lilacs and mushrooms

If this spring has had a theme or a running thread, I have to think that it will have been the matter of lilacs.

Perhaps you haven’t noticed?

It’s because they have had a robust season. They not only are blooming, they are tripping over themselves with clumps of flower. Even on a wet and cold day like today.





In past years I’ve been away in May and so, in fairness, my comparison is with years so long ago that it’s not hard to think that I may be recalling things imperfectly. And, too, I have been sitting this week at Ed’s farmhouse, working away with a front view onto his lilac bush. It makes an impression. (If the weather was good, I could have an even more perfect, scented view from the porch. With a robin's nest perched over me...)





Still, the year is clearly different. Arguably in a good way. Mother’s Day among lilacs, May with robins.


And with mushroom spawn (mycelium). Ed is dabbling in a new business. In an abrupt sidestep from tools and machines, he is “designing” mushroom beds for winecaps and shaggy mane and who knows what else. Larry the cat isn’t convinced that the project will net much of anything, but Ed’s cats are a suspicious bunch.






Me, I have confidence that something will sprout. Ed is a guy who thinks things through. On this wet and cold day, the fungus growing business takes hold, underneath the cherry tree and at the side of the shed. No, not the writer’s shed, nor the sheepshed. The shed shed. Where the clutter of a mechanically inclined guy is put aside for future use.

Oh, let me come back to the lilacs for a bit. Did I tell you how beautifully their wet faces were on this day?