Author Archives: Sandi LoConti

Spring

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Most people think of spring as a time of renewal.  Gardeners in spring are beside themselves.  Last year I began a tiny garden by my back deck so this spring holds heightened anticipation wondering if everything (anything?) took.  The shrubs planted in the fall did not, only the oak leaf hydrangea showed any sign of a shoot.  Harumi’s lady’s mantle did not.  Jeanette’s chameleon, Florence’s hosta, Trudi’s black-eyed suzies and gay feather all made it.  It’s a deep shade little patch of land but it’s mine and I got immediately to work again.  Pull out the shrubs, turn the soil, and remove even more of the endless supply of rocks.  Start thinking about containers; start thinking about annuals to see if we can get some color.  My gardening muscles were sore again, how reassuring to know they weren’t lost.

Would this be enough to sustain my garden addiction?  Even more pressing, would I be able to go another season looking at those pathetic rhododendrons outside my front door.  You already know the answer, the rhodies are history.  I couldn’t take it another minute.  They are not my favorite shrub to begin with and the fact that they were starting to brown didn’t help. 

More rock removal, more soil turning, more digging, more planning, more scraping together a few bucks and off I go to Willow Run.  I know, I know.  I head directly for the clearance corner (I call it the orphanage) and hit pay dirt.  A rose of Sharon, two hydrangeas, and a few tiny azaleas are on their way to Stowe Lane.  A few more big bang for the buck plants, sweet woodruff, mountain pinks and some sage. 

The wholesale perennial grower is opening on Saturday so I need to save a few dollars for that run.  Saturday turns out to be a crappy day, drizzly and raw, perfect for getting new plants in the ground.  I come home with coreopsis, both tickseed and thread leaf, Stella d’oro lilies a real workhorse and hugely satisfying.  I have a cup of tea under the tarp with the owners and off I go to get my plants in.

I stand back and survey my handiwork and I can see what the future of this garden will be but for right now it is sparse.  I’m grateful to have it, I’m grateful my shoulders are sore and I know exactly where I can go for help.

I talk often about the kindness and generosity of gardeners and it is confirmed to me over and over again.  I sent an email out to a few people I work with who I also know are gardeners.  Subject:  Can you help a gardener out? I explained my deep shade dilemma, my newly formed front garden and the fact that I’m out of cash.  I know they understand.

This Sunday I have the promise of one of my gardener angels bringing grasses and hosta for my poor back garden.  I will have iris and day lilies for my new front garden. He will have a batch of pignoli nut cookies.

 The UPS man will be bringing additional shade perennials from another kind gardener the following week.  As I read their email list of offerings I am overcome with emotion.  It was very difficult leaving my old garden but now I’ve come to believe that wherever I go there will be a garden legacy so long as I can reach out to another gardener.  

 

 

 

Spring Post Script

 

I’ve just posted about Spring and the promise of things to come in my garden.  Here’s what really happened:

Sunday did indeed come but the promise of hosta and day lilies was grossly under-exaggerated.  When my friend, Kevin, showed up with plants it was an entire Yukon (he normally drives a MINI Cooper) full of plants. It was a jaw dropping moment complete with welling up and a complete loss for words (no snappy remarks).  There were hosta and more hosta and more hosta, and day lilies and more day lilies, grasses and ferns, columbine and Shasta daisy, iris and sedum, and wild geraniums.  There must have been fifty clumps of beautiful perennials all waiting for planting.  Of course they all went in that rainy, cold day.  Don’t know that I’ve ever been wetter, dirtier, or happier.  My gratitude is unending.

Two weeks later the UPS man showed up.  When I got home from work there were two huge boxes on my front porch filled with hosta, day lilies, nettles, wild ginger, lambs ear, more hosta, more day lilies, and some clumps I couldn’t name and can’t wait to see bloom.  Next day another huge box with more precious clumps of perennials showed up.  Before getting to work that Friday everything was in the ground…cue the rain.  Really it started to rain the minute I was finished.  Love my universe. 

