Until Spring, These Will Do

Eh. Damp and chilly here today and supposed to rain and then get down into the twenties again.
Dang. I just unwrapped my porch plants and now I'll have to wrap 'em up again.

Winter is just not my favorite season. There are things about it I like, the number one being the fact that when I have a hot flash at night, I always have a cold, cold pillow to drag from beneath the window and hug to my body which is a sort of ecstasy no man will ever know.

And also, the camellias.

When we moved here, there was only one camellia bush in the whole yard, which shocked the hell out of me. Also, no mulberry tree. And no palms except for a whole bunch of sagos, which are not really palms at all, but are pretty, nonetheless although they are hell to trim because their branches are sharp as needles and when they prick you, which they invariably do, they leave a sore itchy place.

I brought two camellias with me which I transplanted and they are doing nicely and Mr. Moon and I cleaned out a bed in the back yard which cried out for camellias and we bought and planted a few more.

Now camellias are not an instant answer to your landscaping problems. They take forever to grow and by golly, if you see a camellia big enough for a child to climb, that thing must have been there for a hundred years. I have lived in houses with camellias like that.

But anyway, my baby camellias in the back yard which Mr. Moon and I planted are just starting to bloom this year, their fourth year, here in Lloyd and every one of them is a gift. Their bright blossoms stand out in the dull winter landscape like candy on a gray tablecloth. I am loathe to pick them but pick them I do because they are going to turn brown and drop off their bushes anyway and if I put them in my vase, I can enjoy them every time I walk by, which is about fifty times a day.

The funny thing is, my very favorite camellia is the Pink Perfection


which is pink and which is perfect and which I could have sworn was one of those which I brought over from my old house. However, that poor drought-stressed bush is finally blooming this year and it is NOT a Pink Perfection, although it is a lovely camellia, white with pink borders, the yellow stamens in the center.

How could this have happened?

Well, luckily the nurseries sell them and I will just go out and buy one and plant it.
Because winter is gray and brown and chilly and damp and everything I can do to try and cheer up my little part of the world when it's like this is a good thing. I make soup, I plant camellias. I wait for them to bloom.

And Mr. Moon keeps the bird feeder supplied with seed and the cardinals come and make a spot of brilliant scarlet that flutters and dips to feed. Yesterday I saw a huge pileated woodpecker climbing a pecan tree, his red and black and white feathers a startling contrast to the gray sky, the gray of the leafless, resting pecan. A gift.




Some seasons you have to pay a little bit closer attention to find color, to see the sort of beauty that stirs your heart.

Spring is a cheap thrill, only in that it is so abundantly full of life and color and I look forward to that glorious over-abundant spill of dogwood blossoms, wisteria and azalea.

But for now, I must make do with the delicate beauty of the camellia, the tiny sweet faces of the white violets blooming in the yard over near the old barn, the birds at the feeder and in the trees, their sudden explosion of color a shock, a thrill, a blessing of swift flying joy in the midst of the otherwise dull winter palette here in North Florida.