Category Archives: In the Garden

Saturday in the Park

26 Saturday Sep 2009

Posted by in In the Garden, Life at Home, Mesta Park

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Mesta Park is all ready for guests to descend for a Saturday in the park, even if my Mesta Festa Chili never made it off the page onto the stove.  

It was just too lovely yesterday to spend the day cooking in front of a stove.  There’ll be many other cold and wet days ahead for that.  And what gardener can resist being outside on such a perfect gardening day as yesterday?   Instead of cooking, I opted to play in the dirt and the new garden beds next door are beginning to take shape.  And then I went to Lowes for the umpteenth time this week — a girl and her neighbors can never had too many perennials at half-price — and then I enjoyed a nice visit with the neighbors.  And after all of these pleasures, I went to bed.  And I went to sleep  as soon as my head hit pillow, full of that good tired soreness.  

My neighbor who lives right next door to Cinderella —  the one who invited me to come up with a list of garden plants for his new front garden landscape —  came over while I was working.  He was checking in for plant recommendations; and with only a small amount of embarassament, I showed him my choices with actual plant specimens.  Yep.  I confess that I bought plants for this nice man too without even being commissioned to do so.  Balloon flowers and Homestead Verbena and Black Blue Salvia and Russian Sage — all blues and purples and it’s going to be lovely in front of his orange shaded brick home.  And thankfully, my neighbor was as pleased as punch with my plant selections.  And had he not been, I would have planted these purplish blue flowers either at Cinderella or given them to Sis.  I can always count on Christi  — who I’ve baptised St. Francis of Rock Creek — to adopt any stray, whether it be plant or animal. 

Today promises to be just as lovely as yesterday.  And again, I’m taking a day off from the kitchen stove.  Lunch will be at Mesta Festa where I’m hoping to grab one or two Big Truck Tacos.  And then tonight we’ll head to Norman for this month’s installment of our family’s moveable feast.  It’s Amy’s turn to host and she is sacrificing her Saturday to the kitchen stove out of love for Bryan’s family — and my husband and I, as I suspect all the rest of our tribe (as all have sent in their positive RSVPs), are looking forward to tonight’s feast and games.   It’s the best of both worlds — home cooking in someone else’s home  — with a slice of Amy’s home-made carrot cake to tip the scales in Amy’s favor.    

From Festa to feast, and all the errands in between, today is shaping up to be full of good things.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Ode to Fall

24 Thursday Sep 2009

Posted by in In the Garden, Life at Home, The Great Outdoors

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Just beyond my open window, fall is granting me another beautiful day for gardening pleasures.  The day sparkles on the shiny Magnolia leaves and the air is crisp and thin.  The humidity of last week is gone, and the rain has left behind its gift of softer, easier-to-dig dirt.  I love fall.

The morning  is beckoning me outside to play, just as it has our little Scottish Terrier.  Unfortunately, Cosmo enjoys the garden as much as me.  Even now, while I sit here and write, Cosmo is likely kicking up her heels for a bit of uncommisoned garden work.   No doubt about it — for this is no mere dishing of dirt  —  terriers are scary garden terrorists.  Whenever I’m not looking, Cosmo excavates some precious plant, then often decides to trim the root ball for a good chew.  When she comes inside with roots hanging out of her teeth, my husband and I know its time for damage control.   Usually, the uprooted victims survive as we are on constant lookout for plants sitting on the driveway. 

Of course, our little terrier is only living up to her name.  The word terrier derives from the Latin word terra which means  “earth”; a terrier dog equals earth dog equals garden mass destruction.  So in Cosmo’s defense, terriers were bred to pursue their quarry (especially badgers) all the way into their prey’s burrow.  I guess she’s just practicising on my plants until a stray badger happens along. 

Today I’ll be thinning the garden as well, especially all that sweet potato vine that has aggressively taken over.    What was I thinking when I invited these space hogs into my tiny cottage garden?  Next year I’ll know better.  I will not plant sweet potato vine.  And as I write these words, it reminds me of past writing of  “I will not’s…” on the school blackboard.  In many ways, the garden is a school as its teaches many lessons  — especially in those hardest-to-learn virtues  — in patience and humility.

I’ve had no need for either virtue at the fall garden close-out sales however.  I’m enjoying the best fun shopping and then buying perennials at Lowes.  Even Knock-Out Roses ($10 each!) and other shrubs are now half-price. Everything is reduced but trees and fall flowers.  What gardener can resist such a bargain?  I bought mostly for the ugly step-sister duplex next door — and today, I plan to begin excavating grass for the two new flower beds I’m installing over there.  I’m so excited about this front yard makeover and all the creative play that awaits me. 

I love all the gardening and fresh air and the good tired soreness that comes from working and playing hard outside all day.  I love fall.

Homecoming

22 Tuesday Sep 2009

Posted by in Far Away Places, In the Garden, Life at Home, Soul Care

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There is a sad-gladness in returning home after a long awaited trip has ended.    

So it was very good that my Sunday homecoming made me feel infinitely precious.  After dinner and the all important walk with the dogs, our empty nest settled down in front of the television to pick up the threads of our common everyday life.  But I’ll be forever glad that I  looked away from the story unfolding on the television to catch a better story being told within my husband’s loving eye that I found focused on me.  As our eyes met, I watched the love in his eyes slip down his face to his mouth to break into a huge smile of gladness.  “I’m so happy you’re home,”  he’d offered up, just in case I missed the message spoken by the preface of his glance and smile.  

By Monday, it was time to slip back into reality, into my repetitive world of everyday life.  As I went out to tend my garden, I found the aphids were back in full force to dirty up the leaves of my potted citrus trees; and that the old ailing Magnolia tree was once again littering the back yard by dropping its leaves into a messy mass.   Sometimes as I stoop down to pick up leaves it reminds me of all the past times I stooped to pick up my youngest son’s socks.   So I have Kyle to thank for preparing me for life with this old messy Magnolia. 

Weekend get-aways come to an end but everyday life goes on without end, with or without my presence.  Laundry builds up, dust gathers on table tops and floors become dirty.  And each cries out for attention, just like a young babe who needs nourishment.  Yesterday, as I tended to the repetitions of  everyday life, I found they in turn nourished me by helping me shake off the lingering sadness of saying goodbye to friends I will not see (at least all in one place) for another three to four years — if our repetitive cycle keeps to the same schedule.

The repetitive nature of life turns my mind to these words of Søren Kierkegaard:

“If God himself had not willed repetition, the world would never have come into existence.  He would either have followed the light plans of hope, or He would have recalled it all and conserved it in recollection.  This He did not do, therefore the world endures, and it endures for the fact that is a repetition.  Repetition is reality, and it is the seriousness of life.”

The sun comes up and goes down; the seasons change as summer slips into autumn, and my lungs  breathe in and breathe out the air of life.  And with each breath, my heart grows lighter and I know that everyday life and the repetition of housekeeping and gardening and the making of meals for my empty nest family somehow feeds my soul and the creative spirit that lies within me.  And as lovely as my weekend was, and as good as it was to see the familiar ageless faces of my best and oldest girlfriends, it is the routine comfort of these four walls and my husband’s loving glance and hugs that remind me of the reality of an everyday God, who lives without end.  Amen and amen.