Final Post

It is still quite warm here even as the nights are getting cooler the days require only a light jacket. There will be weeks of heavy labor in the garden but then I plan on doing my best to imitate the bear in hibernating. I look forward to going to bed early, knitting next to the heater and sipping warm almond milk once the fury of effort is over and the rains come in torrents. This seems to me the perfect time to finish my foray into the blogging having accomplished a little over a year of entries. I've always enjoyed keeping a diary and this public medium gave me a chance to share the details of my life both photographically and in writing. Thank you.

fireside

I’m transmitting to you fireside, outside, black kitties slink around me.

The garden in punctuated by bold shapes, plants and trees well defined. The Iris fans out jagged, Giant Ferns graceful serration unlike the sword ferns who stand at stiff attention, and there, the dramatic exaggerations of the aloe, all face. Pumpkins sit quietly turning orange. Hot apple cider. I’ve been working in the garden for hours, clearing and pruning and turning compost. In the daytime the space is rough and barren, large patches of dirt ready. I am overwhelmed by the openness, usually preferring a lush, plant dominated space, ordered chaos is my favorite environment. In the night, however, the landscape softens and the barren turns into negative space, showing the structure of the garden; large plants are displayed by the space around them, sculptural. The Sweetie Garden is now showing a circle of elegant ladies; Redbud, Red Current, Lime, Lemon and an amazing tall, gangly plant with leaves like the oak and a stiff, orange, pointy pedaled flower, I don't recall the name. All of these anchor the space with complimentary size and shape, encouraging the eye to move around the circle just in the same way a well painted painting encourages the eye to interact dynamically with the image presented.

The Vitex, another pointy leaved plant, expresses herself elegantly nearby, a visual conversation without the headiness of words. At night, this fall garden encourages me to be awake and look around with curiosity, which is why the fall is the time for setting in the next wave of production in planting. I can see clearly what needs to be worked on and what is working perfectly. Everyday is filled with a need to take advantage of this special time. The fire has been comforting these last few weeks, a party after working hard, looking around and seeing how the big picture shows up in the firelight. Contemplation is in the air, smoking out the demons systematically and replacing them with visions of seedlings and a sleepy winter. This winter will be for sleeping fitfully, prioritized and looked forward to.

Fireside. I love it here. Bugs on the screen. Neighbors coming home, lights on inside, shadows friendly. Find a way, always a lingering thought. Last night's fire was talkative and fireworks, burning away last years seed catalogs but this night's fire is quiet and diligent, burning through wood electric. Gardening is soulful and forgiving, fortifying. I am sure it's been said before but saying it is to associate with something undeniably transforming if only for a late afternoon. This has to be one of the great human experiences, I think to myself while planting succulents. I haven't really felt this way in a long time but today I turned the soil. I've been prunning heavily for weeks creating a more graphic enviroment, cutting away excess and making room. I am upsetting progress to turn the direction of things, soon to introduce new players. Broccoli Rob is on the list and parsnips too.

Everything new and again, old and new again.

This season change's mantra has to do with, now, after a day just on the edge of anger, the exercise of changing my enviroment, in tandum with the season is simply about making solutions of the problems left over from the last season change in exchange for this new season's problems. I cleared this space which feels great, I think to myself, but then look over there, what do I do with the bookcase? Everything new and again, old and new again, so goes this life. I've taken out winter coats and put halter tops away, the heavy curtians are up. Another blanket for the bed, I got cold last night. Even at 5pm the air began to smell like a winter night. I've finished another hat. Photographs of the dead have emerged, I look forward to the coming celebration, this year, I wonder, dance?

Fall Muse

Fall is blowing in steady despite these warm last days of summer. I have come to expect these brown and black spiders in substantially increased numbers in early fall, spinning elaborate webs and preying upon our unsuspecting bees and bugs. This phenomena signals our fall season change even more to me than the final turning of the pumpkins from green to orange. These spiders come in droves and work diligently, building their webs in heavily traveled zones and I have to brace myself every time I find myself tangled up in the web strands, tearing straight through the handiwork. The spider, I am sure, quite shocked to find herself on the head of a terrified human! It is a creepy feeling no matter how much I tell myself that spiders are my friends

Among My Relatives

Today our first real fall rain. I’ve been meaning to write about last week’s weather, which lately, seems to be an important subject to me. I took the fan out for one of the 3 hot days of summer. It takes a lot for someone living in the bay area to take out a fan and, as it happens, I was home in the afternoon with the final pages of an amazing novel. I put the book down on my chest and drifted into a memory of my childhood at my grandmother’s house in South Dakota, the fan osculating.

Always, in the summers, a square fan, stuck there, marooned out in the middle of the room or crammed into bedroom windows. Square, white and awkward even if, heroic. For sleeping, the fan was absolutely necessary; we stuck our naked feet to the end of the bed, breeze ready. Chasing around the living room, passing through the path of the fan gave me a sense of moving through another dimension, my cousins trailing behind me, the air blasted my face and lifted my hair as I escaped, just barely out of reach, I dreaded getting caught, my knees carpet burned.

My grandmother’s house was a free place where the adults were occupied with each other while we kids operated just outside of the usual laws regarding containment. Having my grandmother to myself, staying the night and sleeping with her made an impression on me, a lasting sense of my grandmother’s essential nature. Just being in her bedroom made me feel that I had entered a sanctuary, and not because it was fancy but because it was so much her place. The rest of the house was ours, the family’s, as we took it over; all of us lounging about and generally occupying the space, bare legs swung over the couch arms, hot. It was her bedroom that seemed always to offer a cool and easy getaway where we were quiet. So this was the deep summer, the time of fans, when I woke, among my relatives, the noise of the fan so familiar and comforting, I belonged.

MAGNIFICENT

Happy Birthday Momma!!

Found a wonderful inspiration in this image by Don Blanding. For more details go to my Needle Worship showroom to the right.