Category: Nature

Learning to Dance in the Rain

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“A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts. We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

By accident, fate, or by design – life took some interesting twists and turns in the last few weeks. Some sad, some scary. But one thing I’ve learned: life just happens. When the storms come – you can let them drown you in sorrow and doubt, or you can learn to dance in the rain.

Dancing in the rain is what the garden did this weekend –

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and the dogs. Nope. These are not Golden Retrievers. But that is another story.

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I think the garden was a bit more appreciative of the puddles than Roger.

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I know that many who read this blog are praying for an end to rain or snow, but we delight in the grey and gloom knowing that an endless stream of blue skies and hot, thirsty days await.

“Instead of complaining that the rosebush is full of thorns, be happy that the thorn bush has roses.” ~ Proverb

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I’m grateful for the rain, just as I am grateful for the sunshine that brings warmth, and flowers, and light to life.

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No point in wishing for one or the other. All we can do is live in the present, take advantage of each accident that befalls us, and dance in the rain.

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Garden Update: Listen for the Rain

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Winter arrived with a blast of cold. It blanketed the garden in little crystals and frozen bird baths each morning for a week.

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A final whisper from the north to the garden: “go to sleep.”

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We have learned to let the garden stand instead of conducting an end-of-season clean up. The dead stalks provide cover from the cold for the future growth below.

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While we have had some nice December rainfall, the total still put us at “average”; nowhere close to what we need to begin a recovery from our prolonged drought. I wish there were a way to relieve the rest of the country of the water that inundates them. Mother Nature is a fickle mistress.

They say the El Nino is now upon us. In a supreme act of faith, I completed raising the beds to protect them from the flooding they say will ensue –

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and buried a shelter in Ina’s garden for our feral kitty. Shhh…don’t tell Ina. (Note to my sister, the cat rescuer, yes…our country cats have been neutered or spayed and have plenty of warm spaces to shelter with extra food and water.)

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The holiday pines were recycled to mulch, and to provide the blueberries with the acid they crave.

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And the birds are well fed.

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In the next few weeks, we will prune the roses…all 43 of them…and the grapes.

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Until then…we wait. And listen for the rain.

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Fall Has Its Own Flowers

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Fall has its own flowers;

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instead of sprouting from the ground, they fall from the sky.

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Fiery and bold,

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delicate and whispy,

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gaudy gum drops hanging perilously

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from trees disrobed,

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while blanketing the ground in gold.

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“Autumn, I love thy parting look to view
In cold November’s day, so bleak and bare,
When, thy life’s dwindled thread worn nearly thro’,
With ling’ring, pott’ring pace, and head bleach’d bare,
Thou, like an old man, bidd’st the world adieu.”
~John Clare,”Written in November”

Hope for the Monarchs

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From threatened to signs of rebounding. Three to four times the number of monarch butterflies are expected to reach their wintering grounds in central Mexico this year.

The population has been in decline, as pesticides have destroyed the milkweed that they feed on, and illegal logging has reduced their pine forest canopy blanket where they over-winter.

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Through education, people are reintroducing milkweed, both by planting and designating pesticide-free areas. In Mexico, illegal logging is being shut down. And the monarchs are returning.

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They are not out of the woods yet. At their height, they covered more than 44 acres in their winter home. Even at their increased rate of return, they will only cover a fraction of that. But there is hope that they will reach nearly 15 acres in the Mexican reserves by 2020 – with our continued help.

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The passion for saving them is far-reaching. People have been asked to help all along their migration path. Nearly every child who visited our garden this summer asked if we had planted food for them. We did!

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Butterflies don’t recognize country boundaries or human differences – they depend on our help and cooperation across a continent to restore what we nearly destroyed altogether.

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It’s amazing what we can accomplish when people come together.

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Imagine what would happen if humankind cared for each other as we care for the monarchs.