I'm In The Garden

The garden is an unpredictable thing. S'pose that's one reason I love it. There's so many variables involved: weather, deer, squirrels, my energy level, my monetary level.

And I'm sure there are unseen forces at work that I have no knowledge of, let alone any control over.

Some plants thrive one year and flounder the next. Some mutate and you get plants that you never bought. Some get eaten to a nub and come back more vibrant than ever, some get eaten to a nub and succumb.

Some have sentimental value. Like the Snow on the Mountain that Janie gave me, the little purple flowers (don't know they're name) and the yellow Iris that came from Georgie's garden, the rhubarb that never quite gets big enough to harvest. And the sweet little Johnny-Jump-Ups that somehow manage to over-winter even though they're annuals.

My favorite time in the garden is right....about....now. About 8:00 in the evening, after I've watered. The sun is at the perfect angle to back light everything in a very mellow gold. The evening breeze is blowing and the hummingbirds come 'round for their evening dog fights. It is this perfect time of day at the perfect time of the year that I will miss most if we ever move away from this house.

Speaking of unpredictable, I have a deer skull in the garden that I rescued some years ago from my neighbor's trash. It's been slowly decaying with weather and mice. Tonight I was watering and another neighbor's dog came ambling by. He's an old dog, gray muzzle and long body like he was half basset. He came slowly up the hill, walked into the garden, walked over to the deer skull, picked up it's jaw bone and took off with it. I didn't try to stop him. Es ist Leben im Garten.