The photo to the right shows one of the benches on the western end of Duke Gardens. It's one of the few benches I've never sat on in all the times I've been to Duke Gardens. Unless I have some major problem with walking, I doubt I'll ever sit there.
You see, it's close to one of the back entrances to one of the Duke Hospital buildings. The photo to the right is taken about ten to twenty steps beyond the one to the left. Duke Hospital made the hospital and grounds totally smoke-free five years ago. As a result, one of the closest places that the employees in that building can go for a cigarette is this bench. The black post is for cigarettes. It replaces an older, pyramidal shaped one, which replaced the sight of cigarette butts on the ground. Even when the bench is empty, the area around it smells like cigarettes.
Since I have asthma, I certainly appreciate policies which prevent smoking indoors. Once, when I was having really bad allergies while on a summer job during college, someone smoking a cigar came into the very small copier room I was working in. I had to get out right away because I felt like passing out.
On the other hand, the bench doesn't bother me. I can hold my breath, if I need to, for the brief time it takes me to walk by it. I know that quitting smoking can be very difficult to do.
However, when Duke Hospital came up with their smoking policy, I don't think they intended part of Duke Gardens to become the de facto designated smoking area.
NabloPoMo is National Blog Posting Month, where you post daily on your blog. I'm going to post on two blogs (out of the five I have) this year - Moomin Light, of course, and Birds and Blossoms: Walks at Duke Gardens, which I recently started posting on again. I usually try in November, which often is a rather quiet month, until Thanksgiving arrives. This month, it's not so quiet, and Thanksgiving is the earliest it can be, but I'm still going to try.
I almost decided to stop the Duke Garden photoblog, but, last week, younger son and I walked around Duke Gardens. I didn't take lots of photos because I was focusing on our conversation. However, when I got home and saw the photos on the computer, I decided that I wanted to continue the blog.
The chicken to the right is Big Mama. Duke Gardens opened the new Charlotte Brody Discover Garden this summer. Most of the times we've gone there, the chickens have been in the totally enclosed space behind Big Mama. However, the volunteer there let the chickens out so that we could see them, and he gave us a close-up view.
Older son and I have had the photoblog since 2009. I decided to make the blog wider, but I haven't figured out how to change the blog title photo so it's still the old width. I also made the photos larger, which was the point of widening the blog.
Dear husband's camera stopped working last year. He finally got a new one last week. I think I was more curious about how it worked than he was. I ended up with some free time early this afternoon so I ran over to Duke Gardens for an hour to try his camera out. I haven't downloaded the photos yet, but, from what I could tell on the computer screen, the photos are amazingly clear, but the colors aren't exactly what I would want, and the auto-focus drives me nuts: "Hmmm... there's a large flower in the middle of the screen so I'll focus on those little pebbles in the upper right hand corner."
The next day after the rainy Duke Gardens day, Dear Husband and I took a walk at Ayr Mount, a Colonial-era home in Hillsborough:
The sunlight was beautiful.
The trail goes through the woods and down to the Eno River. Then it comes back up by the pond and up to the house. This is one of my favorite views anywhere (and it's only 10 minutes from home!) - the view from behind the house. We stretch out here at the end of our walk. All things being equal, pick a stretching spot with a view.
A closer up view of the same scene with a view of the pond
Duke Gardens (a week after the first time in the previous post). I had to go back to see if the azaleas were blooming.
They were.
Viburnum
Part of the azalea circle
The tulips were still blooming.
Squirrel in the Terrace Gardens
Japanese flowering cherry with tulips in the background
Here's how I've been spending lots of my time lately...
A morning at Duke Gardens with my mother and younger son:
A few purple/white irises in the White Garden at Duke Gardens
Black-necked swan
Walking through the Terrace Gardens felt like swimming in color.
Redbud in front of The Bridge
Usually, when a bird flies by, I just stand and admire it - and totally forget to try to take a picture. He flew back again, however, so I barely got this shot. I'm amazed the camera focused on him rather than the trees.
