Bringing Nature In and Lessons in Patience

"Adopt the pace of nature. Her secret is patience."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Living in Montana offers up plenty of opportunities to practice patience, especially in the spring when I long for warmer weather. We are under a winter storm watch right. Yes, on May 22 we are expecting snow. It won't last long, just enough to make driving dicey over the next 24 hours and enough to perhaps break off leaf and bloom laden branches on trees and bushes.

So, I set outside to cut armloads of lilac blooms before the snow gets to them. But, the buds are not open and they have no sweet fragrance yet. I suppose it is for the best as they will probably better survive the winter storm as tight buds rather than blooming flowers.  Alas, more lessons in patience.

Instead, I opted to cut some branches from our Canadian Chokecherries and a volunteer honeysuckle growing in my hedge.

I placed the branches in a mason jar of water and set that inside a galvanized sap bucket I bought this past weekend at the flea market. I set the bucket in my front entryway.

They smell lovely and help to bring a little spring inside, regardless of what is happening outdoors. I am sure in a few days I will have little white petals all over the entryway floor--nature's glitter. Bringing bits of nature into our homes year round is always mood lifting and a  wonderful design choice. And hopefully, by the end of the weekend, patience will pay off and the sun will be shining on blooming lilacs.