… I harvested a few things.
This was my last harvest of summer crops, in late October, just before I fell ill. The morning harvests had tapered off to nearly nothing by then.
A very colorful nearly nothing, though.
I already miss the tomatoes.
Now we’re getting curled mustard greens, radishes, and some leftover purple scallions from the kitchen garden. The parsley is also perking back up with the onset of cooler weather.
It’s been a poignant season in the kitchen garden for me. Last autumn I planted garlic and radishes and spinach and looked forward to the arrival of the garden catalogs with rabid interest. This year, I must plant nothing that may need to be harvested past April.
The first catalog to arrive this week brought a lump to my throat.
I’ll probably be packing up this house next spring, and by May I’ll be tearing the garden down, digging up the plants to keep or give away, and returning all that lovely space to lawn, as I promised my landlord when we moved in almost two years ago. No more summer vegetables will grow here — or at least, none will be grown by me.
I wonder if the land will miss the splashes of bright purple eggplants, shiny red tomatoes and curly cayenne peppers. Will it feel the absence of potato and rosemary blossoms?
I know I will.
Also, while we were apart…
... we all got very scared and sad as they cut down some of our beloved trees to make room for a power line.
Well, I was sad. The cats were more on the scared side. Especially when they parked the chipper less than a foot from the side of the house and everything vibrated. I was devastated by the whine of the chainsaw — and infuriated by the attitude and behavior of the tree-removal crew.
But we won’t go into all that now.
I don’t like to relive this chainsaw massacre, honestly. The resulting gaping hole in the forest is hard enough to live with, day by day. Our privacy is gone. Our west-facing windows now look out on a view of red-sportscar-in-carport and featureless-brick-condo-building, and we can hear cars on the distant bypass so much more clearly.
Plus, our resident Great Horned Owls no longer serenade us at the bedroom window. I was relieved to hear them again a couple of nights ago, though. They have moved north of the house, where the forest still stretches away in an unbroken swath of amber and gold and grey, sienna and rust and garnet.
“Sad” doesn’t seem to adequately express my reaction to the loss, honestly.
Just as “scared” doesn’t really cover the cats’ reaction to the heavy machinery.
More like High Alert.
You can see why we had to vacate the house for a few days, during the hours of 8:00 to 5:00. The noise pollution alone was incredibly stressful. So stressful that I wasn’t terribly surprised when I fell ill shortly after the crews departed.
Ah, well. Body and soul are definitely intertwined.
Also…
... I witnessed the Monarch butterfly migration.
Thanks to Carol over at Flower Hill Farm, I actually understood what I was witnessing for the first time in my life.
It’s not really a stretch to call it an everyday miracle.*
Once I was sitting at a traffic light, and a half-dozen Monarchs came fluttering across the intersection. Nobody seemed to notice anything but me. Most people were busy getting some floats ready for the local Homecoming parade.
I felt like I had some secret knowledge, to allow me to unlock the mystery of the moment.
But I had trouble getting close to these nervy butterflies. They were anxious to see me coming with my camera. My mother actually laughed in amazement at how they flocked back to her butterfly bush — as soon as I’d put the camera down and backed away a couple of paces.
So I settled for close-cropping the portraits until they took on a painterly quality. (If you click on the photo, you can see an enlarged version.)
Oh, and last but not least, while we were apart…
I missed y’all.
I missed this blogging life and the amazing community that goes with it.
I’m glad to be back, even if it takes me a while to get back into the swing of things.
Namasté, y’all.
*If you’d like to learn more about the Monarch butterfly’s lifecycle, I urge you to check out Carol’s fascinating series. Her photographs alone are worth a click. I’ve linked to each of the posts below, to make it easy for you.
- A Royal Beginning… The Metamorphosis of the Monarch Butterfly
- The “In Stars” of Monarchy… An Ongoing Molting Metamorphosis II
- Captivating Chrysalis Curtain Rising… Monarch Metamorphosis Act III
- A Regal Emergence … Monarch Metamorphosis Final Act (The one to see if you only have time for one.)
- Monarch Marveler Momentous Migration (My personal favorite for the stories and emotion.)
PDF 
I long for you to find peace. I think of you often and wish you well.
Donna
MNGarden´s last blog ..Moved
Donna, you’re so kind. I miss your blog posts!
