Veronica Roth Veronica Roth

Alright rain…seriously…enough already

I walked back to my painting the other day and thought, “We need some colour around here.”I was using brilliant carmines and buttery yellows and cerulean and blue but I managed to subdue the colours with black…like the weather outside…like my painting…like my life…it’s all black.Before I managed to get all uncle Vanier’s trousers in the studio I picked up a camera and took a few shots. (I subscribe to the philosophy of “when in doubt, photograph it.")Have you ever seen fat rain? It’s tipping it down.

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Veronica Roth Veronica Roth

To feed the soul

One of my most favourite old books is falling apart. It is a small, leather bound, 1907 book-of-the- heart written by Elbert Hubbard called White Hyacinths. Before it eventually disintegrates I mean to frame the first page; it read: If I had but two loaves of bread I would sell one of them and buy White Hyacinths to feed my soul. Yesterday I bought a potted hyacinth for $2.95. It isn’t white; it’s purple and sitting on my writing desk beside my computer. It is feeding my soul. As a gardener, every time I buy a plant from a non-plant store I feel both virtuous and trepidatious. I’m thinking of the poor bulbs which go on sale at Wal-Mart in September and look so sickly by November. You know the ones – straining through the nylon mesh bags in the mega-store's artificial warmth. What about the wax covered roses which appear every spring, canes broken and frayed? Who can resist saving at least one bag of bulbs or one rose.  This new purple hyacinth will eventually end up in the garden where it will come back next spring, slightly less purple and less full, but will still be just as fragrant and just as welcome.

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Veronica Roth Veronica Roth

Santa in the garden

I confess that I’m really reluctant to put up the seven foot inflatable Santa – complete with motorcycle, sidecar and shades . It’s not that I don’t like him, I do, we all do, makes us laugh, but as anyone who owns inflatable Christmas decorations will agree, wrangling the thing back into the box after it has thoroughly drip-dried in the garage or over the shower curtain sometimes seems like more work than it’s worth. Last night Santa came inside after his one moth gig in the front garden. This morning I retrieved the anchors which held him in place and found inch tall crocuses arrowing their way out of the warmed ground beneath his festive shadow. Hmm, maybe an early promise of spring is worth the trouble.

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