With Silver Bells...

Mary Mary Quite Contrary,

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells and cockle shells

And pretty Maidens all in a row.

According to the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, the popular English verse (for which this blog is titled) is a parable about Catholicism. How appropriate, being that I am devotedly Catholic. How also appropriate given that there are at least two interpretations of that attribution regarding the rhyme: one being the verse romanticizes the Faith; the other interpretation being its condemnation of the Church. That pretty well sums up my relationship to my religion.

On both accounts, I become even more affirmed that I've chosen the right topic for this blog. Lots of metaphors and allegories of an account of my journey to Eden through adventures in gardening. This will become more apparent, I'm sure, as my garden, this blog, and I evolve.

My previous entry tackled the first two lines of the verse. Today's installment takes on the next part: the bells. In the rhyme, they represent the sanctus bells rung during the Catholic Mass. No longer used at most services, I can still hear them in my mind's ears during Mass--three handheld bells rapidly shaken during the Eucharistic prayers at the point when the priest holds up the bread and later, the wine, saying for each  "Take this, this is my body...this is my blood..."

Soleri Bronze Windbells gracing my back garden

Contrary Mary's garden bells were silver. Mine are bronze. These are Soleri Bells that I bought sometime in the mid-to-late 1980's at Arcosanti when we lived in Arizona. Writer Ray Wyman, Jr. captures the Arcosanti/Soleri phenomenon best on his Heavypen website: (I quote) "The grotesquely beautiful ceramic and brass wind chimes of Arcosanti are the joint creation of Paolo Soleri and his wife, Colly. Sold in malls and over the Internet, the bells of Arcosanti have gradually become familiar fixtures in homes and schools around the world. Yet, the bells are more than a dash of fashion with which to accent our surroundings. They are a call to arms against the compound problems of an exploding world population, worsening pollution, shrinking resources, and poor public policy. The alarm over our global environmental situation has only recently been raised, but Soleri has been sounding his warning bells for nearly fifty years."

Their sound is far from melodic - even the Cosanti Foundation that sells them warn not to expect the soothing sound of a wind chime. These are large, heavy, irregularly shaped bronze works of art that do not ring easily. But when they do, it is as if a gong is singing a song to the wind. Listen for yourself.  When we first moved in to our Rockridge home, we hung them on our front porch. Our neighbor to our West complained immediately. In all fairness, her bedroom window was directly across from our porch, and though I would love to be lulled to sleep or awakened gently by them, they are clearly not to everyone's taste. So now they live in our backyard and our Eastern neighbor seems to enjoy them - well, at least she has not complained.

As promised, I am posting pictures of the backyard work-in-progress.  A few weeks earlier, Alec, my husband, dug up the weeds, ivy, thorny bushes, and residual roots in the thin strip of earth at the periphery of the yard along the side wall (the eyesore which is my Eastern neighbor's garage and not much we can do about it, at least not yet). I tackled putting in a border, choosing inexpensive bricks (we are on a tight budget) to create a clean, neat demarcation between the patch of earth and the pavement.

Next, I dug up the soil - dry, fairly dead (no critters) and put in manure and compost. I sifted the soil I'd dug up, removing rocks, old toys, and sundry garbage, and added it back to the manure and compost. This is to be my melon patch, and most garden sites suggest you use some kind of drip irrigation placed under black landscape fabric to keep the soil warm for the melons. I laid the drip hose, covered with black weed cloth, and at last, I planted the cantaloupe I'd started inside from seed weeks ago along with watermelon bought as a seedlings; and I sowed Roma beans and brussel sprouts seeds straight into the ground.

The seeds were sown and covered, protected from birds; rocks have been removed; thorny blackberry plant dug up and at bay; rich nutrient soil placed several inches deep. There is still a fair amount of clean up to do. But a good days work indeed.

I finished in time to shower and go to Mass. The Gospel reading today? The Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1-9)

"A sower went out to sow.

And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and birds came and ate it up.

Some fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil.

It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep,

and when the sun rose it was scorched,

and it withered for lack of roots.

Some seed fell among thorns,

and the thorns grew and choked it.

But some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit,

a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold. 

Whoever has ears ought to hear."