Just ahead. Around the bend. September leftovers give up the spirit one night, as quick as one crisp, frosty overnight, and in a breath, a collective surrender to the inevitable passage of time. Jackets, blankets, and cozy nights. Green gives way to seasoned leaves and the October transition bends to its given destination.
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© Etikser. All Rights Reserved.
Photos and images are my own and may not be used elsewhere or reblogged.
Please visit my other blog, Clover & Ivy, https://cloverandivy.wordpress.com.
I post mostly nature photos there.
Spring planting was something I did for my parents in their latter years, something I enjoyed immensely. They had great soil, great dark soil, and it was a pleasure to garden with such good dirt. As reality goes, weeds grew happily in that soil too, but after weeding, the rest was easy. You could handily hollow out the required small crater and drop a tiny plant into the soft dark soil, press the dirt granules to surround the plant, and that was the extent of the process.
I knew what my mom liked, and I knew what I liked, and there’s this thing about planting. You have to buy plants with something like a vague game plan, but other than that, you dig a hole and insert the plant, and that’s 95% of flower gardening. Dig a hole, insert a plant, cover it over with some dirt, and give it a watering. It’s called the process. The process is initiated. The precious process.
My parents could handle watering once in a while, and I could fertilize when I visited, and that’s all it takes in good dirt. It was a process I loved. I came in May and started the process. When I came back in July, things were well on their way. A little fertilizer, a little water. And my mom had pretty flowers growing at the corner of her yard. She was pleased. It’s called the process.
My dad wasn’t as accepting or agreeable. He still had a few tomato plants growing along the side of their house that came from nothing more than re-seeding. Again…the process. He’d nurtured those plants for years and years, and the plants did their part.
I think of plants in a personal way, and I imagine the plants and seeds respond with something like gratitude. An acknowledgement and appreciation of everyone’s role, and a recognition of the relationship that exists with plants and the earth and humans. My dad didn’t really accept that someone other than him would plant his tomatoes for him. From his chair in the living room, he said something like, if I can’t do this, and if I can’t do that, what’s the point? Nevertheless, we planted the tomatoes, and without much in the way of staking or other attention, they produced more tomatoes than the ones I tend to on a regular basis. Good dirt. And the process. It just works.
The process. Trust the process.
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© Etikser. All Rights Reserved.
Photos and images are my own and may not be used elsewhere or reblogged.
Please visit my other blog, Clover & Ivy, https://cloverandivy.wordpress.com.
I post mostly nature photos there.
I remember standing under the stars. Under all the stars that peak in and fade out of a dark endless sky canopy.
I stood at the end of a walkway, far enough to leave the incandescence of civilization behind. It was the end of a day. The end of a night. The end of a week. And it was past the glow of manmade lights. Out on the edge of darkness. The language of awareness came in singular musical notes…about the edge of darkness.
We have to move past the glare of people and civilization, it seems, and stand at the edge of darkness to really see the stars and the heavens. And then it’s a gift to us. Out on the edge of darkness.
“Out on the edge of darkness”, from Cat Stevens’ Peace Train (1971).
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© Etikser. All Rights Reserved.
Photos and images may not be used elsewhere or reblogged.
Please visit my other blog, Clover & Ivy, https://cloverandivy.wordpress.com.
I post mostly nature photos there.
Let him graze awhile. [Tom Petty and Mudcrutch]
Sometimes every song is a ‘for old time’s sake’. It takes my thoughts to the thoughts I had when I heard that song…some time ago. A vague semblance of those thoughts. I never figure out why yesterday’s thoughts feel more precious than today’s.
I like Tom Petty. I won’t ever hear that song I don’t think it’s the sound of his soul. If I could, I’d ask him, it’s not about your niece, Laura…is it?
He calls it a quiet song. When I hear Tom Petty’s voice in that song, it says to me, listen people, this is precious. I want you to listen to this…it’s precious. Damn it, it’s precious. I agree, Tom Petty, it’s precious.
