Can’t beat them? Join them.

I wandered in the garden yesterday and ate blackberries straight off the vine for breakfast. They tasted amazing. Where the unseasonably warm weather here in BC made the local blueberries a little tougher and smaller, the blackberries seemed to thrive.

There have always been a few stubborn, rogue blackberry vines in the garden (most gardeners struggle with them!). I decided to run with them. I let them stay. I kept them trimmed, built a bamboo grid for them to grown on, and saw them flourish – no watering required.

This year looks like a bumper crop. We will pick fresh berries most of the summer as they ripen in phases. I sampled the first batch yesterday. They are particularly sweet and full in flavor. I’ll add them to crisps and pies in addition to enjoying them on yogurt and ice cream. And just from vine-to-hand too, in the early quiet of the morning garden.

Morning

I revel in the earlier daylight, in spring, in the hint of warmth in the air. Now that I’m able to wake up around sunrise, instead of crawling out of bed in the dark, I’m fondly remembering one of my favorite poems, by Emily Dickinson:

Noon—is the Hinge of Day
Evening—the Tissue Door
Morning—the East compelling the sill
Till all the World is ajar

That is what it feels like these mornings: the east compelling the sill. Wake up! Spring to life! Behold!

Dickinson’s words were the ones that lured me into giving poetry a chance; sampling what it had to offer – they facilitated the beginning of a love affair with poetry. The phrases in this particular work inspired me to create a few paintings, way back…

These spring mornings feel that way too: inspiring a love affair with the world.