Resilience in the face of hardship....

Every year I am blown away to see my Amaryllis belladonna's appear from the dry, dead end-of-summer ground and provide me and my garden with real evidence of the amazing things that nature does. I was almost sure that our weather had beaten the belladonnas this year, they seem to be late and I have looked longingly for those little bursts of life for weeks, with no luck. But, sure enough, even though we have only had ONE day of rainfall since September (fortunately 3 and a half inches at once) and temps of up to 46 degrees.... ensuring anything that had survived the past few years in my garden has nearly given up now.... up came the belladonnas...and with an extra surprise!

I pulled out a heap of dead things in the winter and left one space bare.. (or so I thought). A few years ago I found a bulb amongst fig tree roots near my MIL's and she assured me that there had once been white flowers there before the tree took over, white flowers from over 1oo years ago!! I planted a few, but have never seen results...until the other night.

Now, funny story, I found it going out to lock up the chooks and the next day was to be 40's and high wind, I was so worried it would blow away by morning I took excitement pics in the dark!!

I really love that picture now, but I took a pic the next day for you, with my finished "Fall back in time" table runner as backdrop.

I have talked before about how I am a "glad game" kind of a girl, I prefer to look at positives and silver linings and one door opening as another door closes. I can't honestly say i see positives in a worsening global economy but i am seeing a back to basics mentality that seems to bode well for society as a whole. I suppose in some ways, farmers always have to live with the uncertainty that now surrounds every industry. It is quite common for our income to halve...or worse...just from a night of frost or not getting that vital rain at the right moment-or, quite often, too much rain at once! So we learn to be eternal optimists and get back up and start the whole process all over again..

And making patchwork quilts can help us all get through this....

I can't remember where I once saw this quote from an early pioneer woman saying, "I made quilts quickly enough to stop my family freezing and pretty enough to stop me going mad." But it has stayed with me and is something for all of us to think about. Don't get sad and give up quilting, or blogging, because life is giving you scraps...now's the time to make quilts out of them!! Out of Op shop shirts and old blankets and chenille and garish eiderdowns! Why not??

I feel like starting a new internet group called "Getting through the global crisis one quilt at a time!!" Where economical quilts are once again loud and proud!!

On the ABC radio an expert was talking about this, I think in relation to crafters wanting to make fire victims blankets actually, I found part of what she says here, http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2009/02/18/2495263.htm?site=melbourne&rotator=true

Very well worth a read.

So, just as my belladonnas can make it through the hard seasons, so can we....perhaps the name for that quilt group should be the Belladonnas...true in more than one sense-doesn't it mean beautiful lady??

I'll finish up there,with some pictures of my pink belladonnas at sunrise the other morning...... Have a great day

...comment prize announced next post...pleased you liked Tag galaxy.....