White hyacinths and snow

No, that's not horse dandruff on Sizzle's head; we had a snow shower at the barn yesterday. Neither of us liked it much, after our (almost) 60 degree day on Saturday. And this morning, the sun is coming up on a frosty white world.
Well, that's spring. After I spread my bucket of horse "compost" in the garden yesterday, I picked these hyacinths. My favorite spring flower. And here's some lines from a poem I always think of at hyacinth time:

You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
They called me the hyacinth girl.
Yet when we came back, late from the hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and you hair wet,
I could not speak, and my eyes failed,
I was neither living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

from "The Waste Land"
T.S. Eliot

More museum stories

I was excited last week when the Museum of History and Industry published my new finding aid on the Northwest Digital Archives website. It was about the nicest "thank you" a volunteer could get.

Here's a direct link to the finished document:

http://nwda-db.wsulibs.wsu.edu/findaid/ark:/80444/xv66622

I've started research now on another collection, also from the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. This one is challenging, because it's mostly unidentified aerial photographs of the Seattle Center construction process.

Our kitschy Space Needle is such a part of the Seattle skyline, its hard to imagine the time when it wasn't there. It was originally called the "Space Cage," and designed to make visitors feel like they were going up into a flying saucer. The elevator operators wore shiny space age costumes, and dinner in the revolving "Eye of the Needle" restaurant was special indeed, with waits up to 6 hours for a table during the fair.

In the old aerial construction photos, you can see how the Seattle Center fairground was carved right out of the urban landscape 50 years ago. For better or worse, those were the days when things got done quickly around here. The land for the Space Needle was purchased for $75,000 in 1961, and the Needle completed the next year. In the pictures, you can also see the old Seattle Municipal Auditorium, which was transformed into an Opera House for World's Fair entertainment. In 2003, the building was completely renovated again and became the magnificent McCaw Hall. Nothing remains of the fusty old auditorium except the footprint, but I like the idea of buildings being constructed "on top" of other buildings.

So history goes...Seattle isn't exactly Rome, but it has a colorful and eventful past. Below is an aerial photo of the Seattle Center:

A beautiful spring day

The weather was beautiful in Seattle in yesterday, and I spent the morning outside working hard. There was an incentive to get things done, because more "typical" weather is coming in next week. Much cooler, near freezing at night with rain and wind in the lowlands, and snow in the mountains. Oh, boy.

Right now our streets are lined with lovely pink flowering cherry trees, making it pleasant just driving around in the sunshine. The Magnolia liliiflora is one of the flashier bloomers, and it's often called the "tulip tree." Technically these are shrubs, but the Japanese magnolia above is at least 30 feet tall. It grows in front of a mansion on a viewpoint I drive by on my way home to our little old bungalow.

Magnolias are native to southwest China, but were introduced to the west from Japan, hence the name. I have a little star magnolia in the yard, and another unknown type in a pot that blooms early. Magnolias are magnificent big trees in parts of the south, not overgrown "shrubs" like here. They always make me think of Scarlett O'Hara.

"Bright Star"

"Bright Star" is a 2009 movie about the sad, secret love affair between the poet John Keats and seamstress Fanny Brawne. Keats died at only age 24, but their affair was doomed from the start since neither had the financial means to marry.
The settings and costumes were beautiful. Overall, it was a smart movie and the story was emotional, but not too maudlin. Most of the scenes take place near Hampstead Heath, where Fanny Brawne lived with her family, and Keats stayed in the house next door with his icky friend, Charles Brown.

In 1820, it was still a wild country spot a few miles from central London. Hampstead Heath still exists, and is the remains of an ancient forest called The Middlesex. Now the 790 acre park is the largest open space in London, and famous for its intellectual and bohemian associations. Not to mention some of the most expensive real estate in London.

The movie has that pretty BBC Masterpiece Theater look, and if you know some of Keat's poetry, there is an entrancing scene when he sits alone in an orchard composing "Ode to a Nightingale" while the bird sings.
And this little poppet steals every scene she's in. Where do they find these child actors who are so natural and composed? The girl's name is Edi Martin, and she played Fannie's young sister "Toots." She has one of the best lines in the movie when she and her brother go to the bookstore to buy Keat's poetry book for Fannie:

Samuel Brawne: Have you got John Keat's poem book?
"Toots" Brawne: My sister has met the author and she wants to read it for herself to see if he's an idiot or not.

Black gold

Yes, that would be horse manure. And this is the homemade kind-- composted and pulverized over the winter by our own horses. The nice barn manager said I could haul some out of the stall turn-outs this spring, so I've been showing up with my blue tub in the back of the car. It's heavy work, but worth the trouble if you've every paid $3.95 for a bag of inferior "cow" stuff at the garden store. I shovel the precious mulch around my favorite plants, and cultivate it in.

John came home from work and asked what that smell was? It's the smell of heaven...
Speaking of heaven, look how much hair I brushed off Sizzle in just a few minutes. It must feel good, and I've never seen her shed so fast in the spring. No turning the calendar back now, the horses have spoken. Horsehair sweater, anyone?

A plot of land

I have an old Microsoft acquaintance who is now a real estate agent. We're on his mailing list, so every month or so we get a newsletter with his picture on it, containing creative ideas on enhancing your home's value and curb appeal. Of course most of the houses (and ideas) featured are very grand. The spring garden issue was about "Tending a Well-Planned Plot of Land." The articles recommend the "blank canvas" approach to gardening. This means starting completely from scratch, and then micro-managing everything from there on. After thirty years of trial and error on our little plot of ground, I thought instead about the joys of "Tending an UN-Planned Garden."

And here's one of them. A beautiful drift of white crocus that surprises me every year. In my hazy past, I once planted a handful of bulbs and they've slowly multiplied. But the real miracle is that I've never accidentally dug them up, or planted something big on top of them. So there they are-- to enjoy again for a few days each spring.