Fuchsias

I've never grown fuchsias.  Never heard of them, don't know anything about them.  But they had 'em at Baker's, the saleslady raved about them, and I'm a sucker. 

Now they're opening.  And they're pretty fucking amazing.  

From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuchsia):

Fuchsia /ˈfjuːʃə/ is a genus of flowering plants that consists mostly of shrubs or small trees. The first, Fuchsia triphylla, was discovered on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola (present day Dominican Republic and Haiti) about 1696–1697 by the French Minim monk and botanist, Charles Plumier during his third expedition to the Greater Antilles. He named the new genus after the renowned German botanist Leonhart Fuchs (1501–1566).

My brief bit of googling indicates that they thrive in places like the UK, and the pacific northwest.  Methinks they will have a short season here.  Still.  Look at these things.  They're so beautiful...

Bees on Broccoli

The broccoli flowered. I ate as much of it as I could, gave a bit away, and even drove one bunch a hundred miles up to my mom in Chino Valley (how's that for local food...)

But alas, I didn't get to it all.  And now it's flowered, each of the individual green bumps that gives broccoli crowns their texture bursted open into an exuberant yellow flower.  It's kind of pretty, and the bees love it.

I was a little disconcerted at first trying to take this photo.  I knelt down in the middle of the patch and was still as hundreds (literally) of bees swarmed just a few inches away.  Their wings brushed my face and hair and I could feel the buzzing in my teeth.  One crawled up my arm for just a moment before deciding I wasn't nearly as captivating as the bright stalks waving a handsbreadth to its right.

The bees weren't interested in me.  They were interested in their own unique brand of bee ecstasy, and sitting quietly in their midst I was a little overtaken by it as well.  Thank you bees, for being here.  I was planning to pull these in the next few days, in preparation for planting peppers and eggplant in this spot, but I think I'll keep the broccoli around a little while longer.  For the bees. :)

Breathe it in.

If you come over to my house in the next few weeks, I'm going to take you by the hand and pull you to my patio, down the steps and to the chain link fence where oleanders guard my eastern exposure.  In their shade I've placed a gardenia, a bedraggled specimen that was falling over and dripping brown leaves when I snagged him from the 50% off rack at Lowes a few weeks back.  It's been trimmed, staked, watered lovingly, and whispered to on a daily basis. And now guys, it's blooming.

It's blooming.

I'm going to lead you to its little corner, bypassing the bright petunias and geraniums, the salpiglossis that stand erect near the front gate and the sweet primroses that edge the border of my blueberry bushes, and then I'm going to ask you to bring your face close to the gentle flower that's been steadily, shyly unfolding it's petals for the past few days.  Really get close to it.  Let the soft folds brush against your upper lip and bring your nose right down into its center.  And then breathe.

No, not like that.  Don't just inhale as if you're taking in the hum drum city air or the scent of a familiar room, as if breathing in was a routine operation that we undertake a thousand times a day.  Close your eyes, quiet the mind.  Really breathe.  Inspire.

Take it in slowly.  Draw with some intention, as if you were taking the first drag of a cigarette after being nicotine withdrawn for days and days.  Let the perfumed air slowly filter through your nostrils and swirl gently against the upper palette.  Let it flow leisurely down the back of the throat, falling down the windpipe and then expanding the lungs from the bottom up.   Let it fill you.

Let it fill you.

You'll become aware of the scent and all its profound sweetness within the first few seconds.  As you delve deeper into the olfactory experience, light shut out and sounds fading away, you'll notice a sharpness, like the sound of an oboe or the taste of ginger.  That will fade to a roundness, a fullness that you will perceive in a way beyond respiration as the beautiful little molecules come to rest in key-in-lock fashion on the neuroreceptors in your brain.

It will make you high.

Gardenias are a tropical, and will thrive here if kept consistently moist and sun-protected during the hotter months.  But they only bloom when the temperature is right, when the nights are chilly but tolerable and the days are blessedly warm.  It's a short, twice yearly window here in Phoenix, and I intend to savor it.

If you come over, I'll want you to savor it too.