On Planting Peas
Since my wild black cherry tree fell in 2016 I have been cleaning up and repairing my fence, and have not had a garden outside of herbs and plants in pots on my deck, but planting peas in early spring has always been an early spring activity.
Portraits of Animals features all the things I have for sale made from my creative efforts, but I don’t often share what inspires those creative efforts, especially for my writing. I share a sample every so often from my writing website, PathsIHaveWalked.com.
In 2003, a group of us had founded a community development organization among business owners in town to help build up foot traffic and interest in Carnegie. I handled arts issues, and later flower planting, but for those first two years I really wanted to pull together all the creative efforts around town, three galleries, historical society, various artists, church choirs, and writers hidden among it all.
While planning quarterly gallery walks and encouraging businesses to stay open for the guests who would visit, I also decided to found a writers’ group to meet at Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall. We met once a month on Saturday morning. I had no experience in this but decided we needed one, and if I couldn’t guide it perhaps I’d attract someone who had more experience and could take it over.
At the end of 2003 I suggested we have a reading, each of us reading one or two pieces to whoever showed up to hear us. Then, after finding small books like this in bags of free books I suggested we all contribute one or two pieces of the writing we’d shared and I’d design and have a little folio book printed. This essay was my submission.
On Planting Peas
It is early March and I am planting peas. The wan spring sun is finding its heat and lays like a warm hand upon my back as I work. Signs of approaching spring fill my senses in the mild air on my skin, the scent of damp soil and the shrieks of children as they run in frenzied circles of freedom, much like the birds swooping and circling above whistling their mix of songs.
We have passed the first intoxicating days of air that does not bite, endless sun warm enough to melt the last snowfall into a composition of dripping and trickling, soften the soil and make one’s blood run with the abandon of a stream overflowing with spring thaw. The dawns have come noticeably earlier and the muted indigo dusks have lost the sharp quickness of winter and softened to a moist lingering evening…
Read the rest of this essay on PathsIHaveWalked.com.
Read more: Essays ♦ Short Stories ♦ Poetry
All Rights Reserved. ♦ © Bernadette E. Kazmarski ♦ PathsIHaveWalked.com
•
SUPPORT MY WRITING
Don’t miss any new items or opportunities!
“Follow” the Portraits of Animals blog with the link in the upper left. Sign up to receive posts in email, or in your favorite reader using the links in the right-hand column.
Sign up for e-newsletters
You can also sign up for my monthly e-newsletters to receive special discounts and find out where I’ll be with my artwork.
Click here for the Creative Cat Preview E-newsletter, for feline and animal-specific products and information.
Click here for the Art & Merchandise E-newsletter, for landscapes, nature, urban scenes and more.
For art, photos and writing as I develop it, visit my blogs.
See feline art and photos as they happen on The Creative Cat, along with feline news, health, welfare, rescue stories and more.
See daily photos as I post them on Today.
Read poetry, short stories, essays and more on Paths I Have Walked.
. . . . . . .
© 2022 | www.PortraitsOfAnimals.net | Published by Bernadette E. Kazmarski
All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.
