First of March, first day of spring... what did you do?

How did you celebrate this glorious day?

Tradition says that spring begins March 1st. It also says that March 1st used to be the first day of the year...

In Romania it's the day when girls of all ages receive flowers, and the "martisor". Martisor (which means "Little March") is a small object, made of either beads, glass, wood, metal, clay, shells, ... you name it, imagination runs freely on the Romanian land... representing animals, flowers (especially spring flowers), cute little insects (like the ladybug), or symbols of love (hearts) or good luck: the 4-leaf clover, the chimney-sweeper. These little objects (sometimes, depending on the pocket, they can be expensive jewelry, as the tradition "evolved") are tied with a red-and-white thread, that is supposed to symbolize love, life! Because that's what spring is all about!

The girls wear this pinned to their blouses for about 2 weeks. Then, first day of April, the string is tied to a fruiting tree, so it will bear fruit heavily! So, for all the beautiful ladies in TZG, here's a Martisor!

Love and hugs for everyone,
Alexandra

As for me, this morning I looked in my little jewelry box, where I have a couple of Martisoare (plural for martisor)... and then went shopping with my hubby. Shopping for what?

Well, plants, of course! I've got a rose "Don Juan" (Maybe this time I will keep it alive)! And then I got green light for more shopping! For the coming weeks, I'll be getting some Hoyas (Hurray!) and 2 scented Epiphyllums!
...still banned for orchids :o(

How nice!

I rode my bike for half an hour first thing this morning, then worked repotting plants etc. until 11 when the cold front started to blow through and did indoor stuff the rest of the day.
I made tomato and roasted pepper soup which was YUMMY and read an entire Elmore Leonard novel.....

Well, I stayed home and inside where it's nice and warm. We got several inches of snow and it was sunny today. They sun was glaring off the snow and really hurt my eyes. So I stayed in and took pics of the birds this morning.

Yeah, it was a bit cooler today and yesterday (65, compared with the rest of the week, when we reached 90!!!). It really felt like spring!

Pepper, sending you some warmth!

Dutchlady, sounds like you had a perfect day! Please share the recipe!

And some spring flowers for all the Tropical kids, my first ones after 6 years!

and

another

a white crocus

and an Ipheion

Blooms!! They match my yard right now. LOL. Some do anyways.

BTW, Pepper, where are the bird pics? Show, please!

I don't have my most recent pics downloaded yet but I still have a whole lotta pics. LOL

I cleaned up all the Cycads in the garden today. Here is a female Macrozamia with mature cones.

I've never seen a live cardinal, so I'm grateful for the picture!

Dave, that's a beautiful plant!

Here's a cluster of them.

Oh, Pepper, they are so pretty! Is the light-brown with a bit of red also a cardinal?

Here is a Camellia.

This is Ixora!

Beautiful flowers! I remember the Ixoras in Miami!

The Spring blooms and fruit of Ozmoxylon linearis.

This is Nepenthes. I don't know if they count as Spring flowers but they stand out in the garden!

Dave, do you have a small hut that I can move in?

This is the Lipstick Palm, glad to see warmer weather come back to Kilauea.

Hey Alexandra, there ain't nothin' but small huts around here!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA...Well...I live about 50' lower on the mountain than Dave (who sounds warm and happy) freezing my toosh off, fire in the wood stove and wearing Polar Fleece!!! Were am I? Funny....we have trees full of Cardinals, too (someone brought them onto the island because they are pretty...now we listen to their territory battles and watch them in the trees)...and spring is happening...but (sorry, Dave) I am cold. There...I said it and I am glad.

Goofybulb...I remember always thinking May 1 was spring..."Hooray Hooray the First of May...", and the Maypole .... and we made little baskets out of ? (probably left over from Easter) and filled them with flowers which we took to those we loved (or had a crush on or both).

Please tell us more about your customs .... I love hearing about them. My first Mother in Law was a wonderful woman, first generation Romanian in NY City... she and her sister....and while they were Jewish, my best friend in Paris was Romanian and an Armenian. Such a diverse country and wonderful wonderful people!!!

Doesn't buying a plant for your garden in spring give your spirit such a song!!!

Dave...what a great shot thru your Agaves... Wow.

This message was edited Mar 1, 2009 7:40 PM

Still cold but warming up Carol! I can still see my breath in the morning; always a good reason for another cup of coffee!

Dave, I see one, seems to have my name on it! How beautiful it is there! Morning coffee, evening chocolate, what else can one dream for?

