the little things.
Happy Thanksgiving, my friends.
As some of you may know, I live in the house I grew up in. It’s not easy buying a home in the Santa Barbara area on two teachers’ salaries, so my husband and I were indeed fortunate to be able to purchase my childhood home from my mother (who came along with the deal.)
Last summer, after five years of a long California drought the liquidambar tree that grew in our parkway began looking a bit sad and spindly. One Sunday afternoon in July, a huge branch suddenly broke off and landed on the hood of my husband’s car. A couple of weeks later, after having insisted that the tree had been properly maintained, therefore denying our damage claim, the city arborist came out and decided the tree was pretty much dead. Next thing I knew, a crew of men in orange hats showed up and within a span of several hours cut it down, chipped it up and left me with a bare strip of dirt in front of my house.
I ranted and raved and then I cried. After spending my own childhood with that beautiful tree and then raising my four kids under its boughs, I really thought life would never be the same again.
Time passed, and life did indeed go on without the tree. Fall arrived and that there were no dead leaves or spiny seed pods to clean up was definitely a benefit. The rain came and without the tree roots, the soil became fertile again. I was immediately drawn to the potential of all that dirt. I got down on my hands and knees and planted.
Life is full of change and trade offs. Sure, the birds build their nests in the neighbors trees and I have a little less shade in my life, but now I get to watch a daily performance of bees and butterflies as they flit in and around my newest flower bed. Not to mention the perfectly unobstructed view of the mountains.
Change is good.
When one lives in paradise, it’s nearly impossible to find vacation spots that compare to home. Our solution? A staycation. We explore our own community and pretend we’ve never seen it before. Yesterday, we took a drive up in the Santa Ynez mountains, had lunch downtown and took in a late afternoon movie (Get Out–a fantastic film.) This morning was breakfast at Anna’s Bakery and a walk to our local nature preserve. I am so grateful to live in Goleta the Goodland.
Here’s a slideshow of our hike this morning. Enjoy!
Now I’m off to work in the garden.
Allegro non tanto 