Category Archives: Nature

Local Blossoms, Too

April 18, 2015 Wildtrumpetvine

We don’t have to drive to DC to see cherry blossoms. We simply look out our windows. Or go out on the screened porch. Or walk down the street.

The views are not quite as grand and sweeping as in DC. We have no national monuments in our neighborhood. Only ordinary houses and cars. We don’t have thousands of cherry trees. But we do have quite a few, and they are, thankfully, easily accessible and simply waiting to be appreciated.

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The short-lived blooming season is nearly over for trees of the pale pink Yoshino variety. Clouds of delicate petals swirl in the air with every breeze and float down to dot the greening grass like snow. As my neighbor drives past my window, her car appears to be covered in confetti.

But cherry blossom time continues, as the darker pink Kwanzan variety trees are now beginning to bloom. To follow in the lineup are the other faithful superstars of spring: the dogwoods, lilacs, azaleas, peonies and roses. They’re patiently waiting in the wings, rehearsing their parts, listening for cues. They’ll play their roles with charisma, dignity and flair. And when their brief sensational season ends, they’ll be quietly, diligently preparing for next year’s show. How reassuring.

Nature, Travel, Walking the Dog

Cherry Blossom Time in DC

April 16, 2015 Wildtrumpetvine

Throughout the DC area, the blooming of the cherry trees in our nation’s capital is a much-discussed topic beginning in late February or so. Will the bloom coincide with the actual Cherry Blossom Festival? Usually not, but there is always hope. Over 3,000 trees, a gift from Tokyo during the Taft administration in 1912, border the Tidal Basin near the Jefferson Memorial. At their fleeting, elusive peak, they are a truly remarkable sight.

It’s a sight I can’t recall seeing at close range during the nearly seventeen years we’ve lived in Northern Virginia. My husband says we were there once pushing our new baby in a stroller, but I have no recollection of the visit and no photos to prove it. Our daughter certainly has no memory of it. Once, on our way to Atlanta for Easter, she and I saw the pink fluffy trees as our plane followed the line of the Potomac on takeoff. In the spring of 2008 we were at the Tidal Basin, with our daughter and puppy, about ten days too late, as the photo below shows. This past weekend, the trees were at peak bloom. After a winter that threatened never to end, the weather was almost unbelievably perfect. Sunny, warm, slightly breezy. Not hot. The ideal time to go blossom watching. Ideal, at least, in a less populated world. When I suggested a jaunt into DC, our daughter was enthusiastic. But my husband groaned as though he were suffering grievous injury. He had taxes to finish, yard work to do, work emails to face. Traffic would be beyond horrendous. And it was our first chance all year to relax in the comfort of our back terrace.

I didn’t press the matter. I agreed with his traffic prediction. We live eighteen miles from DC. Once, when we drove in during the early hours of Thanksgiving morning, it took us a mere twenty minutes. More typically, it means creeping along for an hour or more on I-66 or the George Washington Parkway. The Metro should be the obvious choice, but parking at the station, especially during cherry blossom season, is problematic at best. Better to stay home.

Around mid-morning we were all in the car, about to run some necessary errands, when H suggested a sudden change in plans: he could drop D and me off on the Arlington side of the river. Maybe he’d been thinking about what a wonderful, understanding wife I am and how I didn’t protest when he flew off to Aruba over Valentine’s Day. “I know what the trees look like,” he said, “but since you two like to look at pretty stuff, I’ll drive you. We’ve gotta go right now, though, because the traffic will be really bad this afternoon.”

My daughter and I didn’t need further persuasion. I dashed back inside to get Kiko. Walking through a beautiful landscape is not quite complete for me without my little dog. (H and D, however, disagree. They have a lower tolerance for Kiko’s habit of constantly pausing to smell every twig and blade of grass.) Kiko had just settled down to nap. He was lying on the playroom floor looking pathetic, his front paws tucked up under him, like this.

The dog appeared stunned when I popped back so quickly and asked his favorite question, Wanna take a ride? It took him a moment, but he roused himself and stretched. Oh yes, he’d gladly take a ride.

