There is much that gives me pleasure in life, starting off with sharing it all with my husband at my side.  There is the pleasure that one's children provide on occasion, and observing the maturation of a grandchild, amazed at what a young mind is capable of absorbing.  There is pleasure in fond memories, in reading a good book, in writing an essay or a poem.  There is pleasure in anticipating and then embarking on an adventure.  Walking thoughtfully through the green enclosure of a narrow forest trail is pleasurable, hearing a birdsong that is particularly eloquently lovely.  Seeing wildlife in all its innocence.

And then there is profound satisfaction to be had in the pleasure of gardening.  It's a different kind of satisfaction from the profound type that results in cooking and baking for one's family, the nurturing function in which pleasure also resides.  Gardening, working with dark, moist soil, planting growing things that will give one aesthetic pleasure born of form, texture, colour and fragrance is like observing a covenant with nature.

Yesterday I grasped a brief opportunity between much-appreciated downpours throughout the day to finally plant the three new hostas I'd bought the previous week when it was far too devastatingly hot to disturb them.  And so, the hostas named August Moon, Stained Glass and Gold Standard joined our collection of garden hostas, one of our very most favourite plants.

We have hostas aplenty in our gardens, many of them divided from original plants we had bought decades earlier.  I've given pieces of our hostas to neighbours for their gardens.  And I've lusted after one particular hosta that one of our neighbours has had for a long time, but this is a hosta that sternly resists dividing.