Garden Joys and Garden Tasks can be one and the same

Marguerites and Delphinium are two perennials with a propensity to re-seed. The marguerites are especially prolific - I would almost consider them "invasive" though when they bloom their golden hearts out like this at the exact time the dark blue delphs are at their peak -- how can I not forgive them their spreadingness?

Other plants (like Marguerites) in the sunflower or Asteracea family, are prone to prolific re-seeding. Watch out if you choose to leave the spent flowers and seedheads on any of these plants! You will soon have a garden full of their offspring.






Daylilies open one bud each day -- and each bud lasts only one day. Each stalk of buds contains from 6 to 20 buds. Deadheading the spent lilies encourages the plants to set a few more buds.





Star-shaped pelargonium geranium in a pot near my tomatoes. Deadhead your potted geraniums to encourage more bloom.

Near our back gate, marguerites, delphiniums and a few volunteer sunflowers greet us as we come and go. The delphiniums keep blooming, though on shorter, weaker stalks, if you deadhead the main flower stalk as soon as the petals fall. Sunflowers will often set more buds if you cut off the main flower at the next node.

Think You're Old??? This is an old dog!

Today is the day we celebrate Sam's birthday, March 16th. Every day we count ourselves as incredibly blessed and lucky this wise soul is still with us and happy to be with us. Enjoying his life to the fullest! Each year we recognize that he has come another year and is still healthy, enthusiastic, curioius ... we can hardly believe it. Sam was supposed to be euthanized with a tumor growing around his esophagus and windpipe over 8 years ago, yet here he is, wolfing down his food and breathing/snoring/woofing as if he had never had a tumor at all.

This year we didn't make a sam-cake with candles as we did last year --Sam was afraid of the lit candles. Today he got the super-dooper-senior-dog treatment: lots of treats and a great walk in the sun. Tim made buckwheat-spelt waffles for all of us this morning. Sam had a plate of waffles with chicken, cherries, cherry-juice along, and a whole piece of sausage. Baggins also shared his food (a half can of tuna) with Sam but says, "only on his birthday."

I shot these photos this morning after a late breakfast. Satisfied dog and happy humans. Happy Birthday to you, dear old friend. I wish for you many more days of life and love and joyful-dog-dreams.

He's giving out Free Hugs today

Blue Between

Blue Beauty Between

I love getting packages in the mail and for me, it doesn't happen often enough. Maybe once every couple of months. Today the mail carrier brought me this little Valentine's Day treasure from PamBrisse ... to me this is like the colors of the sky and sea close to her home in the Pacific Northwest. Thank you so much, Pam. I love it! I am wearing it right now.

Digital Paintings and Collages by Maureen Shaughnessy

All images copyright © by Maureen Shaughnessy. If you would like to use these images in any way, you must have written permission. Email me to ask about purchasing or using my artwork. (you can find my email on the profile page.) Thank you for your courtesy,

Solstice: Celebrate Winter in Montana

I wish all of my blog readers happiness and clarity of heart in the coming year -- may you each have the blessing of Good Luck in your lives.

To celebrate winter, to honor Mother Earth, and to welcome the light coming back to us from the darkest, longest night of the year ... I would like to share with you a selection of winter images from my Montana albums.


Click on a thumbnail to view the image larger. To see the original (much larger) photo, click LINK below the photo on the right. Enjoy!

Wild Geese (after Mary Oliver)

Copyright© 2007 by Maureen Shaughnessy

I have posted the poem, Wild Geese before, on Raven's Nest and Land of Little Rain. It's worth posting again (and again.) Everytime I read this poem, I come at it from a different angle, as a different person.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

-- © by Mary Oliver.

Oliver's latest collection of poems, Our World, is a collaboration between Mary and her late partner, Molly Malone Cook, who made the photographs accompanying the poems. Molly died in 2005.

Another exquisite book of Oliver's poems, Thirst, touches her experiences with grief and spiritual growth after Molly's death. I read these poems often -- Mary Oliver's sense of faith and connection have helped me personally through times of great sorrow.

I made the digital painting above, using my own images and two from Liz Saunders, of Alberta.

Her photos:

Snow Geese flying up from a lake

Canada Geese, blue sky