My husband dropped us off just before the Arlington Memorial Bridge. He headed to Crystal City where he could take care of errands and avoid the crowds of cars and pedestrians.

And then, there they were, those justifiably famous cherry trees. They resemble puffs of pale pink cotton candy sprinkled among the white marble monuments. Or paper trees in the magic crystal kit my daughter discovered in her Easter basket one year. Almost too pretty to be real, especially when set against a baby blue sky and reflected in the water. Worth enduring the slow-moving throngs. Perhaps even more often than every seventeen years.

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Faith and Spirituality, Nature

The Easter Promise

April 6, 2015 Wildtrumpetvine

My husband trimmed some of our trees a couple of weeks ago. I couldn’t bear to see the cut branches simply tossed away, so I gathered them and put them in water. When we left last Tuesday to visit my parents in Atlanta, the branches were a stark study in brown and gray.

When we returned on Easter night, the branches were no longer bare. On the lilac cuttings were delicate green leaves. Tiny bright fuchsia flowers adorned the redbud branches. What had appeared to be dead had bloomed with new life.

And here it is, God’s Easter promise, as clear as the blue sky on this gloriously warm and beautiful spring day. The cruel cross has become the tree of life. Because of the unimaginable sacrifice of our loving God, death’s power has been defeated. The gates of heaven are open to all who thankfully accept the priceless gift of grace. Let us rejoice and be glad!

Now let the heavens be joyful! Let earth the song begin!

Let the round world keep triumph, and all that is therein.

Let all things seen and unseen their notes in gladness blend,

for Christ the Lord hath risen, our joy that hath no end.

–The Day of Resurrection

words: John of Damascus, trans. by John Mason Neale, 1862

music: Henry Smart, 1835

Nature

Spring?

March 20, 2015 Wildtrumpetvine

Spring was to arrive today. It’s evidently stuck in traffic.

Instead, we got more snow.

Nature

Now, This is March!

March 17, 2015 Wildtrumpetvine

The snow has melted, at long last, here in Northern Virginia. We have relatively solid, earth-toned ground beneath our feet again. Gone are the high banks of gray snow that had lined the roads, making it nearly impossible to venture out of our neighborhood on two legs or four. Kiko had become increasingly frustrated, bored with each day’s limited circuit. In recent mornings, he prances excitedly as we head toward the winding county road that offers a choice of routes and a million fresh new smells.

It looks, feels and sounds like March, just as it should. As the wind whistles around the corners of the house, I can hear Winnie the Pooh commenting on the blustery day. The sky is in constant transition. One moment white fluffy clouds race across the deep blue. The next, the sun shines in golden streaks through a leaden blanket. The raw, newly exposed fields by the lake are the color of straw. Bird choruses are tireless.

On our lawn, so recently flattened by snow, green blades of grass are interspersed with white. It’s a speckled, signature look of early spring that I love.

Budding branches are sharply highlighted against a brilliant blue sky. Spring is, without a doubt, in the air.

And in the ground. In a little patch of desolation beneath our still bare redbud tree, our first crocus blooms. Every year it amazes me that these delicate-looking, solitary little flowers on thread-like stems manage to force their way up through the cold, dark bleakness of the earth. Proof of spring’s reliable, eternal, unstoppable dependability.

Family, Nature, Parenthood

Winter 2015: The Farewell Tour (We Hope!)

March 6, 2015 Wildtrumpetvine

Seems I was wrong about our biggest snow events occurring in February. That distinction, this year, belongs to March. Yesterday’s storm was predicted well in advance, but it took its time in coming. The school cancellation was announced the night before. Snow was expected to start in the early morning hours. At 6:00 AM, and then at 7:00 AM, not a new flake had fallen. I was beginning to think Snow Day #10 would be a no-snow day.

But just before 8:00, the snow arrived with a determined flourish. It fell steadily until late evening, covering the messiness of the existing clumpy, discolored snow with smooth white fluffiness, artfully frosting foliage and trees.

This time of year, Kiko needs longer legs.

Today, another day off school (Snow Day #11), the sun is out, creating dramatic blue shadows on our lawn.

