Photography – Page 2 – Gardens For Goldens

Return to the Garden

“Where will you begin?” she asked.
“At the beginning, I guess.”

This sign was posted over our shed door. The weeds are indeed laughing. Two hours after the last puppy of Irish’s litter was adopted, in rolled the van with six more! I can’t show them to you due to a promise we made to the kind human who brought them to us. She saw that they were in need and intervened. We won’t give her up as she may yet return with more.

Needless to say, my hoped for return to the garden was again delayed. And the weeds took full advantage. The blueberries were overrun, the paths were overtaken, crabgrass invaded, and the garden shed disappeared in a mass of cobwebs.

Maria refused to weed the herb garden bed; she said that it was all to be gone or she was washing her hands of it. I couldn’t bear to see it all dug up and sitting empty; we have months to go before the winter. So it has been reclaimed as a community bed. Let the whining begin.

As the last litter numbers dwindled over the course of a week, I was able to spend a little more time in the garden. Bit by bit, it is getting there. And with our last two little fluff balls now safely home, the garden is ~~mine~~ ours. And the weeds? Well who is laughing now?!

The Dahlias are beautiful.

The blueberries are once again peacefully co-existing with the California poppies and smothered in the pine needles they love.

The grapes are still producing…in September!

And as our rivers are still full from our long wet winter, I am watering, watering, watering to bring the garden back to life.

Now that the weather is beginning to cool, the gardeners, too, are making their return. Maria is planning her October display, Dee cleared out the daylilies,

Rob rebuilt the leaf mulch container for fall,

and Ina cleaned the garden shed!

Puppies are a joy – and they need what they need when they need it. Many of their new families stay in touch and I delight in seeing the pictures of them growing as fast as the weeds in the garden. (This is Mocha with his new big brother.)

I am so proud of them. I miss them a tiny bit. Still, I am happy to be back in the garden.

Beckoning Fall’s Glory

The Delta Breeze finally blew in off the Bay, bringing an end to the stifling heat and still air while providing welcome relief to the parched garden. The days are still warm, but the cool nights provide a long-awaited respite after the months long scorching summer sun. The ground holds its drink better; the wind breathes life back into exhausted plants.

Fall is my favorite season. Here, it is a second spring extending our flowering season from September through Thanksgiving. The vivid colors of summer give way to the richness of gold, crimson, and purple velvet.

Instead of the giddy anticipation of spring or the trumpeting of summer, fall is a time for soaking it all in as the sun turns gold and the season slowly turns another page.

“Summer ends, and Autumn comes, and he who would have it otherwise would have high tide always and a full moon every night; and thus he would never know the rhythms that are at the heart of life.” ~ Hal Borland

Which is not to say that fall is not busy in the garden. The beds must be raised in preparation for winter rains, the bulbs planted, and the leaves mulched. And then, there is all the catch up required after a summer of distracting puppies!

The garden work provides time for reflection while surrounded by the chirping of tiny frogs in fading rose blossoms,

the call of birds gathering by the hundreds, and the watchful eyes of a beloved friend.

The low asters beckon to their relatives towering above them – all started from one transplant from the Historic Sacramento City Cemetery.

They will soon create violet waves across the garden. And as the leaves change color and drop to the ground, the garden will remind us again of life’s impermanence.

“The days may not be so bright and balmy — yet the quiet and melancholy that linger around them is fraught with glory. Over everything connected with autumn there lingers some golden spell—some unseen influence that penetrates the soul with its mysterious power.” ~ Northern Advocate

Here’s to warm afternoons turning to sweaters, and green turning to purple and gold glory. Here’s to fall.

What Becomes A Garden?

I knew something had changed when I drove up. The unkempt garden signaled a passing.

The sorrow was unmistakable in the moss and web-covered eaves,

encroaching weeds,

and empty chairs where once everyone gathered.

For years, the eclectic garden by the ocean was shaped and tended by one of the two innkeepers.

I learned that he had passed last spring. The grief was profound; the daily tasks too much – and the garden fell into disrepair.

If our stay was longer, I would have asked for the tools to restore some semblance of order – as a tribute to the gardener who kept it so well.

I think about what will become of our beautiful Memorial Garden someday when I am gone.

I know that it is the cycle of life for nature to reclaim what is rightfully hers.
Whatever we carve out of this earth is only temporary.

Nature was here long before us – and will, hopefully, long survive us.

But a garden carries the souls, I think, of those devoted to it.

From dust it is born –
to dust, it is someday returned.

Wordless Wednesday: Puppy Love

Chperwerksek: “I remember”

We made our way back to Klamath, CA again this year. It has been a lifelong annual trek for my husband who is from the Yurok tribe. He spent his summers there as a boy and teen at their family run, “Dad’s Camp” – a long span of beach where the Klamath River meets the Pacific Ocean.

Dad’s Camp was acclaimed up and down the coast for the huge runs of chinook salmon – and his grandmother’s famous blackberry pies.

The resort/campground owned by the Williams family was a summer home to hundreds of family members, friends, and visiting fisherman for decades until the river changed and wiped the campground out.

Up until a few years ago, we camped on the beach with enough extended family to ward off bears and mountain lions. There is nothing like the rest you get in a tent on the beach as the rhythm of the waves lulls you to sleep.

When the patriarch of our group passed away, people scattered, and we moved to the river. Beautiful and peaceful in its own right – but different.

All things change in time – but this year saw the greatest. A record low number of salmon were forecast to return to spawn this fall. Despite the winter rains, five years of drought and restricted flows due to upriver dams had a devastating impact. The lowered and warmer water birthed a deadly parasite that infected up to 90 percent of the juvenile salmon in the river while warm ocean conditions reduced the fish’s usual food sources.

With severe catch limits in place, fishing was curtailed about as quickly as it started. The fisherman who once lined both banks, battling shoulder-to-shoulder were replaced by empty beach, seals, and pelicans.

At least their catch was good.

In between meals, the seals sunbathed – finally at peace on their beach as nature intended.

The emptiness was a stark and sad reminder of our man-made impact on this magnificent place my husband once called home.

We found solace among the redwoods that still tower. Such majesty.

There is hope for the Klamath salmon. The owner of four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath has applied to remove them by 2020 which may improve the river’s year-round flow. But we are unlikely to return as a family to our beloved camping spot on the beach.

We hold those memories in our hearts. With a few small mementos that carry the sound of rolling waves.

Chperwerksek: “I remember.”

I thought I knew the heart of my country – but lately, I am less sure.

Life unfolds in mysterious and unpredictable ways.

The truest things I know are found in what comes forward from the earth,

in the miracles of the natural world,

the connections of two souls adrift, and found –

in the innocence of a child,

deep in a dog’s eyes,

and in the wonder of joy restored. From this:

to this.

Eddie found his forever home this weekend.

“As change is the order of Nature,
And beauty springs from decay,
So in its destined season
The false for the true makes way.”
~Alice Carey, “The Time to Be”