Tag Archives: Oklahoma Gardening

Someday

04 Friday Nov 2011

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

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Surely the pendulum of autumn is swinging toward winter, as I woke this morning to find my back garden frosty — the first time this fall.

The patio appears bare without orange and lemon trees.  Favored, for sure, since they spent the night indoors with their lime tree cousins.   But those other tropicals of mine?   Well, I left the Tacoma to fend life for itself — unprotected.  While without my husband’s presence, the best I could do for  two hulking Hibiscus was to huddle them together with a few other tender perennials —  invited only because they parked their pots in the right  spot — under layers of great-grandma’s quilts and a paint tarp.

I hope they made it.  Well, most of me hopes they made it.   The pendulum swings back and forth on whether their summer beauty is worth the price of five months in the house looking — well, to be kind —  less than their dress-for-success best.

Meanwhile, on the warm side of the window, I’m waiting inside.   It’s a luxury to do so, to not have to venture out on a cold morning like today  — to  warm-up my car, to dress myself in warm clothes, to wait for the car heater to work its toasty magic — as I did  in my twenties and thirties and more than half my forties.  How many times did I tell myself on those drives into school or work that someday — that someday, I would choose when to go out and stay in — that someday, I wouldn’t  live life to suit other people’s needs and wishes and clocks —  that someday I could keep time and spend it as I chose.

Well, so far, with only two out of three, someday hadn’t arrived in full.   But the rest of my someday will surely follow.

Not today, of course.  Because today I’ve got to move an orange and lemon tree outdoors and I’ve got to lift off the quilts and tarp to see how yesterday’s choices fared.  And I’ve got to spread mulch.  And time permitting, amend soil in the east garden that’s close to being done.

Yep — even though it’s still cold, I need to venture outside and work the garden.

And yep — I sure like  the sounds of hearing ‘someday.’  Why talking about ‘someday’ makes me think I have all the time in the world.  And then some.  In spite of that pendulum swinging toward winter.

Odd One Out

27 Thursday Oct 2011

Posted by in In the Garden, Life at Home

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It feels odd to be out of the garden today — and for rain to be there in my stead.  Gentle.  And steady — as if we weren’t deep in the midst of a year-long drought.  The very one – if weather fortune-teller predictions come true — that will continue through winter.

I brought the key limes in last night for the second time this season.  Temperatures fell below forty-eight degrees — and what is mild conditions for most is hostile to these thin-skinned trees; no use telling them tonight’s forecast is mid-thirties since forty-eight or thirty-eight spells the same dire end — and what are a few degrees anyway, since they’ve been saved from Jack’s frosty fingers of death.  The sad truth is that they will never outgrow their need for saving.  That come cold weather, they will always need a helping hand to stay alive.  No matter how big they get.

Being in retreat and offering retreat to frigid lime trees from the very place that has been my retreat seems — in the spirit of the day — odd.  Because, for better or worse  the garden has been my private escape-hatch when too much about everyday life has felt hostile; family feuds here and there, that few (if any) could explain to outsiders.  Even those mired in the moment and history of the relationship find it a mystery.

On one side of the tree I’ve observed hot anger take flight in hateful words launched as deadly cruise missiles — while on the other I’ve observed the cutting of life ties from a surreal silence, the barest of words offered between two at odds.  Was the first rooted in jealousy over the attention of a dying loved one, as some have said?  And can it be the second began in forgotten cupcakes for a birthday party?  Oh, who but God knows?  All I know, is that after months of hurt, it’s probably good that some things remain a mystery.  Because what if it was really about forgotten cupcakes?

All this brings to mind a Robert Frost poem I first ran across in college that I didn’t then understand.

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Does anyone need to hear that I “get” the poem very well these days?

And does anyone find irony in that this truth was written by a poet named “frost.”

