Mt. Kigali, Monday evening.
Wordless Wednesday: from a window
Mt. Kigali, Monday evening.
Category: landscape
Bloom Day in December: 50 shades
I know that posting a lot of flower closeups is the soft porn of garden blogging,* but I find that I’m not above it.
I live in Rwanda, which explains all the color in December. If you are reading from the recently snowy northern hemisphere, I’m very sorry, and you may avert your eyes.
Thanks to Carol of May Dreams Gardens for hosting Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day on the 15th of every month. Click here and see what’s blooming in other climes.
This is my second post today. “The Sunday porch” is here.
*Or of any garden publishing, outside of botany books.
The Sunday porch: behind Randolph Street
Looking through a “slat screen” from the back porch of a house on Randolph Street (probably N.W.), Washington, D.C., May 1942, by John Ferrell, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
OK, it’s possible that I’m easily amused.
Also, I have holiday shopping to do. . . and it’s Bloom Day. (So more later.)
John Ferrell was a photographer for the Farm Security Administration when he took these photos.
Randolph Street, N.W., runs east-west through the Petworth neighborhood of Washington, D.C.
I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life.
I want a peek at the back. . .— Gwendolyn Brooks, from “a song in the front yard“
Vintage landscape: the homesteaders’ garden
“Homesteaders seated outside in garden surrounding house, probably [in] Washington State,” ca. 1905, by Albert Henry Barnes, via University of Washington Commons on flickr.
This photo was taken by the same photographer as Monday’s picture of repeating haycocks in an apple orchard.
There may be a little porch underneath the vines*, but it’s hard to tell. There is one fairly large window at the end of the house. In order for settlers to acquire a homestead, “[t]he law stipulated that a domicile suitable for permanent residence of at least 10 by 12 feet with a minimum of one window must occupy the property,” according to the Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest.
*It looks like English ivy, which is now terribly invasive in the state of Washington.
A little Heaven in Kigali
I was really taken with the cover of Josh Ruxin’s recent book, A Thousand Hills to Heaven. The illustration by Emily Robertson depicts a table set for two in an idealized garden setting among the patchwork fields of Rwanda.
Inside, the book is a thoughtful and engaging memoir of expat life and development work.
The actual restaurant, Heaven, which was created by Alissa Ruxin, Josh’s wife, is one of our favorites. Of course it’s not in the fields, but in a leafy old Kigali neighborhood, in a building completely open to the view on two sides and shaded by old ficus trees.
We had Thankgiving dinner there, and you can see pictures of that evening and read more about the book here, on The Atlantic’s website.
enclos*ure 