Do Gardeners Grow Old? + Judi Dench and Her Passion + The Secret to Staying Together

Good Morning from Prince Edward Island, 

Todays’ PEI Covid News

Spring is in the air and officially only a week away. 

There is one thing sure about this world...

there are sure to be always more springs. ~ L.M. Montgomery

Gardeners are ready to get outside and into the garden. But March and April can be tough on gardeners living on Prince Edward Island. Our weather seems to go from winter to summer with a quick run through spring . We continue to stroll through gardening magazines a few extra months more than most other locales.  Garden dreaming is part of our seasonal cycle. 

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. ~ Cicero

I look forward to seeing the buds on the trees. I love the return of the birds and the choir they create singing their different songs bringing the daffodils & the tulips to a standing ovation.

Gardening simply does not allow one to be mentally old,

because too many hopes and dream are yet to be realized. ~ Allan Armitage

The Lily Pond is usually a sanctuary for a momma duck and her ducklings every spring. 

There are many parts to our Gardens of Hope I look forward to, but when I see the naturalized blue irises along the banks of the river, it brings it all home.

The awesomeness of nature, the seasons, and the beauty that is a gift given. 

The garden reconciles human art and wild nature, hard work and deep pleasure, spiritual practice and the material world. It is a magical place because it is not divided. The many divisions and polarizations that terrorize a disenchanted world find peaceful accord among mossy rock walls, rough stone paths, and trimmed bushes. Maybe a garden sometimes seems fragile, for all its earth and labour, because it achieves such an extraordinary delicate balance of nature and human life, naturalness and artificiality. It has its own liminality, its point of balance between great extremes.

~ Thomas Moore

Friends recently sent a book written by Rachel Haley Barton. The book, Invitation into Silence and Solitude is a reminder.

The human mind is perpetually busy trying to control things, trying to figure things out, clinging to the latest idea, grasping at the nearest straw. It works very hard trying to make sense of things by endlessly seeking to put everything into categories and boxes and systems of thought. Sometimes even God himself gets relegated to a category or a box in my mind rather than being free to be God in my life. It seems that my mind will go to great lengths to fix things, control things and defend against anything that would disrupt my carefully constructed equilibrium. Ruth Haley Barton, Invitation into Silence and Solitude

Sound familiar? 

True silence is the rest of the mind and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment. ~William Penn

I have always enjoyed Judy Dench as an actor, and after watching this, I love her even more. 

At the heart of gardening, there is the belief in the miraculous.

~ Mirabel Osler

Musically today, I have been listening to the sound that comes from this wonderful YouTube video. Sometimes, while relaxing or doing chores, I enjoy these long YouTube videos via our television as background to the space & time.

Time to share some exciting news.

We are in the process of starting a new blog, called Tea & Toast. And we are asking help with it.  Do you like to write? Or do you have friends or family that have a way with words? 

Tea & Toast blog is devoted to sharing stories of special times with families and friends around the table, or the time spent alone with your favourite book and beverage. The experiences are to be fun, thoughtful, and bring joy or peace to the reader. We aim to bring this to our readers through penned stories and quality photographs that capture the moment(s).

At Tea & Toast, we believe that:

• Sharing is good.
• Kindness is good.
• An ordinary life can be an extraordinary life.
• There are beauty and magic to be found in simple things.

Tea & Toast is currently seeking submissions from writers and photographers who share these same beliefs.

More info about Tea & Toast here. 

If you have any questions or suggestions, just hit reply on the email sent to you this morning or leave a comment on today’s blog. 

“I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.”

― Rita Mae Brown

Have a great weekend, and may next week be filled with hope & happy anticipation of great things to come. 

With love from Prince Edward Island, 

Sincerely, 

Bruce + Millie

Ps. Your Morning Smile

A couple had been married for 45 years and had raised a brood of 11 children and were blessed with 22 grandchildren.

When asked the secret for staying together all that time, she replies, "Many years ago we made a promise to each other... the first one to pack up and leave has to take all the kids!"