11.12.2014

November Closings


The gardens are almost 'put to bed' for the season.  
The perennials are trimmed to the ground, and the annuals have been yanked.
We've added umpteen bags of compost and all that has to be done is a thick blanket of leaf mulch.
This seems like a bigger job every year, and for the first time, I'm thinking 
maybe I'm to old to keep this up with all of this.
The gardens were my distraction during the intense years of childrearing.
The boys wanted to be outside and were happy to follow me around, 
digging in the dirt, swatting leaves with sticks and occasionally tasting a worm.
Yes ... it happened.

* I am completely in love (gushgush) with these photos of the morning sun on fall leaves. All I had to do was juggle the dials a bit and set the camera on the patio. Press the button and check the result - each photo a great surprise. Photography is so much easier now than the film days when each shot mattered since it cost dollars to develop. 

But now my occupations are mostly indoors and no one is coaxing me outside 
to play. And so the gardens are not as well tended as in years past.
We actually took one out last week; moved the plants we wanted to keep 
and threw the rest on the reject pile.  It was a relief to see bare space where 
a garden had been - isn't that sad?! 

** Is it sick that I'm happy to know that all spiders have frozen?  This guy lived, rent free, in the Lily of the Valley patch for at least a month.  Pretty generous of me... I think I've earned some grim glee at their passing.

*** I was sitting outside looking up into this HUGE sweet gum tree with My Youngest. "Remember how we used to sit out here and read Lord of the Rings, Mom? Those were great days!"  The words of a teenaged son can be brutal or blessing, and they seem unaware of either effect. I'm savoring these as a special blessing.



2 comments:

  1. My mother, who is 90, used to have several flower gardens but over the years had to scale back. Now she just has one small patch outside her living room window, but it still brings her lots of pleasure.It's not always the quantity that matters. Great photos of the leaves.

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  2. I totally get what you're saying...sweet memories!

    But, our gardens are coming back to life again (well at least they will come Spring) - I have grandchildren coaxing me now!

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