An early rhododendron in front of The Bridge
I didn't take many pictures that day so as not to slow everyone down, but I went back the next day. Interestingly, at 9 am, the only people there were either Garden employees/volunteers or people with DSLR cameras:
This is one of my favorite places to sit in the whole Gardens. It's an un-obvious bench across the koi pond from the Terrace Garden. It's in the shade, and it's got this lovely view framed by the trees. I've rarely seen anyone else sitting there!
This month, every Wednesday evening choir rehearsal has felt like a mini-Lent. We've been singing through the anthems for Lent, in order, so we go through the Lenten weekly themes, and the the Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil anthems. It's like a time lapse - seriousness, sorrow, and joy in a little over an hour. It's one of older son's favorite times of year because of the music, and it's one of mine too.
For whatever reason, for the last few months, I've been finding that I feel closest to God, not on Sunday morning, but on Wednesday evening. The short prayer before rehearsal starts really reaches me, and I focus on prayer through the words of the anthems. One evening, there wasn't enough sheet music for everyone so I sang When I Survey the Wondrous Cross from memory (I even remembered the second soprano harmony parts!). Because I wasn't looking at the notes, I really focused on the words
...See from His head, His hands, His feet, Sorrow and love flow mingled down! Did e’er such love and sorrow meet, Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small; Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.
I got teary.
I totally failed at Lent this year. The reactions I had to blood pressure medicines knocked out the Lenten things I was attempting. I've spent the last two weeks just trying to get everyday life back to normal. After writing the previous post, I actually was able to relax more on Thursday and start really enjoying things again. I should feel guilty for failing at Lent, but it's just not in me anywhere.
I wrote a long, depressed post last week, but never posted it. Here's part of the post:
Last Sunday was a lousy morning. Even though it's been in the 70's and 80's lately, the heat was on at church. In the choir robe, I was overheated* and just trying to get through.** I blew my voice out (my throat swelling isn't totally gone) singing too high during the rehearsal beforehand so I couldn't sing much in the service itself. Our seating was different than usual - I was way out on the end and couldn't hear the rest of the sopranos, or even the rest of the choir. The anthem was a cappella so you can't rely on hearing the piano. There were points where I didn't even try to sing in the anthem because I couldn't hear the other sopranos well enough to blend with them. We sang Amazing Grace during communion, which reminded me of the funeral I'd been to the previous week. I got through the funeral without crying too much, but singing Amazing Grace again somehow opened the spigots to full. I couldn't stop crying and totally missed the last three verses (and I wasn't even crying for myself, I was sad for his family (who are my family too)). I was sitting so far from most of the choir that there weren't many people to shake hands with during the Sign of Peace so I ended up just watching everyone else shake hands. That reminded me of the time before I joined the choir. During the Lord's Prayer, I missed holding hands with those next to me, like we did when we went with daughter to her Catholic church a few weeks ago. The service just made me feel very isolated. On the way home, I realized that I would have been just as happy to have gone home when the rehearsal was over before the service even started...
...Except for the Eucharist.
Today was totally different. I ended up in the middle of the soprano section so I could hear and blend (and shake lots of hands during the Sign of Peace). I was even able to be at peace for the eight measures that were too high and quiet for me to sing without straining my voice. I just joined in again when I could - without kicking myself for not being able to sing the whole thing! I mentioned this to older son, and he said that there are bass parts that he can't sing because they are too high. He loves it when the bass part is down in the basement.
I had the anthem going through my head all afternoon. I love the different musical colors of the three verses. The first one is more normal anthem-y, the second we all sing harmony with the soprano solo, and the third has very tight harmonies. It's like walking into a new room for each verse. Here is the Norfolk State University Concert Choir singing An' I Cry:
The attendance at the 11 am service varies lately. Communion is sometimes one hymn long, and sometimes two hymns long. Today, I was silently willing everyone to take a long time for communion because I really wanted to get to the second communion hymn. We made it! I had Lift High the Cross in my head a good bit this afternoon too. Here, it's sung by Trinity Episcopal Church in Fredonia, NY:
(Okay, I got teary the last verse again. No spigot, though.)
