Rain, Rain, Go Away, Come Again Some Other Day . . .

Normally, I know, I know, there is no "normally" now, I would be focusing on outdoor flowers and events at this time of the year. Like last year, May is our wet month again - NOT April. (April Showers, Bring May Flowers!) So I focus on what I am able to focus on - my beloved Clivia. In English nothing rhymes with the word "orange" which sets their flower color apart. (Clicking on photos will enlarge them.)

Clivia  (Note my 40 year old Cycad in the background)

Clivia miniata

Before the killing frost/freeze the other night the magnolia was just starting to open. The freeze damaged many of the flowers. Spring in Michigan. We're used to that in April. Weather swings have become more erratic.

Magnolia a few days before the freeze.

Magnolia after the freeze.

I used to stop at Mary's for breakfasts when I first was traveling up here to my Pole Barn, aka Sans Souci, and on one of those morning visits I picked up several horse chestnut seeds which I  planted around the property. On my next visit, they were all, every single nut, dug up and eaten by some animal. I gathered a few more seeds and took them home to plant in pots. Three germinated. A year later I planted them at my northern retreat. One was planted in my north garden, one in undergrowth at the north edge of my bluff, and one out in the open where I expected to see it mature and flower. That last one was promptly pulled up and eaten - perhaps by deer? The one in the undergrowth is alive still and growing slowly. It has been attacked by deer but is so far making it. The final one in my north garden is doing very well. I think (hope) that it's now tall enough to be beyond deer browsing. I love viewing the swelling pregnant buds filled with the palmately compound leaves at this time of the year. Of course they also remind me of France.

Horse Chestnut - Aesculus hippocastanum

"What's the main reason people get angry? Because they get frightened." From Inspector Maigret. Of course, naturally I thought of our leader who seems angry all the time. He should be angry. The storm is coming, "Winter's coming".

Horse Chestnut - Aesculus hippocastanum

From the analects of Confucius: If you govern people by Zeng (law/punishment), then you get people who have no shame. Hmmm! They don't know what they're doing wrong. If you govern people by De (virtue/morality), people have a sense of shame and you'll have moral progress.

Horse Chestnut - Aesculus hippocastanum

The ideas of Confucius weren't religious but political; not theological but ethical. Good government will come if the elite are educated. Any leader without virtue is morally bankrupt and should be resisted. Speak truth to power. That is the overruling power of education. (Perhaps we have failed the citizenry by failing to educate them properly - just wondering.)

Lovely Kria taking a morning nap on her bed.

As you can no doubt can tell, I've been watching a great program about China and saw this scene of primroses high in some mountains somewhere in China. The story was not about flowers but nevertheless I saw relatives of one of my favorite spring flowers. I'm sure mine came more recently from The United Kingdom, but now I know their true origins. First photo from the China series, second one from my garden. Like Carlo I tend to "rescue" to "adopt" . . .

Primula veris

Primula veris