That would really be sad to see. No wonder the whole family was distressed. I feel for you contemplating a move in the spring, too. Do you know yet where you’ll be going so that you can plan for a garden there?
Kathy´s last blog ..So Much More
We have no clue. Tonight we reviewed job prospects in Iowa, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Charlotte, North Carolina. I don’t know if I’d survive a couple of those winters, but honestly, in this economic climate we’ll be smart to take what we can find.
I’m glad you’re back too, Meredith. How satisfying it must be to grow your own produce….wonderful images! I know exactly what you mean about the noise pollution as we’ve had the earth-moving equipment creating havoc behind our back fence since August. My dog, Cody, was very scared and anxious. The house lots are now all ready for sale so I guess it won’t be too much longer before the building stages starts…even more noise and disruption. It sounds like a move is definitely on the horizon for you and, with the bushland now gone, we don’t plan on renewing our lease for another year either…it runs out in July ’11. Such a shame your beautiful garden will be returned to lawn when you move but, hopefully, you will be able to do the same at the next place.
I do hope you’re enjoying a beautiful weekend.
Love,
Serena xo
Serena´s last blog ..Sew- sew- sew
Serena, satisfying is exactly the right word. I’m sorry your lease is so long, as I know you’ve had a hard time with that place, and with the looming construction practically in your backyard, I know it’s going to be difficult. I think I’ll always end up growing something, no matter where I move. It has always been so in my life.
Sending you a big hug!
Lovely shots, Meredith. See? It is possible to shoot a black cat (that doesn’t read right, does it?) Everyday miracles – I count on witnessing one every day.
Yes, the sound of chain saws is not a pleasant one. Brings back some horrible memories for me, too. But I won’t think about them and will enjoy your monarch shot instead.
Glad you are feeling better and wonderful to see you back. While it’s never fun to leave a garden behind (and even sadder to dig one over) there are other beautiful and productive and fine gardens in your future.
Talon´s last blog ..Shedding
LOL about the black cat, Talon.
As for the everyday miracles, you’re so right, of course. They are all around us. Let’s keep our focus on them and forget about the nasty ol’ chainsaws.
I do think you’re right about my future, and I appreciate the encouragement. Surely once a gardener, always a gardener?
Now I’m sad. But it’s all part of growth, I suppose. Old trees fall down to make way for new, and so to our lives change and grow.
Aw, Merrilee, I’m sorry to have made you sad. Change can be hard, and perhaps so much of it having to do with loss lately, in my own life, has made me feel it in a more melancholy way.
I do think it will all work out for the highest good of all concerned. So take heart, my friend!
Hi Meredith,
I just read back through your posts to catch up a bit, and first of all I want to send my condolences to you on the loss of your grandfather. It’s so difficult to lose a loved-one. I hope you’ll find solace in your continued writing and pondering here on your blog. Your astute observations are wonderfully captured and shared by your gift of writing and I really enjoyed reading the posts that I’d missed over the months I haven’t visited. I’m also sorry you had the flu but so glad to know you’ve been recovering. So sorry to hear you will be moving in the spring and leaving your current garden. I know, though, that you will find the good things that the future holds for you. As for Carol’s magnificent stories she has shared about the Monarch’s, I am also in awe of the lovely creature’s…and of Carol’s many talents! (Yours, too!).
Jan (Thanks For Today)´s last blog ..Wordless Wednesday- Pumpkin Carvings
Jan, thank you for your condolences. It has been harder than… well, anything in recent memory. Your kind words are solace and light, and I’m so glad to hear from you again.
As for finding the good things the future holds, I think your blog title says it all: thanks for today. I’ll look for the beauty and grace and kindness and wonder in each day as it unfolds. It’s really the best way to live.
Dear Meredith, I have been enjoying your posts and feel very happy you have returned to blogging again. What a horrid day that must have been for you and your kitty . . . it is too sad that so many people do not think or act in a respectful or caring way towards our mother earth. When trees do have to come down, things could be done to ease the shock to both humans and trees. More often than not it is simply a matter of convenience rather than necessity to take a tree down. They offer us so much . . . as you say in privacy and insulation from noise and hot sun, and I know they were your friends too. I am glad you did not lose your owls! I remember the wonderful stories and photos you shared with us.
I am very touched that my Monarch posts were meaningful to you Meredith. Thank you for the links. It is great that you were able to see the Monarchs, as they were heading towards Mexico. Your Monarch portrait is beautiful with all the magical light in the background.
