A Late Autumn Afternoon

The air was surprisingly bracing today unless I was in the sunlight. I had some laundry to hang out and noticed some of the bright flowers along the way that were still, like good troopers, blooming their hearts out. But despite their cheerful and vivid colors, everything is getting ready for the long winter ahead. Every vista seems dulled down with fading intensity. Decay seems to be the order of the day. Although these floral displays perked up the rest of the yard, there were a few signs of disarray everywhere else. That might be more obvious to me because John hasn’t been able to mow the extensive lawns. All has been too inundated with rain lately and soggy. Or perhaps it’s because verdant, developing plant clumps from springtime have turned into tired old, muted jungles in fall. Sometimes I literally cannot walk on the dedicated pathways because something has grown so quickly that it blocks my path or my boot gets hooked into it. I think my garden is telling me to put down my vacuum inside the cottage and come outside and give everything a last minute spruce up. Hopefully that will happen before these climbing, clinging and spreading specimens of nature devour our house and the two of us in it.

I’m reminded of the story of Jack and the beanstalk. Our plantings seem to have a similar growth pattern to the beanstalk in the fairy tale. Any morning now I expect I won’t be able to open my French doors to see my little front patio that’s eaten up by lemon balm. We’re being invaded by this growth spurt of beauty, and it’s relentless. But as I ponder these dilemmas I hope that I’ll be able to tame this wild place before the real winter actually sets in, which isn’t too far from now. Even this season has been unseasonably cold after a disappointing summer and a short spring and long winter before that.

Despite all that gloom and all the dark or wet days we’ve had, a glut of them really, there are days like this, of sharp sun that comes late and leaves early bringing in the first frost of the autumn. So again, I’d better get cracking and deep clean my garden before it’s too late to do that.  I can prune it and cover it with straw so it can rest its weary soil until the advent of spring, a new beginning that might hold a lot of great surprises for us, especially if we prepare our garden beds carefully. So chickens beware the crazed woman with a garden clean up agenda embedded in her heart. Do not make more work for her, if you like living here.  So when you dig up your soil for your dirt bath, do it on the paddock please. And I would also highly recommend that you stop kicking the hay up onto the used brick pathway. Thank you.