After having so much fun researching the Christmas and New Year’s blogs, I’ve found myself digging around to discover the origins and peculiar facts about Valentine’s Day. It comes as no surprise that, once again, we have the Romans to thank. That cute little cherub – Cupid – who romps around on Valentines cards and boxes of chocolate – is the Roman god of love.
Back in the day, during the annual Roman mid-February Lupercalia festival, a lottery system paired men and women to take part in fertility rites to celebrate the coming of spring, but at the end 5th century, Pope Gelasius I forbid the celebration of Lupercalia. Some historians attribute him with replacing Lupercalia with St. Valentine’s Day. Another theory holds that a priest named Valentine was martyred circa 270 CE by Emperor Claudius II Gothicus. Valentine is said to have cured his jailer’s daughter from blindness and to have sent her a note signed, “from your Valentine.” There is also the story that another priest, also named Valentine, married couples in secrecy to spare the husbands from going to war. While the origin of the day is lost to time, Valentine’s started being celebrated as a romantic day in the 14th century, Valentines’ messages first emerged 1500s, and by the late 1700s commercially printed cards were winging their ways between lovers.
Valentines survives as a day set aside to honour love and lovers. It is also the day in 2007 that the love of my life died. It is the day I still gather with family and friends to toast the kind, brave man, who was the best of dads and husbands. I’ll use that gathering as my excuse for not getting this posted yesterday.
Because I feel the love when you read these blogs, here’s an excerpt – written in 2018 – from chapter five of Pomegranates at 4800 Metres:
… Our retirement home in the Comox Valley is on an acreage within a forest. Deer also live here. To have a garden is one of the reasons we bought the property, but the deer are making this dream a nightmare.
Our quests for civilian employment have offered all sorts of opportunities. For several summers I work at a garden centre, never bringing home much pay because I buy plants with an abandon of joy. This joy inevitably turns to disappointment when the deer eat the shrubs and lovely perennials down to miserable stumps.
Determined to win this battle with the marauding deer, I hammer stakes into the ground and hang mesh netting around the plants. It looks hideous. When snow falls, the mesh gets heavy, bends the stakes and tears. In come the munching deer, creating more havoc.
In late January 2003, Mike asks me if I might like to have a proper fence to keep the deer at bay.
“Not the whole property,” he clarifies. “Just a section where you would like to have a garden.”
This offer is a surprise. Mike is happy living in the forest with a bit of lawn around the house. He is not a gardener and doesn’t share my passion for plants. He does, however, realize I have an insatiable desire to change the landscape surrounding us.
Out we go into the pouring rain to survey our jungle.
“The fence shouldn’t be too close,” I suggest. “We won’t want to see it right outside the windows.”
Mike agrees. We tramp around, get soaked and soon have a proposed fence line which makes us both happy. The fence will march through a heavily treed area. Mike marks fifteen alder trees that need to come down. They mostly grow at odd angles, and a few are dead. We leave three spindly firs standing. They have since grown into tall healthy trees providing sanctuary for birds, raccoons, and once a bear, within their thick, soft branches. Deep shade pooling at their feet is now sanctuary for four Adirondack chairs. On hot summer afternoons, I retreat to the inviting cool offered by those grand trees.
That afternoon in January we begin the labour. I cut down swaths of seven-metre-tall salmonberry bushes and brambles. Mike sharpens the chainsaw and the first alders crash to the ground. The next day, the work continues, and the next. As each tree is felled, we buck up the smaller branches and heap them onto a burn pile.
We heat our home with two wood-burning stoves and soon have three years of freshly split firewood. One burn pile becomes three, each the size of a small house. We get a fire permit and have bonfires that send flames and sparks high into the sky. The crackle can be heard from the road and the heat warms the damp February evenings. …
After three weeks, the area is clear enough for the fence. Mike has it professionally installed. The job takes several days and on Valentine’s Day it is complete. No more deer. They still have plenty of room to pass between the fence and a ravine and have continued access to a seasonal creek. Deer still roam most of the property, but a generous space now awaits my planting pleasure.
Planting an arboretum to replace the trees we’ve taken down is one of the first mega projects I undertake. Mum comes to help for a few days. Twenty different types of trees now grow in that area. One of them is a flowering cherry that I planted for Mike. It is his favourite tree, and my thanks to him for the fence. Its prolific blooms each spring remind me of his abundant zest and energy. They give me comfort, just as my fence continues to provide my garden sanctuary from the deer grazing on the other side.
The garden I create offers adventure every time I set foot onto its many paths, and wander its maturing labyrinth of vegetation. Here, I find joy in discovering newness and awe within my daily life. Huckleberry bushes grow among the lilies. Pathways meander along a seasonal stream and among wild perennial beds. A meditation area hides behind a holly tree beside the pond. Fruit trees grow beside ornamental shrubs. Climbing roses create scented havoc over trellises and arbours. A pond and waterfall attract herons and other marauders hunting the fish. Dragonflies, butterflies, bees, hummingbirds flit, hum and buzz.
In the spring snowdrops, daffodils, tulips, columbine and foxgloves surge up from the earth one after another in a mad profusion of exuberant growth. Mature rhododendrons are festooned with flamboyant yellow, pink, purple, white and cream blossoms. During hot summer days perfumes of phlox, rose, lily, marigold, lavender and rosemary mingle and intoxicate. Tomatoes hang thick on run-away vines in the greenhouse. Peas, beans, greens, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries beckon eager picking fingers and delight the tongue.
Patio chairs invite a restful afternoon with a good book. Fifty seats spread throughout my garden provide spots for contemplation and visits with friends at any time in any weather.
When the time comes that I can no longer tramp around foreign lands, my garden will no doubt continue to mystify and surprise. I expect it to provide me a place to reflect on once-upon-a-time, far-away exploits while intriguing me with the joys of new growth and boundless energy. I hope to grow older here, and adventure gently in this magical space created within the protection of my Valentine’s fence.