Aaaccckkk, so good to have all the rain on and off, certainly. but our CT river outwaters are working overtime to breed mosquitoes, and all those starving females !! Have to wear a raincoat and layers and spray essential oils on you every 10 minutes to avoid being eaten alive.
Still, its that intoxicating early gardening phase, where you have ALL the ideas and ALL the dreams; where you look around you, and what you see is what you imagine will happen, not what is actually there.
I love this phase. I pretend amnesia of the frequent third phase, where you have successfully mulched a bit more than the previous year, but still, the awful multi-rooted-where-ever-its-greedy-little-legs-can-reach grass begins to DOMINATE.
The mosquitoes begin really to get tiring, as you parry early sunny mornings in hope of darting between them to get gardening done...to afternoon attempts,to forgetting all about any possibility of sitting out at night and relishing the loveliness of what is growing so well.
Then we have the furtive early morning yogurt-container-with-soapy-water-in-hand routine, as you sneak up upon the Japanese beetles and pop them with great gardener agility into the soapy water, to die...quickly. I stand there, popping them in, so many of them in multiple mating postures, saying 'sorry, sorry, and sorry', as I go.
This year, I finally actually gave appropriate plant food. Go figure. To the acid loving Azaleas and Mountain Laurels and HOlly and Bayberry. To the Roses, who have exploded before my eyes. To the other plants and little trees, all fed and greedily growing so fast.
In the meantime, the zillion plantlings in the little tiny six packs I so optimistically and greedily planted are growing so fast, as I get bits of weeding done here, then there, beginning to think about where on earth I will put them, or, yes, who might want flats of these huge tall pink and white and purple zinneas, or 1,000 Cosmos, 4 kinds, or how about the 100 perennial Salvias, and better yet, those sure-to-be-delicious 1 million lupine babies......oh my. And so much more.
Possibly, gardening is a condition, or even a disease, where we manifest both our joy of mixing our feet and hands deep into the soil, have conversations with plants and insects, sit back on our heels and watch as the baby Phoebes consider leaping from the nest, observe the Broadwing Hawk announce their territory overhead, meet up with the old toads who have lived here for years and escaped the intermittent gardner snake's jaws. The chipmunks finally making themselves known, coming up to windows to catch the eye and ire of the four felines.
If this is a condition,I accept it with grace and gratitude. Somehow what most of us come to learn, over time, is that the actual appearance of the garden, despite that joy, comes sauntering in a distant second...to the actual mindful timelessness that seeps into us while crouched upon hands and knees, ferrying objects and wheelbarrows back and forth, wiping sweat and rain and dust from our foreheads, puttering about saying hello and checking in on all the small places, and then sitting , swatting those self same mosquitoes, while drinking in the experience of each lovely spot that somehow becomes its own place.
A few years ago, I had my Acupressure/Herbalist offices here, one in the cottage to teach bodyworkers, and one in the house, so we could have multiple Apprentices seeing multiple clients, and I would go from one room to another, supporting and teaching and showing and working. There was one chipmunk who was fond of climbing up into the Mountain Laurel next to the house, who would regularly sit and watch, undeterred, as clients were worked upon. I cannot imagine what it seemed like to them, or how they became so interested, but there they were, day after day, perched, turning their head this way and that, like a tiny dog listening to a small song.
All along the river, on different days, are different fishlings feeding on the surface, the river glistening and moving like a living thing, as insects swarm above it, an occasional big splash of big fish probably chowing down...on fishlings, all of them streaming fast down the river in its powerful current.
The Great Blue Heron couple of many years, who had nest after nests of beautiful babies to be seen feeding on the rivers edge by themselves as the summer came to an end, was sighted last fall after one injured their wing, in distress alongside the river's path. Now there is only one solitary and beautiful bird, seen daily by us all, irrevocably returning to the same area as they have for years, at night, minus their much beloved mate.
Dante and I begin our stroll back toward the car, numerous people stopping to admire his stand-up ears, his fluffy baby self, as he slowly grows taller with each passing day, greeting each and every person delightedly, as if the whole world was explicitly for his delight alone.
Years ago I was in a room with so many two year olds. And as someone began to applaud, each and every one turned and fully believed the applause, of course, was for them. I loved that, that not-crushed-yet expectation that any applause would be especially...for you.
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