I came to learn that my friend Lance, who sent all the UPS boxes, had dug up his garden to provide clumps of wonderful perennials for me all the while his family was going through a hard time.  Now every gardener knows the therapeutic value of digging deep in your garden and sharing with someone else but this act of kindness was beyond words.  Lance’s daughter Brynn had eye surgery just recently and it was not yet bringing the anticipated result.  The discouraging part was that she is legally blind in her other eye, this was the better eye.  I hope and pray that God gives this family what it needs knowing full well that it may not be what they want.  I believe that kindness of this caliber deserves the universe’ full attention.   I hope that you will continue, as I will, to keep this family in your prayers.  I count on God’s kind universe every day and know that we can help too.

I’m grateful for my tiny garden miracle, the kindness of gardeners and the anticipated miraculous turn out for the Mitchell family. Amen.

 

 

The Blackout

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First reaction, what the hell did I do?

Second reaction, find the flash light. Got it.

Third reaction, check the circuit breaker.  All fine.

Emergency reaction:

Put your shoes on and the dog leashes by the door in case you have to scram.

Text someone to see if they have power.

Light candles.

Watch the firemen roam around outside your door.

Wave the towel under the smoke alarm (from the candles), hope the firemen don’t hear it.

Listen to the people upstairs on their deck trying to find out what’s up.

Read by candle light and wonder how people in the early days weren’t all blind with headaches.

Wave the towel under the smoke alarm again

Put out a couple of candles, do we really need the one on the dining room table?

Take the dogs for a walk

Go to bed. 

Wake up when the lights go back on.

Turn all the lights off, ironic don’t you think?

Go to bed.

The Break Out

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So I’m working in my office on one of the recent glorious spring days  with the windows wide open and I hear this crying.  A dog crying but it’s not familiar crying.  It’s an unfamiliar dog crying.  This is going on and on for at least fifteen minutes and then it stops…completely. 

I look out my office window and sure enough there’s a black lab mix in the parking lot.  He broke out and is roaming around the parking lot, peeing on whatever strikes his fancy, checking out the buildings and no one is coming after him?

Now he’s headed for my building. No, around the back of my building.  Ok, I just can’t let a dog run around without supervision.  Call me crazy but the cars are bigger than him and he doesn’t seem to notice.  I’m glad he’s headed around the back of my building because it’s safe back there near the forest (that’s another story). 

I close my girls in the office so there’s no incident in the making and head out my back door.  Here he comes…so I open the gate to my deck and call him up.  Actually it was more like woosy woosy woosy come here boy, you get the picture.  Up he comes; I close the gate and gotch ya! 

So now what?  I put him on a leash and off we go to find his family and check out the scene of the crime.  I walk him around to where I first noticed him and I don’t see anything unusual… until I look up.  This little escapee came from out of a second story window. Really?

Now I’m checking for broken bones, scratches, blood…nothing.  Its super dog!

Ok, I text Muriel with my usual snappy remark and now I have company in my little adventure.  There is knocking on doors, inquiries to neighbors (who were not at all happy with the little guys crying, or was it howling?) and then waiting. 

We took our little escapee for a short walk when someone new pulled into our street.  Now I don’t know all the neighbors but I’m pretty sure I know all the dogs and who goes with whom and this person seemed new and this dog seemed new soooooo.

We walked toward where he parked his truck and we asked him, “Is this your dog?”  Now when you leave your condo, the one on the second floor, and smooch your dog good bye you’re pretty sure that one of your neighbors isn’t going to be asking you if this is your dog.  The look on the poor guys face was priceless…it is my dog he stammered.  Sawyer, how the hell did you get out?  We pointed up to his mangled screen in the window and I thought he’d faint. 

Sawyer was extremely happy to see his Dad and his Dad was extremely happy and grateful to see him.  Another happy ending on Stowe Lane.

 

Recall vs. Recognition

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Someone sent me an email the other day with one of those 20 question memory tests.  Put your score in the subject line and pass it on.  Get your pencil and paper ready and don’t cheat by scrolling to the bottom for the answers. Ready, begin.

