wild roses

This used to be a forsythia. It got taken over by these wild roses. I look around the yard at the brook's edge and they are everywhere, blooming, blooming. I guess they're invasive, if roses can really be called invasive.  I remember once, years ago, pruning some of it - before blooming began - and I threw it toward the brook in an area where we tended to throw clippings. When June came, they bloomed. They were just cut branches, and they bloomed! I tell the truth.

That would be scary if it was anything but roses.

And right now, the air is sweet with them. So, I pruned some up-sticking canes from this big weed-bush and now it's nice and neat. Bloom on!

the annual weeds of June

I have talked about this before - in fact, I just looked it up in my blog archives and found it on another June twelfth! - how sweet the air is around here every June. I used to think it was fancy or exaggeration when poets exclaimed over sweet fragrances wafting along the breeze, but now I know I was mistaken.

The above is a clump of wild roses growing across our brook, along the bank. And I can smell the scent through my bedroom window. We did not plant it there, nor did the birds. You may read my previous post in the link above, or I can repeat the story now. We'd pruned several branches of the stuff from a bunch of it nearer the house, and then threw it over there, presumably to break down in the way of nature. But when it was time for all good roses to bloom, those cut branches bloomed! Without any root! And by now have established themselves over there, to look pretty and sweeten the June air.

Who can complain about such a weed? (And also - is there a lesson to be found in this? Because I'm sure there is one.)

my little pretties

This week I'm focusing on {pretty}

{Pretty} cherry leaves in the front yard

That day, I'd brought Dolly out with me. She jumped onto the car to get a better view of her domain, (remember, it's all about perspective!), and I got some nice shots of her {pretty} face.

her yellow eye

and her blue eye

The other day Henry was out back visiting St. Francis and I got this fuzzy picture of them, but it appeals to me

{pretty} heavenly looking, don't you think?


Finally  -  we have some wild roses blooming everywhere these days - invasive, really, but smells delicious and very {pretty}, too.

Thanks to Leila and Rosie

jam and roses

Sunday we visited a park which is devoted to roses - pretty would be a gross understatement.

If you can imagine a place where everywhere you look, there are roses - that was it! It was hot though, and a lemon ice was very welcome after a half hour or so.

I was happy to pick enough of our wild black raspberries to make some more freezer jam from Organic Gardening. The recipe was for blackberries, but this is what we had so I tried it, with some lavender graciously donated by Linda who bought it on a trip to England. I guess she bought more than she needed. 

I just tasted some. I had forgotten that these very small berries have a seeming overabundance of seeds and aren't terribly juicy, so if you can imagine good-tasting but tough jam, well - that's it. Still, I'm pleased at the idea of freezer jam and am willing to learn by experience. 

I let a friend borrow my camera for his son's wedding and asked him to take my picture for practice. I thought I might as well ham it up while still looking like a librarian with my ever-present reading glasses.

funny, I suppose

Some librarians do have a sense of humor. 

 Joining in with Leila and Rosie again this week.

knitting in public

Well, I didn't know this till later in the day, but today is World Wide Knit in Public Day. Did you know that?  I had no plans to go out, so I made a point of sitting out on the back step for a while.  Next to the old watering can, with the sweet scent of the wild roses nearby.

But I don't think anyone saw me.  I've picked up my hand warmers again - I'd finished one, but then got sidetracked on them till the other day.

I've been reading The Princes in the Tower, by Alison Weir. All the to-do about Richard III's skeleton gave me a keen interest in the subject; then I discovered we had a book about it at the library. There are apparently many written since the discovery. It all happened so long ago - you kind of would like to think everybody's been wrong about him. I also read Josephine Tey's Daughter of Time - I did enjoy that and was beginning to really believe Richard wasn't the monster of history, but... Alison Weir thinks differently. In fact, she says she used to think he was innocent, too. Until she started digging (no pun meant). So, I'm feeling my disappointment rise as I read along. She deals in facts; it seems Richard's defenders deal mostly in emotion. Oh, well.

Joining Ginny's yarnalong.

cutting

Tomorrow is the end of the month. Today was beautiful, in the seventies, I'm sure; March will go out like a lamb.

I could have washed another window, but I pruned the roses instead. Dolly came out with me and enjoyed it until the wild wind was too much for her. I was done anyway, and it was pointless to clean away the dead leaves in such wind. That can wait for another day.

I like pruning the roses. I like being deliberate when I cut each cane, each twig, with a particular result in view.

I have to admit that I don't take the same attitude toward cutting vegetables.

snipping

 

It's June and that means roses. Our two bushes, yes, but those little white roses/(weeds?) that are everywhere, fragrancing the air. I rarely cut from our bushes because I don't want to see a bare bush , but there are plenty of the wild ones to spare. And then I noticed at the base of the pink rugosa these deeper ones - from the root stock? I don't know, but I snipped them off; nobody'd notice them if I didn't. 

Now they can show off properly.