* Older son, who gets very easily overheated and is quite happy in 20 degree weather, said that he only remembered two things from the sermon - the part about the hike in the desert, which was very fitting, and the story about the rattlesnake.
** The title of the post involved the phrase: "Sing 'till you pass out" - a variation of my garden motto from last summer: "Garden 'till you pass out."
[I've been to Duke Gardens three times this week. Thursday, I had a good time there with my mother and younger son. I didn't want to slow them down too much so I restrained myself from taking too many pictures. Friday, I went back by myself and took too many pictures. Saturday, I went with dear husband, who had been in Atlanta all week and had listened to me bubbling over about how beautiful the gardens were.
The Terrace Gardens are filled with tulips in full bloom, and it feels like you're swimming in color.
Thursday, it was moderately crowded. Friday, I got there early, along with Garden staff and a handful of other people taking photos. Saturday (photo, above), it alternately sprinkled and poured so there were very few people there.
Durham had quite the thunderstorm on Friday afternoon (it passed us by in Hillsborough). Dear husband was coming back from Atlanta. His plane had to circle over the airport for a while, and then it had to go to Greensboro to refuel.
Parts of Duke Gardens got flooded. The official Duke Gardens blog has photos on their post, Damage from the mighty storm. One of my favorite bridges was totally underwater.
We went there late Saturday morning, after our usual walk in downtown Hillsborough with a visit to the Farmer's Market. The water had gone down significantly, but the pond was still partly flooded.
The flooded duck beach (click here to see a picture of it unflooded (but from the other side (and in the winter))).
The low hanging tree branch is resting in the water.
The zig zag bridge had been underwater the previous day. It's still rather low to the water here.
Duke Gardens staff were busy cleaning.
This bench was probably underwater the previous day, and it's still covered in debris.
Lots of debris floating in the muddy pond. Most of the rocks that the turtles rest on were underwater...
...but not all of them.
Daylilies
I generally try not to get people obviously in my pictures, but this group was all over the Terrace Garden for quite a while. They were all together...
...and took photos on both sides of the muddy koi pond.
The black-eyed Susans are in full bloom. Here, I had to take a few photos before I got one without the guy who was talking on his cell phone while chasing his preschooler. They kept dashing back into the scene. The father was frustrated, but the son was having a ball!
I'm always amazed by the summer blooming azaleas.
We only spent an hour there. I wandered around and took photos while dear husband sketched. We were there until almost noon, and it was getting hot - plus I'd already been outside for the earlier part of the morning. When I met dear husband, he could tell I wasn't doing well from the heat. "'Take photos until I pass out,' that's my new motto," I said. He replied that it goes with my other new motto this summer: "Garden till I pass out."
For some strange reason, my family isn't too keen on these mottos! ;)
The most interesting thing I've done in the last 24 hours, besides helping daughter with pre-calculus, was helping with community theater auditions last night. Of course, I can't write about that, and you don't want to read about asymptotes, so I'll show you some of my favorite photos from a beautiful morning at Duke Gardens.
This is a busy week... okay, they all are. I made sure I went to Duke Gardens, however, because I knew the azaleas would be in bloom.
It pays to eavesdrop on tours. This rose isn't labeled, but a passing tour guide said that it's a "Lady Banksia" yellow rose. I didn't have any paper to write it down on so I remembered it by crossing Mary Poppins with Lady Gaga.
I wanted to spend lots of time at the azalea court.
Close up
Azalea court
I don't remember what this is called, and dear husband is already asleep so I can't ask him.
Work on the Koi pond.
Of course, I have to have a bridge photo...
...or two.
I did mention that I love azaleas?
Mountain azalea
Columbine
Rhododendron
My favorite azalea. They had the sprinkler going in this area so I had to step away every time it came around.
