Saturna Weekend

Last weekend I was sitting on the porch at Saturna, feet up, and reading one of the many old New Yorkers that had collected in the post office during all the months we’d been away.  What bliss! (Hey, you can take the girl away from NY, but you can’t NY away from the girl!)

The sun was strong, and the breeze from the ocean was cool. The ocean itself was unruffled by the breeze, with only a large patterned swirl on its glossy surface showing any movement at all. Spots of darker color here and there where the clouds cast shadows. 

Feeling good despite all the work to do here: the massively overgrown garden, the roses that had made it without me, grown taller and more spindly than they’d ever been, strangled by the high grasses and weeds. The kiwi branches reaching their amazingly long and curling tentacles onto anything for attachment, grasping indiscriminately at wooden gate and roses, not bothering to have any preference.

I’d decided to let the garden go this year. Too late and the weeds are too strong for me to pull. I’ll wait until the colder weather comes and the rains. The hardy flowers will all be gone, but many of the weeds will be too. Then I’ll do what I can to rid the garden of them. That’s my strategy. I feel like Napoleon planning his march on Moscow. I know it’ll get the better of me.

You should see my garden. Rather, you should have seen my garden before it went stark-raving-lunatic wild. I’d planted every bit of it,even laying by hand the little brick path that weaves through it. Not all at once, but each year bringing something new. And it became a work of art. Like Monet’s at Giverney, but of course not at all like Monet’s. Like a garden a city girl would grow who knew nothing about gardening until she planted this one right out of her head. It’s really a lovely place. Or it will be, again.

When I lifted my eyes from the New Yorker to look up, I was stunned. There on the top branches of a tree sat three bald-headed eagles, looking out to sea. I ran to get the binoculars to make sure. Yes, indeed, three of them, silent and still, the air charged around them. 

I took these photos to  show the views I saw without and with binoculars. Trouble is, because it’s not a video, you can’t see the eagles turning their heads, so you can’t see their white caps. The one at left is about to fly off the branch.

What a wonderful moment to be home again. What a magical place this is.

Today's Thought

It is not necessary for eagles to be crows.
-- Sitting Bull  

When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.

 --Winston Churchill