Carolflowerhillfarm´s last blog ..I Dream Of Blooming Friday
Carol, your Monarch posts have been an education and a delight all in one. You write with such passion and joy and love in every sentence, and your photographs are just incredible. So glad you enjoyed my wee homage.
The tree losses were indeed a shock to my system, and yes, I lost friends. I even, naively, tried to explain to one of the “tree removal experts” that he was destroying a space I loved, and that those beings were my friends.
He responded with a sigh of impatience. “Ma’am, that will all grow back in six months.”
35-foot trees! A juvenile Magnolia Grandiflora! (Probably about 8 years old, at a guess.) A tulip tree mature enough to drop viable seeds into my garden! (I’ve saved one of her babies for a clandestine replant in the spring.) It’s just unbelievable ignorance to think these things came about in six months. F. and I were affronted by the audacity of such a statement, and the manner in which the crew behaved as the trees came down was so crass as to beggar belief. The whole episode makes one fear for the future of one’s species, frankly.
Yet life goes on
and some things die
and others don’t
gardens, trees and butterflies
and us
desk49´s last blog ..The Gift-
You’re so right, Ellis. Impermanence is the law of the cosmos.
I do think that property will feel a loss after you go, but I imagine things popping up here and there and the legacy of your care will live on.
I went through dozens of old black and white photos yesterday and was struck by the beauty of my grandparents’ home. How happy everything looked and what beauty they created in their garden. Last year my sister my sister and I drove by the property when we were in Macon and the house is gone. It was December, so there most everything was dormant, but there was a lone jonquil blooming in the front yard that was surely planted by those loving hands. I thought about this when I read your post. (And my sister wanted to dig it up, but I vetoed that. It is their legacy.) xo
Lynn´s last blog ..Banner day- wee neighbors and nice neighbors
I do wonder if around Easter you drive by that house in Macon, you will find a swath of daffodils blooming their hearts out. I’m just betting the December one was on the fringes of a bell-curve of bloom. My grandmother’s daffodil legacy still blooms by the thousands in a sloping curve on the drive into my family’s old farmland.
Thanks for making me smile, Lynn.
Hi Meredith .. I sure hope you find somewhere happy and peaceful to go to .. with a garden to tend – it sounds much loved for now.
The photos are brilliant .. and your cat – exceptional photo .. and the story re the Monarch Butterfly absolutely beautiful.
People are selfish and don’t think .. I’m just glad you’re better now .. enjoy this week .. Hilary
Hilary´s last blog ..Hanging Hooke
Hilary, I’m sure I can make a garden in many places. Once I find out where that is, I’ll start daydreaming and making excited plans, I’m sure…
So glad you enjoyed the shots and the Monarch story. And thank you for the kind words!
aloha meredith,
the colors of your late fall harvests are so brilliant and i love the colored bowls also….looks like a great ratatouille in the making.
it sounds like a stressful week with the powerline and your condition, i’m sure your glad both are over and we are happy to see you giving us beautiful observations again from your neck of the woods….have a great week my friend
noel´s last blog ..A Room with a Tropical View
Aloha, Noel! Those ended up being oven-roasted with a splash of balsamic vinegar. Very yummy, and an excellent way to really taste the garden flavors.
Thanks for the kind wishes!
Dear Meredith, What a rainbow of delights you harvested before the close of the season. It is sad that you will have to leave and start again somewhere new…but think of the experience which you have gained from your first forays into vegetable gardening…this will surely ensure bumper harvests in future years!!
Edith Hope´s last blog ..From Russia with Love
Edith, I think you are totally right to focus on the positive here. The experience of the first true kitchen garden of my own will stay with me for life, and hopefully pay off in vegetable dividends.
I’m trying to think of something positive to say and I’m failing. I’m glad to see you’re feeling better. I’ve missed you. And I agree with your other commenters who have shared here that they’re confident that you will make beauty wherever you go. Because you will.
lisahgolden´s last blog ..Traitorous Cats and Poisonous Cough Drops
Oh, no, I didn’t mean to make the post so dark. I think my own tone is getting away from me lately. Thanks for pulling something beautiful out of there, Lisa.
it’s very sad to hear about the sawing and chipping a foot from the house. I think I would also have been scared, sickened, and sad.
maybe you’ll consider starting seeds, moving to slightly bigger pots and planting in-ground at your new place – or at least container gardening for a season?