In a neighbor’s yard, a perfectly frosted blue spruce against a perfect blue sky.

The phrase “winter wonderland” is on the tip of the tongue, even for those (like me) who thought they were sick of the season.

This snowstorm found my husband in town, fortunately. Of course it didn’t keep him home from work. Even after an emergency repair of an outdoor sump pump pipe, he was in the office well before any precipitation began. But he did come home somewhat early, so he could make use of his favorite toy while wearing his electric orange ski jacket.

Nature

Ice, Ice, Baby

March 2, 2015 Wildtrumpetvine

Yesterday’s sleet refused to do as predicted and turn to rain. The expected thaw evaded us. Today we awoke to a world even more firmly encased in ice. We’re quickly catching up to last year with the number of school days canceled due to winter weather. This is Snow Day #9. I doubt it will be the last.

On my daughter’s glove, a holly leaf cast in ice.

Above and below, pine boughs heavy with ice.

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Ice-drenched nandina.

Nature, Walking the Dog

March 1

March 1, 2015 Wildtrumpetvine

March is here. It looks just like February, only bleaker. A wintry mix is coating all surfaces with ice. The snow is topped with a clear, thick crust, and tree branches are frosted and heavy. Walking the dog is treacherous business. On the bright side, it’s not windy.

Even snowmen find the icy surface tough going: this surprised-looking one in a neighbor’s yard seems to be frozen in the midst of a topple backwards.

Family, Nature, Parenthood

Blasts from a Past February: The Blizzard of 2003

February 28, 2015 Wildtrumpetvine

Ever since we moved to our home in Northern Virginia in 2001, February has been the month of snow, snow and more snow. We experienced our first Virginia blizzard in 2003, when twenty inches of the white stuff accumulated on February 15 – 16, just before Presidents’ Day. The timing was optimal: a weekend, with no one stranded at work or school. We knew it was coming; we had time to prepare.

Our daughter was in preschool, so there were no worries about schoolwork piling up. There were no crucial extracurricular activities for her to miss. She was overjoyed with the snow, even though it was so deep she couldn’t really walk in it. These were the days when she wore her little red snow suit and could still fit into her baby swing.

For my husband, these were pre-snow blower years. He used a plow attachment for his old riding mower to clear our driveway and the big concrete expanse that later became a real back yard. (See here.) That weekend, he plowed every few hours, but it was still difficult to keep ahead of the rapidly falling snow. My parents were visiting from Atlanta, and their red Camry station wagon is mounded with snow. They used to drive up every six weeks or so to spend time with their only grandchild. This trip was extended a bit beyond their liking due to the depth of the snow. They hadn’t seen this much snow since my babyhood in Kentucky.

Plowing complete, our old porch was enclosed in its own snow fort.

Our daughter had the great pleasure of playing in the snow with her favorite “big girl” friend, Ashley, who lived next door. Ashley was D’s beloved babysitter, and our daughter couldn’t spend enough time with her. Why don’t you and Daddy go out to dinner? Go see a movie, too. Ashley can stay with me! D tried to act as though she was sorry to see us go, but she couldn’t wave us out of the house fast enough. Ashley, now married to a Marine and living in Okinawa, was sixteen at the time, the same age D is now. Gulp.

Another unexpected benefit of the blizzard was that it kept H at home that week. For several years he essentially lived in Cleveland from Monday through Thursday. The storm canceled flights and kept him in Virginia. Here, he and D make Swedish pancakes just the way Grandma Olga taught him.

I must remember: good things may happen when it snows.

Community, Family, Nature, Parenthood, Walking the Dog

Sick of February Yet?

February 26, 2015 Wildtrumpetvine

This month is notorious. Fortunately it’s the shortest. Here in Northern Virginia, as in much of the country, February is all about the snow, or all about the cold, or the wind. Or some uncomfortable combination of the three. I’m trying not to complain. I know it could be worse. I could live in Boston, Buffalo or Sioux Falls. But the frigid whiteness of this mid-Atlantic winter has lost its luster. It has become tiresome.