Of course, life is full of ironies.  Life is full of finding truth in odd places — like retreating from a retreat to stay alive, as in the case of my too-big-for-their-pots lime trees.  And two, that a family feud is never just about two at odds, because it ripples out like a whirlpool to catch those beyond its edge in its spiral, so that everyone at family gatherings walks on egg shells, doing their darned best to pretend all is well when it’s not.  And three, that it’s not just lime trees that are too thin-skinned and in need of saving from the hostile conditions they find themselves in.  And that few, if any, choose to jump into the midst of their squabble — perhaps out of good intentions, they see it as none of their business — yet, why is it, that even now,  I hear these words of Jesus’ that beg otherwise: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

Did I just play the Jesus card?  Well, I suppose those Southern Baptist roots are still down there under the soil somewhere.  But if my words feel blunt, they hold no anger.  If anything, I’m only weary.  And oddly enough I’m grateful too — for the silver lining that’s come with this round of rain clouds — both the life lessons learned and the joy experienced in watching the beauty of the garden unearth from hard clay.

Sometimes I wonder if the size of my garden grew in proportion to the size of my sorrow.  Had my year been happier, would my garden have been smaller?  What I know for sure is that the garden has had her way of reducing me to size:  after a day of gardening I know the world doesn’t revolve around me and petty arguments and that some day, we’ll both be reduced to a speck of dirt.

In spite of disrupting my too-much-to-get-done tight garden schedule, today’s rain  — along with this outpouring — is a welcomed relief.  I pray it’s not temporary.

Wishing Wells in the Garden

31 Sunday Jul 2011

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

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It was just Fourth of July, wasn’t it?  That’s what I tell myself — even though tomorrow is obviously August and my new kitchen is almost done and my new gigantic garden plots are well on their way to being ready for fall planting.  What’s obvious is that everyday life has been everywhere but here.

Yet — before July 2011 is all used up — I’ll mark these few words in the sand.  Because I wish to remember how lovely this fifty-fifth summer of life has been.  I want to remember the way I wake up each morning with boundless energy and excitement, the way I jump into work clothes then rush toward the utility room with a parade of hungry canines in my wake.  And with dogs fed, how I down a  quick cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal while checking the latest scorching weather forecast before hurrying outside to find shovel and wagon before the day grows hotter than any Oklahoma summer has a right to be.

It has felt good to be outside, especially in the soft morning light.  As I’ve worked, neighbors have called out greetings as they pass by jogging or walking — with or without a dog.  Some offer encouraging words.  Surely a few think I’m crazy to be putting in new garden beds — measuring one-fourth the size of our front lawn — in the midst of severe drought conditions.   And if so, who could argue with their logic?

I confess to feeling foolish at times, as sweat drips down my face to mix with dirt, wondering if this is how Noah felt when building his Ark with no rain clouds in sight. But, foolish or not, I dig until I can dig no more.  Three hours.  Sometimes five, if the day is overcast  — or if I’m lucky to land in a shadier part of the garden.

Gardening is an act of faith, as much as going to church, I suppose.  Though sometimes it’s less.  Sometimes it’s nothing more than a wishing well when — down on dirty knees in the hard-baked soil — my mind wanders to my writing and this blog — and to thoughts of how I’m allowing  both to wither on the vine without attention — only to console myself in my next thought that I’ll write later — in the comfort of an air-conditioned afternoon.  But then I don’t.  Or how — usually on Mondays, when I hear church bells ringing nearby, I tell myself I’ll find a good church soon — one interested in teaching a life in holiness — and that I’ll go next Sunday.  Yes I will.  But then I don’t.

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if we actually did all those things we tell ourselves we’ll do?  Other times I wonder what would become of us if we didn’t tell these things to ourselves?   Perhaps we couldn’t live in peace without our daily ration of feel-good, well-wishes.  Can you imagine living a life without hope — of a better day or a better you?

All I know is that July will soon be over and it feels good to have ended it with a few written words — to know I’ve made good on at least one of my well-wishes in the garden.  Still.  I can’t walk away from July without closing my eyes and throwing in two more cents:  If wishes were negotiable, I’d  be willing to trade my little writing feel-good away for a good amount of rain.  Yes I would.

Something less than Noah’s would be great.