Tag: nature

A Walk in the Catskills

This afternoon, I forced myself away from my writing chair to take a walk. My bones were starting to ache from sitting so much.  I took a right out of the driveway and walked. I walked fast. I wanted my heart to beat a little faster, maybe even to break a sweat. I also hoped to find an end to the road. And, to get back to work. Then, I passed this beautiful field.

A woman a few decades older than me walked the other way and I said, “How are you?” and she answered, “Not as brisk as you are!” and I felt foolish, like a ridiculous speed-walker I might have once made fun of. So I slowed down. Here’s what else I saw:

No Place Like Home

Here I am, getting all women’s magazine-y, between yesterday’s travelogue and today, I cannot resist posting these photos of our corner of summer bliss. But how better to illustrate why I am happy enough to be an armchair traveler these days. After a few hours of kayaking around the beautiful Norwalk Islands – only minutes from this magical spot under our grape arbor.  

For dinner I grated summer squash and a let it simmer in the skillet in a bath of olive oil and a massive clove of garlic.  This I mixed with the garlic scape pesto I’d made earlier in the week and a few cherry tomatoes thrown in for color to coat the pasta.  Between bites, we wondered what to do with all these grapes.  Any ideas? 

Making Peace

Yesterday ventured into the garden recently ransacked by the groundhog.  For hours, I tore at the plant-to-plant weeds filling the space between surviving tomatoes, peppers and a little bit of basil. I tore at the earth with claw rakes and knelt to yank out the crabgrass, shaking off damp soil that clung to the roots before tossing them in a pile.  I had been ready to abandon this space but yesterday, my nails filled with dirt, rediscovering little peppers ready to pick and some vining plant that escaped Chuck’s teeth, (cucumber? melon? pumpkin?) I am back in the fray.

For one, there is a way I am – a state of being I get into when I garden that these days is the closest I come to meditating. The focus, concentration, complete engagement I feel, is a beautiful thing. It would be nice if there was lettuce left, but there will be tomatoes and some really hot peppers and the bonus of a certain peace of mind and sometimes inspiration to boot.  Harvest is not just about the vegetables.

 

Surrender

I give up — Chuck wins. Tomatoes, peppers, onions and weeds – plenty of weeds are all that remains in my garden. Over the last few days, groundhog trampled and ate the peas, the radishes, eggplant, cilantro, kale — it’s all gone — only sad little markers left like plastic tombstones.  I can’t help feeling like he was just being vindictive, which I know is silly. This is not some Disney animation where the animals behave like humans – I planted things that taste good to him and he ate it all – that’s it. This year in particular, he seemed to be hungrier than ever leaving me with almost nothing, but he wasn’t really being malicious. Still, I can’t help feeling wounded and a tad hopeless about future gardening.

Chuck gnawed right into the core of my optimism and it is this that has me down as much as my disappointment that there will be no sunflowers towering over the garden this year.  I rarely feel defeated for long and this will probably pass quickly – but for now I am in retreat, regrouping on what is possible and what is not.  And is it all just a crapshoot? And to think that farmers live this way, trusting each year, that nature will be benevolent and there crops will thrive rather than be iced, roasted, eaten or otherwise destroyed. I’m not sure I could do it.

Gardening doubt creeps into thoughts about the rest of my life – a shadow of pessimism about everything I am spending my time and energy on. What’s it all for?  Why bother?  It’s difficult not to focus on expected results instead of just embracing the process — even when there are hiccups along the way, with determination, and certainly some love, it can all be kickstarted again. And as for gardening, in the future, I’ll try planting my greens in pots and putting them up high beyond greedy Chuck’s formidable teeth.

Facing the Enemy

 

It’s 9:30 on Sunday morning — already too late to beat the grocery store mobs. Instead, I step out into the garden to see what’s ready to harvest. There is already enough lettuce in the garden for my salads.

Gorgeous snow pea pods seem to have emerged overnight and I better get the rest of the leeks before they blossom. There is a rustle behind, I turn and see, my garden nemesis:

the groundhog.

