Season Switch

One afternoon last week a cold wind began to blow and in the course of a few hours, the weather switched from summer heat to an autumn chill. Summer’s final days usually make me melancholy — the end of long hours of light and evenings of warmth. Not this year. I feel done with the heat, ready to drag my sweaters out and stop feeling guilty about neglecting the garden.

Between relentless high temperatures, the groundhog’s appetite, invisible creatures that made skeletons of my chard, and my own neglect, the garden is mostly a mess. I wade through weeds to salvage what veggies remain. A variety of peppers, a handful of cherry tomatoes and an eggplant or two.

Basil is hanging in there. But mostly, it’s a wash-out. One sunflower lays bent in the garden although I planted over a hundred seeds.

In a nod to autumn growing possibilities, I replaced the remains of the hanging petunia with a mum but otherwise, am ready to let it all go.  There are still a few weeks left of my CSA vegetable deliveries. Squash, black kale, potatoes and carrots galore fill the crisper in my very small fridge. I am ready to make soups and other slow cooking meals to fill the house with smells of simmering garlic, onions and herbs.

I retrieved my fuzzy slippers and heavy robe from the back of the closet to bundle up for these morning sessions. This quiet hour of writing is now dark and cold. While I sit, morning light gradually seeps into the room and so the day begins. I am ready.

 

2 thoughts on “Season Switch”

  1. Glad to hear I’m not the only one letting my veggie garden go. Still getting eggplants (tiny), tomatoes (a few), cucumbers (not all yellow!), chives, basil, parsley — which sounds great, except for I am pushing away bushes of weeds, broken tomato stalks, weathered and feathered asparagus stems, to retrieve what I can. And cold, yes it is cold but I love that early morning chill. Wakes me up! Thank you for evoking so beautifully, again, the sustaining life of the backyard.

  2. Your post so conveys that cross over of seasons…I feel cozy and ready to make soup! I love the photographs..have to figure out how to do that on my blog. I also love that you post such beautiful, brief musings…..a feeling, an atmosphere….I will become a regular reader! How wonderful to be introduced through a book fair! Lea

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