Thursday, August 30, 2007

FIELD NOTES: I don’t like it when my gardens start to die...


The end of August


...
when the shade seems weaker, the ferns as brittle as old lace, the first dry leaves litter the stepping stones like scraps of old newspaper and the potted annuals have lost their vibrancy along with their high hopes. The deer have finally worked their way to the top of the backyard border having used the lush hosta as a salad bar. I’m at the kitchen sink looking out the window and can’t figure out what I am seeing. For years and years I have adorned each end of the big wooden swing frame that lies perpendicular to the house with two hanging baskets of impatiens. The far one looks odd. Did I forget to water it? I run outside and on closer inspection see that the tender flowers I had embedded and nurtured to bloom have been bitten down to the quick, ravaged like fingernails on a nervous hand. My heart rate goes up and any early morning neighbors hear inappropriate words. The only thing left is the dusty miller rising up from the center like a white flag of surrender on a pole. But days later, near the first of September, all impatiens have fully re-grown their foliage. Like a dry fountain that is turned back on, the basket flows with green again. Another victory in the garden. The waning of another summer is more acute when put up against the shine at the start of a new school year. This is the last year I will send a child off to public school, although I can continue to join the ranks as a teacher. I wonder if the impatiens can manage to re-bloom as well. They do - in red and white and fuchsia - they do indeed.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

FIELD NOTES: I saw the parsley move...

The beginning of August



...which at first I didn’t believe. I still remember how fascinating it was the first time I saw a time lapse film of a plant growing from seed to bloom. We impatient humans need the mechanical lens of a camera to witness such miniscule increments of movement as they happen. Or do we? I keep some parsley in a blue and white porcelain pot that I can move around to confuse the selfish appetite of the resident woodchuck, but it had drooped like a weeping willow. After watering it, along with all the other potted plants on the deck, I just felt like sitting, doing absolutely nothing and I thought about tabouli salad. Usually, I quickly dispense the refreshing water before vanishing to do something else and by the time I come back, the plants are standing tall again, like magic. But it was a globally warmed sort of day; the outside air heated and moistened to an alarming point that it felt like you were trying to breathe through a damp blanket. There was no noticeable breeze, yet I saw the parsley move. Not the whole pot full, but one stalk in particular. One long stalk must have taken its fair share of water and with a great gulp kept courageously kept pushing the molecules through its stem, jerking nearly imperceptibly, hoping someone would notice. Another little jerk and then another, lifting its leaves as gracefully as a dancer. I saw it! It was either a Zen moment or the heat confusing my senses, but either way, I saw it. I’ve planted seeds for years and years and years, yet I am in awe each time one sprouts and grows up. A cucumber, a tomato, a Kentucky Wonder green bean, and even a daughter. Tonight, I would snip off some parsley. Soon my daughter would be three thousand miles away. But tonight one tall, green stalk would not be turned into a salad because it was brave enough to move.