Hope is the Thing that

What is that quote, anyway? "Hope is the thing with feathers that sits on your shoulder and...what?"

I guess I should look it up, it's Emily Dickenson?

LOL.

Anyway, usually I am a very optimistic person but this past weekend that begins summer each year is rather sad for me, missing people who are gone now, missing the tiny children I once had, now big and busy. Missing my beloved doggy who I adopted on Memorial Day weekend one year....

My son like his grandpa has become interested in gardening. We've been experimenting with daylilies and other lilies, his favorite, and again my dad's fave, too. My dad had the entire front bank of his Cape Cod yard, all along the gravelly road, filled with exotic and common (brought from Illinois roadsides!) lilies.

NOT my dad's roadside! But the same idea/
google pix

And you may recall I enjoy "forcing" bulbs indoors, so when I saw Peruvian daffodils at the market, I just had to try them.

I had them in a glass hyacinth jar for weeks; they grew but....Then I transplanted them into potting soil a few weeks ago, and Oh MY! Overnight the P.Daffs burst into bloom.

In the house! Off-season.

Aren't they wonderful and so exciting and so---hopeful?

Here's a fun post from my dear friend Lisa  at Unexpected Information. Her "bulbs'' sprouted too..maybe it's just a purple onion, just like in my mom's fridge! But to me it is so brave, so hopeful and so green, growing there in the cold dark of her Arizona fridge. If that's not a sign of hope and rebirth, I don't know what is....

PS What have we learned about lilies so far? Bulbs planted in the fall in containers will not survive. They will freeze and decay. BUT lilies that are container-planted in their growing stage, whether store bought as plants or started indoors in the spring, will winter just fine (I think I am zone 7? here). My pink stargazer lilies and baby yellow daylilies from last year look amazing, soon to bloom! We are thrilled.

last summer, 2010 lily

The quote: "Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without words, and never stops at all.”
 hhhhmmmm...creepy? Or, uh, hopeful?

And it is from Emily Dickenson, the young woman with the scary eyebrows on your Kindle screensaver...apropos of nothing.

love

       lizzy 

 gone to the beach......