We are merely feet away from each other. I am sure it is the same old guy who has been helping himself to what I plant, for years. I take a step towards him and he bares his big old teeth. I retreat out of the garden, closing the gate behind me. But fatso can’t get out. Tetley is inside and I think about running to the house to release him — but they are the same size and I would worry about woodchuck geezer hurting my little Cairn. And I imagine their battle would destroy the garden anyway.

Chuck tries a few lame leaps up the wall but can’t make it. Next he burrows into the opposite corner to try and exit through the fence into the peonies. I step back into the garden, my heart pounding, to try and get a better photo and he steps in my direction as if to charge. I retreat. I think about running into the house to get Rob but know he will escape while I am gone — besides, I am not sure of what I want to do with this guy. I have wanted him gone for years — now is my chance.  He is too smart for have-a-heart trap.  The sledgehammer we used to pound in tomato stakes is behind me. I could never do it — but maybe Rob could. But no – I don’t want the carnage. The picture of violence would always be here in this little corner. Instead, I watch him – we eye each other – my look saying, ‘I know it’s you, buddy, so don’t come around here anymore’. (Ha. see below)

He makes another leap for the wall and this time, manages to drag himself through the tangle of raspberries canes.  I open the gate and step inside to assess the damage — cilantro plant knocked over and a few beheaded sunflowers. How many years I have cursed this guy for decimating flowers, just-planted or just-ripe vegetables? And yet face-to-furry-face and I didn’t feel like bashing him. It’s just plants, after all — if he was eating my kid, (or my dog) I’d kill him. I know I could and would. In my mind, this is the same creature that has scampered away just in time for years. And today, older, slower, fatter, and trapped, how could I not feel sorry for him?

P.S. A few hours later, I return to do some weeding and he races past me again — and now the lettuce so nicely captured in the photos above, is gone, as is the marigold and more sunflowers have been stripped to stalks and I feel a fool — but mostly for not shutting the garden gate.

Garden Update

Yesterday, we filled and planted two raised beds — heirloom tomatoes and peppers, dill, parsley, marigold plants and chard, spinach, lettuce and arugula seeds and cucumber seeds tucked into a corner.  The main garden is already planted and even tasted: leeks, spring onions and lettuce. And in another week, our first share of CSA farm vegetables will arrive.

This year, I think I might have overdone it.

On a cold, dark night, one of the many of this long, bitter winter, I decided to pre-order plants for the garden. As the days warmed up and no box appeared, I began to think I might not have actually placed the order. It is like me to fill a cyber basket and then balk at the shipping charge, abandoning my spree. This notion solidified in my mind when a search through my emails failed to turn up a confirmation.  So a few weekends ago, I went shopping for plants — Paul Robeson tomatoes (will they sing?) Thai dragon chiles (will they burn?).  Last week, a box arrived — yes, with more plants.  So if you need tomatoes, peppers, (as long as the critters are not too greedy) I’ll have them.

Looks like there is other bounty in store as well — tiny bunches of grapes already blanket our arbor and the strawberries are beginning to ripen. Still early, but it sure feels like summer has arrived.

Smelling Spring

I have been inhaling my way through spring, almost drunk on the fragrant shrubs in my garden. Last year’s extreme pruning left me with fewer Lilacs this year but I am reassured by wiser gardeners than me that next year will be better. Tiny Carol Mackie Daphne, on the other hand, is exploding in exotically scented little blooms. The Daphne’s fragrance is more delicate than the larger, almost vulgar smelling Virburnum shrub with it’s heavy white heads of flowers.  I made the mistake of planting these beauties all in the same corner at back of the house where we like to sit in the summer, imagining a scented garden. But it’s still too cool back there at this time of year and we rarely sit, as I’d imagined, inhaling the perfumes while soaking in the sun.  Instead, I regularly venture out to this spot to get my scent-fix and lob off branches of blooms to fill the house. But  after only a day or so, both blossoms and perfume fade. It’s not the same.

What is it about scent that is so evocative? I think it’s the ephemeral, passing quality – like time. We cannot keep it – not for long. There, the poignancy of spring.

 

Preferential Treatment – the Garden

Just shy of a quarter of an acre, our yard bustles with wildlife. Yesterday morning, turning the corner of the driveway with Tetley, I spotted a Bluebird.  No, not a Bluejay – a real Bluebird perched on a recently pruned oak branch. It was perfectly and entirely, an extraordinary royal blue. I hoped this fantastic bird might be considering taking over one of the birdhouses, although I think the sparrows might have claimed them all.

