I don’t know why that title popped into my head, but I was thinking about my siblings. Some people don’t choose to hang out with their siblings now that everyone is all grown up. It stands to reason. Why not spend time with people who like to do what you like to do? But my siblings and I oddly all like reading and writing and music and processing our feeeeelings…and laughing…and plants.
My sister Cathy and I went on a yard tour last week–we saw Portland yards that are at least a “gold” in the Backyard Certification program, including one where a woman had turned her backyard into a little woodsy glen where she sometimes sleeps and eats and soon plans to take showers. While we were chatting, I discovered that Cathy loves to turn her compost. Huh. I love to turn MY compost. Go figure!
Jan got me started on sweet potato vines. When we all went to a plant store last year, she pointed out two things that turned out to be BIG favorites of mine, one with its association to Ethiopia and the other an ornamental oregano. Cathy and Jan and I are all experimenting with sedums and vines and things with small, interesting leaves–and trees. Chris, though, knows more about trees than we do.
Caroline knows about trees, too, because of her little farm near Salem. They got a grant to plant something like 500 trees. She’s the one who gave me the Douglas Spirea and vine maples and red current and elderberry and other understory trees after the Backyard Certification volunteer said I needed that layer in my yard to provide habitat for birds.
These pictures were all taken when we gathered at the beach one weekend to interview Mom and Dad about memories of Ethiopia. Joy wasn’t there. She’s the only sibling who doesn’t live in Portland–but I like talking about yards and plants with her, too.
When I was about six years old, Ethiopian girls stopped coming to play because they were working in their homes–not going to school, not playing with the ferenji kids.
Is it because of our odd remote upbringing that we got so stuck together and continue to like so many of the same things? I don’t know…but I do feel lucky.
