Three Kings' Day, aka Twelfth Night, aka the Epiphany

Though if you ask me, the three kings arriving 12 days late to visit the baby isn't a lot to brag about.  Wise Men, indeed, probably refused to take directions from the star. And the useless baby gifts, I ask you.

No receiving blankets, no nice cup of tea for the Mom, not even cigars, exploding or otherwise.

Anyway, they did get there, and when  Handsome Son was little, I used to bake a golden bundt  cake, like a crown, with a bean inside, engineered to be in his slice, which entitled him to wear the gold cardboard crown and be King of the Day. French tradition, which I liked.

Today it's scaled back to the chocolate cake you saw, some of which went next door today.

And it's the end of the Western rite Christmas. The Eastern rite is still going, today being Christmas for that group.

It's all very confusing, particularly since the Rite of January came in the mail

White flower farm catalog. I peruse this every year making totally fictitious plans for a river of daffodils, a grape arbor, a walkway with creeping thyme underfoot, benches, vistas, sweeping landscapes requiring an army of gardeners and a substantial income..

Then I acknowledge that my few square feet are so overpopulated that it would be better to study extraction tools. But I can dream. 

Of course, when I did have a wild acre to tame and plant, I was always trying to keep up, no time to dream, busy planting and harvesting and pruning and feeling a bit stressed. 

I did leave it much better than I found it, when we sold the house, so there's that. No spraying ever, very clean and with fruiting and blossoming trees and bushes, established vegetable garden, herb garden. Climbing roses, peonies, spring bulbs. It wss okay.

I really enjoy the virtual gardening though. Which reminds me of the real life bramble I need to cut back, because it grabs my leg whenever I step onto the deck.

Also the sheet of voting stickers came today,  courtesy of James Carville, still going, and fund raising. These, like googly eyes, will soon be deployed in all sorts of irreverent contexts.

Today's mail, dreaming and pragmatic, both at once, yes.

Happy Three Kings' Day, everyone!

The Spice Girl arrived!

My spice bush aka Viburnum carlesii arrived from White Flower Farm, yay, great excitement and on a nice cool day but no rain, good for me to plant. I know plants love to be planted on a rainy day, but some humans aren't quite so on board with digging in the rain.

So she's now in place in the corner of the fence where the neighborhood will get the benefit of lovely scents next year, and she'll give me a bit of shade in the area where I'll be putting out houseplants next year, too.

I thought you'd like to see what a nice job WFF does with their shipping.  She arrived in a plastic container, totally secure with paper and tape, never shifted, not a crumb of earth got loose, not a twig broken.

 So she's all set to get organized over the winter for me.  What with the purple sage on one corner sending out sage scent all summer into fall, and the spice bush with pink and white blossoms, sweet lovely scent late spring and into summer, and the common lilac spreading all over next door in spring, that area will be quite well supplied with aromatherapy.  We have other spicebush specimens in the neighborhood but this saves a walk to sniff them.