Oh, April

the Village is dancing with the daffodils and April's playing tricks on us.

Today’s temperature is 85. Tomorrow it may be 40. Oh, April.

I saw my first dandelion this week. I wrote about them in 2019 and you can read it here. Dandelions

I do love yellow, especially Indian Yellow. I’ve recently learned how it’s made.

people fed cows mango leaves exclusively, caught the bovine pee, filtered it, dried it, and used it for some extraordinary works of Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern art in the years before 1900.

Who ever thought of giving cows mango leaves and then using their pee to make art?

Somebody has to go first and we have to thank those who dare. Like, who ate the first oyster? They must have been really hungry. It could have gone either way; maybe “Say, I do like them! I do like Green Eggs and Ham!” Or like Tom Hanks’ first taste of caviar in Big. It’s good to try new things and I will always be grateful to those cows and those who collected their pee. I’m also glad I don’t have to do it myself.

And Green! As Jessie said when she was three, the leaves have come back from where they go in the winter. These leaves kind of look like birds, don’t you think? This is a Kouza dogwood which means good things are coming.

I so love this shade; it lifts my heart.

Speaking of Green, I read this poem in a New Yorker story;

A river winds

a green silk ribbon

I’ve been trying to draw a river but I’m not succeeding because I haven’t given it my full attention. This drawing has been sitting in a file for years, maybe decades. I really want to do something with it.

So in the Blueberry tree, I’ll take out the river, raise the hedge and maybe add a secret garden. Next time I’ll make the river the whole story.

I have absolutely no idea what to put in that empty space.

I learned from the Sunday Times acrostic that Simone Weil said, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” So thank you for giving me your attention every Friday morning.