I remember that spell when I listened to John Lennon interviews every night. It was a good spell, and it was a comfort to me. I remember when I used to walk in the evenings, and the last sun of the summer day made its way around me, through the season’s branches and leaves. It was a comfort to me. Winter nights and tall branches standing strong in the cold wind and the night sky, those were a comfort to me. Sitting outside, come July. Sitting outside late at night, the stars, and fireflies, and crickets, and me, and they’ll be a comfort. I trust it’ll all be a comfort, it’ll be a comfort to me.
Do we even notice the moments
as they dissolve in the wind?
So many lifetimes.
So many souls.
Time fades yesterday’s dreams,
the pictures we see as today’s memories.
Person to person,
age to age,
seasons scatter our precious images,
leaving quiet markers to remember
tomorrow’s history.
The ying/yang of a rainy night. The sights and sounds a sensory feast, and yet a scene that scares me a bit. Living with tall trees overhead means living with that feeling. In the middle of a windy storm, I don’t know whether to sit by the window and enjoy the light show, or to hide out in the basement.
I look outside and think about birds sheltering down in the elements, and wonder what in the world they think. When they’re at the beginning of their night and wake in the dark to the clamor of thunder and the gushy sounds of rain pouring down through trees and shrubs to the spot where they’re trying to rest. I understand birds are light sleepers, but they don’t seem to wake up and start tweeting in the middle of a midnight rain. Some definitely tweet at the beginning of a daytime rain. As if to say, “Hey, in case you didn’t notice, folks, it’s raining. Better find cover under some branch.” And I imagine the rest of the birds roll their eyes and think, “Yeah, smarty pants, like the rest of us didn’t notice.”
So do the dads come flying to the aid of the nest when it starts to rain hard? As far as I know, they don’t. I’m not sure we have studies, but I don’t think so. The mother, though, the mother spreads her wings over the little ones and must think something like, “Give me a break, I’ve been at this all day trying to keep these guys fed and content, and now in the middle of the night, when I’m not likely to go out and hunt juicy worms… now… now we get this rain. Like, can’t I at least get a decent night’s rest?” I haven’t found this information at the Audubon site, but what else can those birds be thinking?
“Well, I love a rainy night
It’s such a beautiful sight
I love to feel the rain on my face
Taste the rain on my lips
In the moonlight shadows
Showers wash all my cares away
I wake up to a sunny day
’cause I love a rainy night
yeah, I love a rainy night
Lyrics from Eddie Rabbitt’s I Love a Rainy Night.
It started in December with Secret Santa. Secret Santa gave me a plant stand, and the plant stand made me want an indoor herb garden. Granted, I’d thought about bringing my outside herbs inside in October or November. But the plants were big, too big for inside, and I only wanted the herbs, not any outdoor bugs that might come along for the ride. In any case, the end of December was too late to think about bringing my dried-up outdoor herb plants inside.
I thought you could just go on down to that store that sells lumber and paint and plants, and pick up some herbal plants. Seems like you should be able to do that, don’t you think? Not so. They had ferns and violets and philodendron, but no herbs. Not a single one. What they had was herb seeds. I’ve never done well with seeds. Outdoors, indoors…I haven’t had success with seeds. But I had a plan, and I had that Secret Santa plant stand, and the sense of resolution that comes to us all around January 1.
So now I have these seedlings. I doubt their timing is timely. But I’m still resolute, and the little plants give me hope and inspiration.
I watered them today. They’re struggling to grow green, but they’re alive and trying to reach for the sunlight…just like the rest of us.
© Etikser. All Rights Reserved.
All photos and images here are my own.
They may not be used elsewhere or reblogged.
Please visit my other blog, Clover & Ivy, https://cloverandivy.wordpress.com.
I post mostly nature photos there.
On a gray and cloudy January day, it’s nothing more than a desire
to picture a heavy new coat of snow, clinging to the branches
of the dogwood tree.
etikser 