It was the most whirlwind, active, and diverse Mother’s day in my personal record of 70, which included some lovely ones, but this one deserves an entire item in itself. Heath and Phoebe arrived Friday evening and we talked until weariness set in. And early next morning was set aside for the rock garden I coveted for the final item in the native plant section of the garden. I am holding up remarkably for a 93-year old, but increasingly find there are things I cannot do. And certainly one of them is to haul dirt an rocks and plant perennials. But I had assembled all of these so my role was to watch them work – and of course let them know if they were on the right course. The design was created by them and for 3 hours they executed it. I had only a handful of plants, mostly native Sedums but the result was still satisfying, and it is clear what the outcome will look like. Two Mother’s Day gifts worked right into it and now I can drink morning coffee and gaze at this latest and final addition to my garden, which has been redone in several stages and over several years. Here is the creative pair and the final product.
The other big events that day were dinner at The Brick Room and then ‘Shakespeare in Love’ at OSF. One of the best productions so far this season, a light-hearted delight beautifully acted and staged, and richly interspersed with Shakespeare’s rich language from ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Tom Stoppard was one of the authors.
Sunday dawned chilly but dry and out first outing was up to Greensprings for a sumptuous brunch. And then a flower walk along the PCT from Hwy 66 towards Hobart Bluff. It was early spring up high and buttercups, fawn lilies, Calypso orchids and trillium were blooming, while in the valley they were long over. The cell phone owners took a bunch of selfies.
I was really weary after maybe two miles of mostly uphill, but thrilled to be able to do it at all. We all napped in the afternoon and then went for tea at Elizabeth Aitken’s. Her studio is where we have our watercolor workshop and her background is fascinating. Her parents’ first home was Frank Lloyd Wright’s first low cost Usonian house, called the Jacobs House, built for $5000 in Madison Wisconsin in the late 1930s. I have now read two books by her father, who was a journalist and later a farmer and then an academic and a very good writer. The first was about building this house, the second about their farm life, begun 5 years later, when they sold it and bought a farm out in the county. Apparently Wright was pretty displeased, but not permanently so, as after WWII they built another Wright house on their farmland. That story could have made a third book. So Elizabeth grew up in two Frank Lloyd houses, which must be some kind of a record. The families were friends, and Elizabeth has many memories of Taliesen and the lavish parties celebrating the great architect’s birthdays.
The next event was a movie ‘Their Finest’ about the filming of a WWII movie scripted by a young British woman, a new occurrence, but men were scarce. Bill Nighy was the male lead and he was his usual urbane self, Gemma Arterton the writer. Really good entertainment. Home for a dinner of Heath’s mushroom lasagna and salad at 8, and we all crashed soon thereafter.