June 30, 2010
My literary moments are growing further and further apart. I thought this might happen. I use the computer less, and when I do use it, it is to check e-mail at a time when I usually don’t have extended time to begin writing.
Plus, I find that my moments in nature are less frequent, I am not taking long walks, and the moments seem more mundane or fleeting. I am in the garden or walking out to the mailbox at the end of a long day. Does anyone want to read about the mist rising up over the farmer’s field as I drove home from a meeting? Or my seconds long encounter with a doe last night. I met her on the road. She was beginning to walk into the road as I was driving down. I slowed; she turned and went to the edge of the trees. There she stopped, turned and looked at the big beast that slowed for her. Our eyes met: hers a beautiful deep-toned brown of earth, mine green and shielded by spectacles. Could she see into my soul? I did not tarry, I have not tarried watching wildlife on the road ever since I pointed to a partridge to my hunting ex-husband. He stopped the car and shot it. I will never be a point dog again! I find that now it is better to keep those moments brief and secret in my heart, as a treasure for me to carry within.
Parts of the garden are doing great, parts are not. I planted edemame (fresh soybean, as opposed to dry) this year and had four plants come up from a packet of about 30. I was just talking to a friend that planted some too; she had the same ratio of 4:30. Maybe it was a poor seed crop. The winter squashes never seemed to sprout either. The seed was a few years old, but…. There is a farm stand where I can supplement my failures. The rest of the garden is fairing quite well, and I have no complaints. I am battling slugs, as is everyone I know. At our last book discussion group, we talked about our various means of dealing with slugs. Some of the more gentle folks I know get pretty heartless when it comes to protecting their vegetables.
The birds continue to sing, the beavers are enjoying the swimming hole, and the plants are blooming all out of sequence this year.
"I did not tarry, I have not tarried watching wildlife on the road ever since I pointed to a partridge to my hunting ex-husband. He stopped the car and shot it. I will never be a point dog again! I find that now it is better to keep those moments brief and secret in my heart, as a treasure for me to carry within."
ReplyDeleteThat's very funny, sad, and particularly well written. Did you congratulate yourself on those sentences especially?
My garden is generally doing well, knock on wood. I'm 3/4s done with peas on the 4th of July--and I had a very heavy 55 foot row, so we've done a lot of shelling.
The tomatoes are throwing blossoms very early. The plants, of course, only having been set out six weeks ago, are not huge, but I decided not to snip those blossoms. I didn't have a single tomato last year and am jonesing bad. With luck, without blight, I'll be eating about 18 different varieties of heirlooms by end of summer.
My potatoes look great--as long as my wife and I do Colorado Potato Beetle patrol 3 or 4 times a day. We really like the colored varieties and I have purples, reds, yellows as well as standard russets and Norlands. I should be sitting down to a meal of potatoes, parsley, horseradish, and butter, all but the last homegrown, within a week or two.
Even the okra I baby and baby looks like it might do something, ditto the artichokes.
Brassicas strong and brassy. I've even found a use for kohlrabi--grate and mix with cole slaw.
But I lost a lot of corn to wire worm--shouldn't have spread fresh manure so late! It looks spotty and pale compared to some of the garden corn I see from the road. It is knee-high by the 4th of July, however!
And I've lost the battle after five years to keep my asparagus weeded. Gone wild--too many plants to watch out for (about 80), too many weeds from last summer's rains.
My secret for battling slugs? I say to my wife, "Gee, we have a lot of slugs." A while passes and they mostly disappear. It's magic!
And what would a garden be without its little oddities? Last night I noticed that there was a brussel sprout growing in the middle of the early cabbages, 40 feet from the rest of the sprouts. How did that happen???
Ever the English teacher. Those particular sentences popped in and out as quickly as the rest of my post. But, I must admit, is is a tight little piece!
ReplyDeleteWorry about the slugs, they disappear and the heat takes over...What is a gardener to do?
You must have a HUGE garden, Mine is roughly 28'x32. And I haven't nearly the amount or variety that you have mentioned. I'm just starting to eat peas.
rc ...
ReplyDeleteYou're okay. Write for yourself, not posterity. Few are those who witness sublime moments in nature every day, so it stands that exquisitely written thoughts on some theme of nature can't happen every day. Besides, it isn't everybody who gets to see a deer as often as you.
Besides, inspiring moments don't always have to happen outdoors. They may happen wherever, and whenever - and if you keep your senses open then you'll capture them (and Yes, for the record, you do smell an anecdote coming). So before you go and read any further, let me be the first to say that this anecdote is NOT a warm and fuzzy sublime moment.
My anti-sublime moment occurred just a couple sweltering nights ago. For background, rc, I have to explain that I was visiting family, one of whom is very old and frail. The other, pretty old herself but still going strong thanks partly to her stoicism, keeps the household going. But her stoicism was unexpectedly challenged the other evening by the unexpected and unwanted appearance of a bat flying around their bedroom minutes after she retired. So a-noni-mouse was called upon to chase said bat around the house with a badminton racket, and with ill intent. There was little choice. Calm rationality, which I would have liked to have written that I exhibited during this time, was replaced by a lot of arm-waving swishing and banging around. And the poor bat ending up losing.
Sublime. Yeah!! How come we can't play nice with nature all the time, even those times we're bothered? After all, that deer you saw (while you were in his "home") didn't go around head-butting you to a mulch.
A secret to getting bats easily out of the house! Open a window, turn on all the lights in the room and close the door, with the bat still in that room. They will leave before you know it.
ReplyDelete