Well, I had to look it up to see how cold you really are there, Carol and Dave! That was my daytime temp in the last couple of days! Nighttime estimated to drop to 35, but really, at 5am this morning, our patio thermometer showed 48. It's OK, I'm thinking of what will soon come, and enjoy this spring-ish weather to the fullest!
I agree it is a weird weather you're having! And I'm also bad at adjusting to sudden temp drops.

OK, brief (Romanian) calendar coming up in next post...

Oh, happy spring garden plants song!

March 1st is the beginning of "calendar spring"

Between March 1st and 8, it is what we call "the old ladies days". The roots of this are also quite far in time. Depending on the region, one chooses a day, or three days, from this interval. For the one-day version, you look at how the weather is, and it is said that this is how your year will be: sunny means lucky, rain is not so lucky. Another version is that the weather reflects one's personality for the year (sunny = happy, rainy = sad), and some divide the day's weather (morning, noon and evening) and correlate it with how one changes from childgood to old age (ie, sunny morning, rainy noon and evening = happy child, sad adult and elder). The 3-day version is similar with the day-division.
The weather in the first days of March is really quite changing, so it might happen that you get everything in one day! There are many legends about these first days of spring, and many of them involve an old lady (Baba) Dochia (Dochia is her name), if you want, I'll tell you some.
My "old lady day" is tomorrow! I always choose March 2nd as my day. Sometimes, if I want the 3-day version, I choose 2nd, 4th and 8th.

March 8th is Mother's day. I think it's European? Definitely not only Romanian. Flowers for Moms (Grandmas, Grand-grandmas, and wives and sweethearts too).

March 9th is a religious holiday. To me, it will be baking day, as there is a special way of making cozonac (remember cozonac?): you shape it into 8-shape, and there must be 40 such shapes... it also gets sweeter, as you top them with honey and nuts (wallnuts)... will tell more, as I figure out how to translate the name of the holiday. Anyway, it's a good-eats day!

Spring equinox (March 20) spring takes note and officially begins. The popular belief is that spring starts when the cuckoo starts singing (which apparently is close to the equinox... maybe the cuckoo reads the sky, the calendar???)

April begins with April's fool day for us too!

For us, May 1st was (still is?) Labor Day. Didn't enjoy it much, but I always loved the month of May! The crazy teenagers usually take advantage of the prolonged weekend and go to the Black Sea seaside, and take the first bath in the sea (water is frequently less than 68F at that time of year), they display the first tan (in the happy situation) or sunburn...
Mmmmm, the first cherries are eaten at the end of May!

June is the beginning of summer. I have to remember what tells us that summer is here! But I have several months ahead to search my memory, right?

Bit different for us. We're still in the middle of the wet season, just past the middle anyway. 10th February the sun was over head but on its way back to you in the northern hemisphere which often means we get a burst of wetter weather. So everything's saturated (got my tractor bogged today, you'd think I'd have learned to leave it alone this time of year!). Anyway, we've got a couple more months of rain to go. The windshear over us is weakening. An ominous sign the cyclone activity that's been kept to our south could start moving our way now. And so the cycle goes.

What a great thread - wonderful pictures and traditions!

It's been cold (well for us) here too, with very high winds all week - but not as chilly as Dave and Carol up on their mountain, and certainly not as bad as Pepper's weather. All the same we had to break out a sweater because of the winds...visitors were walking around half naked though...

Lovely shot of the cardinals Pepper, we have them here too and they must be starting to nest because they fuss at us when we are out in the garden.

Most of the pumelo, guava and starfruit crop are on the ground because of the wind - but funnily enough the papaya are still on the trees even though some of the highest ones blew down. Some of the mango are throwing out a few flowers now, hopefully we are going to have more settled weather - and some heat!

Jenn

Lovely to know of your traditions, GB....

My son in Washington State laughs at me when I say it is cold at 60 deg. But, remember: Our homes (mostly) are single wall construction (no central heating) and we have many windows with only screens, no windows to close. The ceilings are generally high (heat rises) and here we are surrounded by forest (damp) and the wind coming at us is off the mountain where there is snow. I sit here at my computer on a screened in porch and it is veeeeeery cold! Also...I think our blood gets thinner (probably not true but it sounds good!!!) being in the tropics...but it doesn't stop the mosquitos. The only GOOD thing about the cold is that it keeps those mozzies from being active!!!

The wind has been blowing strongly...

We had a storm from the north blow through down here and we are also freezing and wearing long sweaters while the tourists frolic in swimsuits and shorts :) I think you do acclimate to the weather because I know I experience 60 degrees as very cold and it really just matters how it feels to you. I had to get up and pull more blankets out 2 nights ago when we got here to the beach, I couldn't get warm enough to sleep. I usually get out my hot water bottle (!) and put that in the bed to keep my feet warm. I'd left both of them over in the city and briefly considered using a zip lock baggie but I was afraid it would break.

