Shelby Edwards
@sedwards
Writer poet with a day job | Senior senior risk manager with a knack for things going sideways | Army Maj (Ret). | Plant geek | Northwesterner | @STEWest at that other place
Or maybe you’d like a coneflower with a crew cut, the local deer stood in the bed just outside the front door, munched plum branches and, very carefully, the petals off the echinacea (for good health, obviously).
I know everything is more than a bit ragged at the moment, so here, have a home grown baby apricot. It’s lineage traces back to a single sapling improbably found near the Anacortes ferry dock. Makes me ridiculously happy to have it here.
Realizing that I'm reading many non-U.S. authors. I am also slightly cranky about our choice in covers (although I do love kelp).
There are wide stretches of this half acre that are an absolute mess at the moment, but there is also native Henderson’s Checkermallow waving in the breeze at the end of the longest day.
Found carrots in random planter from seeds planted too late last year, total surprise. Went to weed it out thinking it was just tops. Like magic. Tasty too, despite not being tended.
This came today, it’s a gift in so many ways but not the least of which is the reminder of how fabulous and wonderfully important the work and tradition of the nation’s Poet Laureate and the Library of Congress is.
Rain stopped way too soon, but with the hopeful promise of more, popped out to get some of these homegrown cosmos plugs in the ground. These are from last year’s seed so pretty pleased with myself. Slower rudbeckia to the right, and a smaller white cosmos on the far right edge.
1909 illustration Canada thistle, Cirsium arvense, sometimes know as the "cursed thistle".
Spent all morning with this. It’s as lovely as people say, one of those books that finds something true and puts it in the world. The rain has stopped and I’ve read to the end and I really need to go tackle the weeds, but, no rush really. There’s a whole life in these pages.
Hope and wonder is four baby apricots on a tree you just planted in February. Having a perfectly ripened homegrown apricot this summer, that’d be magic.
My magnolia is stopping people in their tracks again this year. Flowering about a week later than last Spring, we had a cold start to things, it's just past peak now. A bit gray and windy today so petals are falling. Amazing plant...old, old family.
Seeds 🤓. Field thyme, rudbeckia, coreopsis and cosmos, and a little sage leftover from last season. Sunny and warm today, lots of weeding. My nemesis the yellow archangel is running away and starting to bloom, wretched little plant. Restarts from any fragment. And the thistles are up. Work to do.
In happy news, the Artemis crew has left earth orbit and are now over 7000 miles away from the Earth on their way to the moon. What a ride. #NASAArtemis
Don’t have answers to all the big things, but every time I get frustrated, I’m outside. Digging holes, planting things, pulling weeds. Here’s some very sexy potatoes getting a sprout on before setting out. Humble, weird, a minor hedge against the apocalypses.
It's out! Thrilled to have two poems published in this lovely journal--Daybreak and Clementine (pgs 9 and 10). They have one of the best digital experiences, gorgeous layout and when you open the issue you hear the pages turning (love that) www.tetheredliterary.com/current-issue
Got my "just one thing" done in the garden today, I swear that rule saves the day more often than not. A new miniature "Nectar Babe" nectarine in a big terracotta pot on the patio. Sun has cleared the ridge South of the garden and it's all feeling very Spring-like out there.
Solid rain showers this morning, settling into a gray Tuesday. Went out and planted evergreen star jasmine down by the lower gate, hoping it's as tough and deer resistant as suggested, and two roses, the pink "Gentle Hermione" and the tough white rugosa, Blanc Double De Coubert from France.
My "just one thing" in the garden today--divided some Black-eyed Susan, planted lavender around a fruit tree I want the deer to leave be, and got this amazing apple in the ground for an espalier along a sunny fence--Hudson's Golden Gem. Originally found feral in an Oregon hedgerow in the 1930s.
In the assessment itself it highlighted one example--over a decade old now. Migration will escalate. Its even happening inside the U.S., we have places that are running out of water, getting too hot. We have huge work to do, fast, and our country is all tangled up in ~~~mess.
“We hold these truths…” Must read, gem of a book. It goes phrase by phrase through that historic sentence and is full of insights into the drafting and the drafters while raising important questions about this moment in our history. Book clubs, coffee circles, this needs talking about.
It’s gray and wet and refusing to freeze, but the witch hazel is blooming, despite it all.
Purchased my analog wall calendar for 2026...always need something that lets me see what's coming at a glance. And it's always the Wild Desert Calendar from the Oregon Natural Desert Association (ONDA). Think I was colonized by sage dust and cottonwoods early.
Just one, named by the europeans Quercus garryana aka, the Garry Oak or Oregon White Oak. One of the most endangered habitats, we only have the barest remnants on Whidbey, but few of the individual trees left were here when Vancouver came ashore. The Oak Society and Land Trust are replanting.
Looks like another very concentrated punch for Whidbey tomorrow afternoon with expected gusts over 65mph. We lost major transmission lines and had damage to four substations last night, repairs are still in progress. Crews from Canada are down to help, lots of lines still up but holding trees.
Next round. Another 4-6 inches on the coast, with up to 8-12 inches in the Cascades by Friday. Even 2 or 3 inches in Seattle and Portland. Serious flooding expected along the Nooksack, Skagit (both North Cascades) and Snonomish Rivers. Very happy to be in that little blue bubble.