Later, I brought my cup of tea outside and settled into a wicker chair on the un-mowed lawn when a rabbit emerged from the hedge.  With slinky-body moves, he moved out of the shadows into a patch of sun where he proceeded to preen and clean himself not ten feet from where I sat. I made no effort to stay still, shifting in my chair, crossing my legs, yet instead of diving back into the bushes, he came closer. Soon he was six feet away, close enough for me to observe his eating technique.  His mouth moving like a non-stop motor, he leant over and plucked stems of dandelions (ours is an organic, thus interesting patchy lawn) from the bottom, then munched the stem down to the blossom end, he paused before swallowing this last (favorite?) bit.  He seemed to prefer spent blossoms, no longer an explosion of yellow, but not yet turned to seed. Sucking in half-a-dozen dandelions stems like so much spaghetti, I couldn’t help but think of the devastation he and his family (you know there are more) will cause in the vegetable garden. I’ll dust off my camera on the chance I’ll see him today and you can see how cute he is.

Even as I imagine rabbit just as quickly devouring tender lettuce, peas and other produce planted by me, I am charmed by him. Yet I do not delight in watching the big-old groundhog that has sniffed at our traps, (of course humane) circumvented our fences, and ignored our dog for many years. I feel mean and yell at him when I see him loping across the yard. Nor do I watch the surplus of squirrels with much pleasure although their gymnastic technique to reach the dangling bird feeders is nothing short of remarkable. So what kind of double standard is this?

 

Seasonal Reminders

The spectacularly short lives of spring flowers makes me melancholy. Hyacinths, as if overwhelmed by their own perfume, topple over into the dirt. The frill of petals around the face of the Daffodil crinkle like old skin.  The Tulips are next on the scene but it’s a race with the squirrels to score some for a vase or two. The Lilac bush I whittled away at last season has come back with the promise of many blooms in each tightly packed cob, but a tree at the end of the driveway that was a blizzard of delicate blossoms last spring, this year sprouts only leaves.

Maybe it is this fleeting-ness of the season causing my anxiety. I blamed work, but after a week off I still wake with a clenched jaw and thundering heart. I force myself to take deep breaths, stretch out into a yoga move or two, but psychically, I am still wound up. I flail around for another reason, any at all – but I know why I cannot shake this feeling. The scents, light and essence of this season are visceral reminders of the anniversary of N’s suicide. Even though these days are endlessly rainy and that week was incongruously sunny, memories of terrible days are still conjured up by spring.  I can’t shake, ignore or forget — 7 years later at this time of year, a state of strung-out, high-alert is still my lot – as is an eternal unanswerable question of whether there was anything else I could have done.

Believing in Spring

A deceptively bright, Sunday morning — officially spring, but still winter cold. Tetley and I do our morning wander down the street serenaded by birds. Different songs than the desperate beeps and chirps of winter. It’s mating season and the Mourning doves and Cardinals are in full swing of seduction. Sparrows have already moved into one of the bird houses and Robins are everywhere. But at least at this early hour, it’s still cold.

Last week it snowed – burying the mini Daffodils and other blossoms that so bravely appeared a  week ago. The croci wound themselves up like little torpedos and by the afternoon, the white stuff gone, heroically opened up again. Little hand shaped leaves of lupine emerge hopefully along the sunny bank beside the driveway, and on the slope just beneath them, the strawberry plants seem to be spreading by the day. I have meant to read up on what I should do with them — although last year’s harvest was brilliant, in spite – or maybe because of, my neglect.

I began some early season garden tasks last week with very serious pruning.  After a quick computer reference (my poor garden books gather dust) I grabbed my lobbers and shears and ruthlessly cut back the Roses, Autumn Clematis, and Butterfly bushes and grapes, to mere sticks. I love how these plants climb up the side of the house and across our backyard arbor. Tangled in the trellises and half-way up the chimney, they already had such a great head start. So I paused before cutting, but cut them I did, leaving scrawny sticks against the house and piles of thorny branches across the lawn. A gardening leap of faith for the future.

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