Dave, I'm so jealous of your lipstick palm. I've searched all over down here for one of those, so far no luck. I'm often told that they have one, I go to see it and it's not. I want one to plant in my pond as I saw a picture from Florida with a large one growing in water.

I spent the first of March at a friend's garden dedication. She had a beautiful ceremony blessing her new garden and celebrating it with friends. It is a gorgeous garden, sheltered from the sea by the house and high walls so it is lush and green. I wish I'd taken my camera.

The lipstick palm does indeed love lots of water and the Botanical Gardens had one growing in a pond. It's been moved now, due to the expansion project.

Knew that Lipstick palms liked water, but didn't know they actually will grow in water. I had one a few years back but it died. The ground was too porous and the irrigation wasn't set up right. May try it again - in water this time. They're reasonably common here, the small ones in the 200mm (8 inch?) pots are really cheap. Once you go for the big pots they can get quite expensive.

I agree with the comment about what you're used to with the cold. If it doesn't get to 30C it's considered quite cold here. It's very rare for days to stay below 30C. It's rare for nights to get below 15C. Yet tourists come and think that's hot.

Oh, you guys! I didn't mean to belittle the coldness you've got these days. I used to be the same while in Miami, if the nights would drop to mid-60, we would turn the heater on (the main consequence was that it smelled like burnt dust, no real heat) and grab another blankie... My parents back home would roll with laughter, too!

Carol, Jen, Dave, Pepper, some warmth coming your way! Today I baked cozonac, and I managed to heat the whole house to a "splitting headache" 85F/30C! It should go well with the cuppa Dave was talking about.

Tropicbreeze, is it wet season only, or is it also kind of summer-fall in your area? I know so little about "the other side"... shame on me! Did you manage to rescue the tractor?

Extranjera, is the garden dedication a custom that you repeat every spring?

Jenny, such a pity with all the fallen fruit!

Dutchlady, you still "owe" us the soup recipe!

I forgot to tell you, my "old lady day" was sunny and warm, but breezy, so I suppose I'll have a nice year overall. If it's to translate it into my personality/behavior for the year, I should be cheery, but a bit rushed/impulsive. Well? We'll see...

Oh the recipe....
This is very loosely measured. I happened to have a bowl of roasted peppers around which my DH had done on the grill last week when we found peppers on sale. I used about the equivalent of 1 1/2 bell pepper (red and green)

Olive oil, 3 cloves garlic, one sweet onion, cook until onions are translucent, add the bell peppers cut into pieces, add a can of tomatoes and about 3 cups of broth (I use a vegetarian stock) and a tablespoon of hot pepper flakes. Also some oregano and thyme, and a dash of paprika, salt and pepper as you like.
Cook the whole thing for appr. 30=45 minutes, then puree using a rod mixer (or a blender); add a half a can of corn kernels for little sweet bombs in the pretty spicy, tangy soup.
YUM.

mmmm, that soup sounds deliciious.

The garden was a new installation. She has been working on the back of her house for quite a while and it was finally complete and grown in a little so she had a blessing for it. In addition, she had a spot prepared there for her brother's ashes, he died a couple of years ago. So, it was not at all sad but a joyful thing with fond memories of her brother and the beautiful space she now has.

Yummy! Now I have to go shopping... but come summer, I hope I'll have my own peppers. Saved the recipe in my folder and I'm going to make it this weekend!

That is so beautiful and thoughtful, Extranjera.

OK, I'm back, quite tired, but happy!

Happy (belated) woman's day/mother's day for all you beautiful ladies here! This was the spring event for the 8th of March. I hope that each and everyone of you got a flower for this day!

Hugs,
Alexandra

I finally got a translation for today's celebration (March 9th): it's the 40 martyrs of Sebaste. Again, not planning to talk about the religious side of this. You know what I like to share with you, the fine traditions and customs of the Romanians.

In their memory, in the Romanian cuisine the cozonac takes the shape of 8, and there must be 40 such cakes, that are called "mucenici" (martyrs). This time, there is no nut filling, but each little mucenic is sunk in a syrup made of honey - (with a bit of lemon juice and rum) and then dunked in ground nuts (well, walnuts, of course, they are the traditional nut, symbol of richness and veneration). Yesss, nuts and honey, the sweet things that make any celebration a feast, and make a holiday culinary dream!

I got home quite late today, and made them, but didn't quite reached the last steps (the syrup and nut part)... well, I'll do that tomorrow.

Tradition says one should have at least 40 in the house. Or, even better, 40 to give away to others and 40 more for the family. I'll definitely give some away, since there's just the two of us in this house.

Here's shaping them...