I got 19 out of 20.  As I finished I realized that the only reason I did that well was because it was a multiple choice. This test was based more on recognition of the correct answer than recalling a fact.  Of course that didn’t stop me from trying to figure out the answer before seeing the choices. What we do to ourselves…

So that’s how it works…you can actually stop feeling like you’re about to lose your mind simply because your file cabinet of a brain is stuffed with everything you’ve ever seen, heard and learned.  I mean, in your entire life.

I worry about my brain more these days then I did, say, ten years ago.  I find myself forgetting things much more often.  I keep telling myself not to worry about Alzheimer’s until I can’t figure out what to do with the keys instead of just where they are.  I’m also starting to recognize (there’s that word again) that most of what I misplace is due not to aging but to not paying attention.  I’m simply trying to do too much at one time and something gets left behind (literally).

I notice there are fewer people my age at work these days.  They seem to be around the late thirty to early forty ages with an uncanny ability to recall all things they’ve ever seen, heard, and learned.  They are also incredibly tech savvy (which I am not) so going forward I wonder if they will have brains filled with as much as people my age.  Will they be rewired to avoid storing anything? Will they know full well that they can summon up any bit of information they need within seconds for immediate use?

Or will they find themselves doing the same double game test of trying to recall the answer before the choices appear? 

 

Jasper’s Legacy

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Jasper and Shawn I’ve just received an email from a friend in pain.  He’s poured his heart out in this email over the loss of his best friend Jasper.  There are many of you that are reading this and remembering best friends that you’ve known and loved.  There are others that will never understand the magnitude of that love and that saddens me.  I’m not sure that my friend understands the magnitude of Jasper’s legacy.

First let me say that Jasper’s appearance into Shawn’s life was a destiny beyond the universe.  I’m sure, although I don’t know with any certainty, that had he not found that dirty street dog my life would be much different.   Shawn is a dog trainer.  I call him my friend despite the fact that I’ve only seen him an hour and half at a time for all of three times.  I believe he calls me friend too. 

I adopted two little girls from a woman in Arkansas who found them as two dirty street dogs and took them under her wing.  The girls were destined to live with me by the sheer ease with which they made their way to Stowe Lane where I live.  But once they got here all manner of ease was gone.  I was in a state of change I couldn’t even begin to know.  The girls were in a state of change they couldn’t begin to know either.  A perfect storm.  I loved them the minute I met them and they me but everyone else was kept at arm’s length, literally.  Slowly, I began to isolate myself again.  The very thing I ran from was happening again and I had to stop it. 

Enter Shawn.  Jasper had trained him well.  He enters a home with a grace and presence that only a street dog can teach a man.  His energy has been learned from a teacher like Jasper.  Lina, my fearful Staffordshire terrier mix, who usually peed at anyone’s mere presence, fell in behind Shawn and relaxed.  Toto, my Wire Haired Terrier mix quickly relinquished her protectiveness for Shawn’s rules.  As did I.  Slowly, I came to believe that I was in control.  That I could love these girls within the boundaries that would keep us all safe and give us the life we deserved.   We walk all over our neighborhood now; we are not afraid but confident.  We have rules and understanding.  We have each other for the rest of our lives.

Jasper’s message to Shawn has been learned by most of us who’ve become his friend.  I do my best for my girls every day and they reward me with the same love and loyalty that Jasper and Shawn have shown each other. 

I have lost dogs in my lifetime and, with the exception of one, I have been by their sides when they have crossed that same bridge.  There is no greater sense of loss one could ever feel.  I also know that what we do when we let our friends go is more humane and selfless than you can ever know.  I can only hope that someone will love me enough to do that for me one day when I have surpassed my ability to enjoy life.  But through that pain we become who we are meant to be, we learn our strength and pass it on to the next.  All these experiences give us the capacity to love and care for the next best friends that come into our lives.   And indeed they will come into our lives.

I hope Shawn will feel his pain all the way through so that he can come out the other side with even more love in his heart.   As for Jasper, he joins my Toby, Pearl and beloved Murphy.  Very good company for sharing a double cheeseburger.  You remain in our hearts and prayers.

With love San, Lina and Toto too!

Donations in Jasper’s name should be made to http://www.rbari.org/donate.html