Gifted Hands

This hand belongs to Wilma.  She hybridizes daylilies

and helps her husband Dennis tend the hundreds of daylily varieties on their farm..

In the off-season she quilts - beautiful, bold quilts full of pattern and color.

She is a doting grandmother.

This hand belongs to Dennis, Wilma's husband. 

After retiring from his work in a printshop,

he began to grow daylilies, hundred and hundreds of them.

He grows hosta too.

He never stops working.

He carves in the offseason - beauiful Santas, Spirit in the Wood figures,

and a whimsical totem pole he placed in the garden.

Together they live and work on a 30 acre slice of heaven smack dab

in the middle between Bainbridge and Greenfield.

I got to know Dennis and Wilma when I stopped at their garden

on my Americana route to the outlet mall.

By Americana route,

I mean the off-the-beaten path way,

 the scenic route,

the anti-highway, countryside route.

I've been stopping there ever since

to add to my collection of hosta and daylilies

and to visit with my frirends.

Hostas for sale.

A bridge Dennis built across his pond

from a crooked tree he felled on the farm.

Wilma's first garden, wich she plans to renovate soon.

It is a beautiful, spirited plot.

I'm sure the new creation will be even more lovely

Each daylily bed is laid out with a letter

then each row is numbered. 

There are six or seven daylilives in each row. 

You choose your daylily, noting its location in the garden.

Then Dennis digs up your selection,

places it gently into a plastic bag

ties an identification tag around it,

and puts it in the wagon.

Once you've made your selections

you retreat to the shade of a canopy,

where you settle up,

and visit for a while.

In today's fierce100 degree heat,

the canopy was a blessing.

This owl watched over us and the garden from his perch above our heads.

Always another chore to be tackled in the garden.

And in the house.

Several of the hundreds of varieties of daylilies that grace their gardens.

As we sat beneath the canopy,

catching up and talking garden,

the sky began to darken.

The birds which heretofore had been quiet in the heat

began to chirp,

and the mosquitos began to bite.

Wilma told me she thought it would rain today

because the rain birds had called earlier in the day.

Just minutes after I left their farm,

the skies rapidly grew threatening.

The wind rose to a scary level, 

the lightning began to snap,

and much needed rain began to pour from the skies.

It made for a very tedious, frightening journey home,

one spent dodging downed branches,

holding tight to the steering wheel

as the wind buffeted the car.

The time I spend

with these two talented, hardworking, creative, jolly people

makes my day.

Each time I look at the daylilies in my garden

my thoughts turn to my two friends.

It is a blessing to have them in my life.