Here in our area, the last half of the month is the worst. The week before and after Presidents’ Day tends to usher in our deepest snows and fiercest cold snaps. The best-laid plans crumble. Why do we continue to make plans in February?

This year a mini-blizzard roared in on the evening of Saturday the 14th at 6:30, a dirty little trick on diligent Valentine date-nighters. Within minutes, all was white, the air and ground alike. Snow piled up and swirled wildly as the wind howled and the temperature dropped to zero. Typically, in the face of such weather, I would happily retreat to the warmth of the sofa with a movie. But my husband was out of town (that’s another story), my daughter had two parties to attend, and I had said yes to a neighborhood gathering. All activities, unfortunately, required driving. My focus for the evening shifted from enjoyment to getting out and back without injury or incident. When I picked up my daughter and a friend from their final party, the snow-coated roads glittered with chunks of ice resembling broken glass. When the tires lost traction at an especially slick intersection and the anti-lock brakes kicked in to no avail, luckily we were the only car around.

The following icy, windy Sunday morning, Kiko and I suffered through possibly the most miserable dog walk ever. (No matter how inhospitable the weather, my fastidious little dog requires three walks a day for his mental and physical health. See here.) I wondered if we should brave the roads for church. A blinking light on the answer machine put that worry to rest: church was canceled, despite special preparations for a one-of-a-kind community children’s service.

Monday, Presidents’ Day, was a holiday and day off school. We managed to get in a dentist appointment for my daughter before more snow began falling steadily that afternoon. Storm Watch Accu-Weather-on-Your Side teams were breathless: this storm would be the Big One. No doubt there was not a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread to be had on any grocery shelf in the DC metro area.

We got snow, perhaps six inches or so. It was too bad that H wouldn’t be around to clear our long driveway with the powerful snow blower he bought after the blizzards of 2009 and ’10. As a boy growing up in Rochester, New York, he made money shoveling driveways and the occasional roof. He dreamed of one day owning a truly prodigious snow blower. That dream had come true, but once the big red contraption took its place in our garage (alongside a variety of mowers and other items for suburban lawn and garden maintenance), the snows stopped. Last year they resumed, in a big way. On most powdery white mornings H is out with his monster of a machine. He clears our driveway; he clears neighbors’ driveways. He’s a local Snow Day hero.

But this time he wasn’t here. I have to say it: he was in Aruba, perfecting a windsurfing move, the elusive jibe, a complicated change of direction done while continuing to skim the water. It was something he’d been wanting to do for years. It required perfect conditions, namely strong, steady wind, which can’t be found just anywhere. We’d agreed that he should take the long Presidents’ Day weekend and just do it. But I hadn’t considered that he was leaving D and me here to face the dastardly February weather on our own.

H suggested we FaceTime him so he could coach D on using the snow blower. He’d shown her how to work it last winter, but the details were hazy. Numerous attempts to start it up failed. We were about to give up when H realized that one little knob wasn’t turned in the right direction. That done, the machine roared to life and D set off down the driveway. Thank goodness she’s her father’s daughter.

And while the accumulation wasn’t as dramatic as expected, it was more than enough to shut us down. Further cancellations rolled in. No school on Tuesday. No Fat Tuesday Pancake Supper at our church. No school Wednesday, and no Ash Wednesday service at our church and many others.

That was just the first series of February snow cancellations. Since then, they’ve continued, requiring the ongoing reshuffling of plans. Today, for example, with snow beginning early this morning, school was first delayed, then canceled an hour later. With so many days off school, extra-curricular activities are postponed repeatedly. Rescheduling is tricky, as events pile atop one another. During my daughter’s elementary school years, snow days for her were exactly that: unstructured free days to play in the snow. Now they involve the stress of wondering if and when the student-directed One-Acts will take place. How will they impact previously scheduled activities? And then there’s the thorny problem of when to do AP World reading and pre-calculus problems when there’s a beautiful snow on the ground and friends who want to take the day off to meet for lunch in town.

Oh, February, aren’t you over yet?

A blog about motherhood, marriage and life: the joys and frustrations, beauty and absurdity, blessings and pain. It's about looking back, looking ahead, and walking the dog.