Wendy, I’d love to do exactly that — but unfortunately we still don’t know where we’re headed. I’m probably not going to want to ship fragile seedlings cross-country on top of all the regular boxes and packing we’re in for. (So far options range as far north as Wisconsin and Vermont, as far west as Iowa, and you get the idea.
)
I suspect that first summer in the new place I’ll be feeling my way, learning the lay of the land, getting to know the local ecosystem and its particularities as best I can *before* I begin to garden.
What a gorgeous bowl of beautiful vegetables. Sorry you were ill, I hope you are feeling better. Your cats are adorable.
meemsnyc´s last blog ..Eco-friendly and loving it!
I thought they were rather pretty, too, Meems, like a well-done finale.
The cats are preening after I relayed your compliment.
Welcome back. Missed you and your beautiful pictures.
Susie @newdaynewlesson´s last blog ..Chest Pain Needs To Be Taken Seriously
Thanks, Susie. I’m glad to be back — and it’s good to be missed!
hello my friend,
i think of you everyday.
i love that you are back. and that you shared this butterfly series with us.
you might remember, butterflies are my all time favorite thing, to photograph.
xoxo
I do remember that, Christina. Your photographs get more lovely all the time, too.
That would be sad to see. (And those are definitely high-alert eyes.)
When I was in CA in January, I went to a monarch butterfly grove. I was so excited because I had always wanted to see the migration and it was the right time of year. Unfortunately, a huge storm just before we arrived caused most of them to continue on and they were not in the grove. So glad you got to enjoy them!
Elizabeth´s last blog ..lets talk about you
Aw, I hate it that you missed the Monarchs in the grove. Maybe you’ll get to visit again sometime? Carol’s photographs of the masses of them in the trees in Mexico amazed me. Must be something to see live!
And yes, such high-alert eyes.
Love all the color in the bowls and veggies photos. And the photos of the sweet black kitty. I too hate the sound of a chipper and hate to see a tree cut down, I find it so gut wrenching and sad to see. But I’m glad you had the monarch experience. As for moving, always difficult but I must have a gypsy soul or something, I find it exciting. Maybe once you see where you’ll be going,you’ll be able to find the adventure of it all. One consolation, you have the most wonderful photographic record of your time here.
I’m glad someone noticed the bowls, too, Helen. They are vintage Pyrex, and I’m rather fond of them, in spite of their tattered condition.
Your gypsy soul sounds a wonderful gift. I had more wanderlust when I was younger. More and more I just want to settle and put down some roots!
Hello Meredith, I’ve been busily trying to catch up on your last few posts! I don’t know where my time goes at the moment…I think it leaks out of a hole in my pocket.
So sorry to hear about the tree removal. I think I would respond the same way as your cats and end up hiding under a table!
You are missing your tomatoes just as I am watching little green ones swell (with no small amount of anticipation). The world turns on tomatoes I think
Heidi (GippyGardener)´s last blog ..Ladybird Love
Heidi, I felt like that when it was spring rolling into summer around here. I suspect it’s because you’ve got a whole new facet to your life now, one that could take all the pleasant hours of the day if you could let it — gardening.
Tomatoes make the world go round? Sounds about right.
Meredith,
I am so pleased that you are BACK and that I get enjoy your gentle thoughts and beautiful pictures. While I’m sorry that you must leave, perhaps there’s a gift hidden in this change and waiting for you to find it. I feel like it’s somehow right. Then again, I know that wherever you land, you will have a garden, even if it in small planters about the house. Plants and veggies will always find you…they know they can trust you to watch over them:~)
p.s. the kitties are wonderful. I love the big picture of the black one looking out the blanket. Such eyes:~)
Sara´s last blog ..Story Photo- Looking Up
Body and Soul intertwined…I got sick after losing trees as well. Didn’t know if it was from the dust that was stirred up, or from a broken heart seeing good healthy friends cut to the ground. My blog has been quiet as of late. Glad you are back here I love visiting you Mer.
gemma´s last blog ..1st Paint and Pass going home
Dear Meredith, I am glad you are back blogging! I missed you. Your story about the trees reminds me of a similar tree loss many years ago. One never forgets the loss of trees. I wish you and husband the best searching for a new position and home in this difficult job market — it’s got to be hard facing these changes.
Susan Tiner´s last blog ..Gray Kitty Gets his Wish!