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A Crop Harvest for All Year – http://wp.me/p2Jp2g-YD
And the rain comes down.
The rain is coming down. I’m reminded of the ceaseless drops of my childhood. Not a light on in the house. I put on the kettle. The kettle was not a fixture as the rain was. And the rain falls. I wrote poetry as a child. It flowed down my arm and onto the page. Sometimes as a trickle, teasing. Sometimes in a painful flood. And the rain falls. The cadence teases. A bubbling push to the surface that won’t break. The kettle whistles. The pour gurgles. The aroma wafts. Turn on a light, silly. Warm up your hands. Listen to the sound of the earth’s nourishment and feel the satisfaction of the soil. You’re not there. It’s not then. I chop bacon. The pan sizzles. Cutting the colors of the earth into the pan I feel the words stirring. When is the last time this happened? Seven years ago? Twelve? Longer. And the rain falls. Start a fire. (There’s no more wood.) Start a fire. (But there’s no more wood.) Start a fire.
I light a candle.
Tis not always the season…
It’s Wednesday here still. In other places it’s Thursday already. Every week the story repeats. Every day a similar story is told. I am not one for annual resolutions, but I can relate to those who are. I do my best resolving in the moment when the inspiration, necessity, or courage descends. When it’s time, it’s time. Time for change, as so many will attempt to do tomorrow. Or time for a walk, or time for a bloom.
It’s 37° F here and has been all day. The They People say it feels like 23. After the walk I took earlier, I’m inclined to believe them. Wrapped snugly with a baby, two jackets, a scarf, gloves and hat, my daughter and I set off to walk the dog. The dog? He was quite stylish in his green, grey, and brown sweater rescued from the Goodwill. (He’s a large dog such that they don’t make sweaters in his size, but short haired with little body fat and a big shivering mess when it’s cold, so there you are.)
No one was out. A few cars rolled by, but not a single person was walking, or raking, or checking their mail. The birds were hunkered down on power lines and in bamboo stands alike. The squirrels were happy to leave you wondering where they went.
Ah, but the wind. The wind blustered and billowed. The wind cut through sleeves and ripened cheeks. The wind made no mistaking why no one was out.
You may think we were out walking for the dog’s sake, and while he does enjoy two walks a day most days of the year, he would’ve been more content, I’d wager, curled up on his new Christmas bed by the fire. No, this walk was for her. Our little runchkin who was rather angry that she’d forgotten how to nap today. There are a few magical tricks in our parenting bag that work when “nothing else does” and the best bet is tucking her into a wrap while I walk around the neighborhood. Even that doesn’t always work, and when it doesn’t (like today) it takes a little humming and she’s fast asleep.
So I enjoyed the abandoned yards and still constructed (or half-removed) holiday decorations, because it meant no one would interrupt her precious nap, and no one would hear my humming of two verses of Little Drummer Boy for a mile and a half.
And when we got home, and she’d woken up again, we visited my current favorite volunteer plant and had a seasonal surprise.
Happy New Year, near and far.
Plants afoot.
And so it begins.
The first garden in the new house is planted. Just a few days shy of six months after moving into our new dwelling I have food growing in soil in my backyard again. There’s something settling in that…having food growing in my backyard.
I continue to spend most days growing other things: my marriage, my daughter, my career, the dust accumulation on the ceiling fan…but to once again have hope of the tastiest broccoli, of crisp kale five minutes fresh in my breakfast of bacon, carrots and egg yolks…I knew I missed working the earth but only now that it’s sneaking back into my days do I allow myself to realize how much I truly yearned.
Only one bed is growing, but I’m slowly adding more. Four more are built and waiting. Sticks, grass, and ash in the bottoms. Two bags of leaves transferred from hatchback to hatchback in the dark parking lot of a diner. Tree branches fell in exchange for a neighbor’s apple pie.
I have my work cut out for me, and for that I am grateful.
Pull the grass. Burn the grass.
Or: Why? How do you dispose of your invasives while adding ash to your soil?
A second spring.
Fall here can be glorious. Instead of the omen of dark and dreary winter days holed up waiting for cabin fever, autumn in this part of the world is a release. A release from the air-conditioning, a freedom to breathe the fresh air after a storm, the ability to enjoy spending time outdoors again…and the flora put on their Sunday best to welcome in the escape from the heat.
The instructions said “place in water and watch expand like magic!” After days in water with no expansion, I took to it with prying and pulling and now merely have smaller chunks whereas I was hoping for a sowing material.
I mowed the front lawn for the first time in ages. A new mower even, as the one we’d had the past near-four years blew a head gasket. Replace the head gasket, right? Well, yes, if they still made head gaskets for this model. It is super old though, being that it’s a whole six years since manufactured date, so it makes sense…(not.) This mower had a bag, and while I haven’t bagged lawn clippings since perhaps 1992, the length of the lawn and the hungry new garden beds in the back changed my plans. Six full bags of clippings later and the front yard was done and the beds had some more soil food.
DH was about to grill some dinner for us and thought to empty the ash bin. What a delicious meal the garden beds had yesterday!
When mowing the front lawn, I dodged a few things. Obviously this little resilient blossom was spared the mower’s blade. When we moved in nearly five months ago now, someone kicked or knocked or otherwise took a rose bush off at the ground. It ended up in the gutter. Here we are, nearly five months later, and that little root system has chugged along and plugged away to give it a go and show those careless rosebush kickers! (And the blossom smells amazing to boot!)
That’s not the only rose showing its fall colors…
I also cut around these little guys…
and these little guys.
Why yes, that is a volunteer tomato in an abandoned pot. And yes, I am leaving it be to see if we can’t have a winter tomato harvest. Why not?
And it looks to be near time to harvest our first fruit from Oscar the Meyer Lemon Tree.
Happy seasons change to you, where ever you may be.
Slow progress
Losing the light.
As the sunlight left the sky to brighten another’s day, the street lights came on and the critters came out. (Why yes, I did consider a light jacket for the chilly 72 degrees.)
plumdirt 