gardenthoughts

ahhh .. august is the month of ripening blackberries .. they ripen over a relatively long period of time .. and now, here it is september .. i’m out wandering around .. still .. picking blackberries .. braving the finite points of blackberry thorns .. sticking my hand into the depths of them to pick the blackest .. shiniest .. sweetest looking .. melt in your mouth blackberries .. hiding .. almost as if daring me to find them .. which i do .. if only i could make my arms about three feet longer .. then i would reach the very centre .. where live the most succulent of berries ..

we are blessed with blackberry bushes .. they grow all over this speck of earth .. with so many special .. and favoured .. sites to choose from .. on private property .. (with permission, naturally) .. on public spaces .. along the roadsides .. in the parks .. behind the community garden .. on some routes you can’t walk thirty feet without encountering a thicket of blackberry bushes .. and even now .. you just have to look to the left .. or to the right .. while wandering down the road .. and poof! .. big, luscious, blackberries are winking back at you in the sunlight .. mmm ..

blackberries are best to pick when they fall right into your hands .. in fact, little picking is required .. just a tickle .. then the ripest fall .. and you catch them and put them into your bag .. or bucket .. or empty yoghurt container .. or straight into your mouth .. that sweet berriness filling your senses .. literally, when you pop that perfectly ripened berry into your mouth .. it hits the roof .. and melts .. filling your taste buds up .. with blackberry essence .. so tasty ..

there are many here who pick blackberries .. some, who have been picking for years .. expert blackberry pickers .. some, who are here for the day .. containers in hand .. looking to take away some blackberry goodness .. there are some who have specially devised blackberry ‘hooks’ .. to hook and move the prickly masses of stalks which are in the way of those most luscious bunches of berries .. however .. hook or no hook .. no one comes out of a blackberry pick without a myriad of assorted scratches .. on legs .. arms .. hands .. sometimes to the extent that there is a session .. once home .. with a needle and a magnifying glass .. to get out the prickle tips that chose to stay with you .. yet .. “battle wounds” are an important part of the blackberry picking experience .. after all .. what’s a little pain in the face of future jars of blackberry jelly .. or jam .. or blackberry pies .. or muffins .. or cordial .. or just a bowl of glistening blackberries with sugar and a little milk .. mmmm ..

by the time i arrived at the hospice my sister had been there four days .. unbeknownst to any of us at that time, it turned out she would be with us for another ten .. although the time did not pass in days .. or hours .. or moments .. it was more like a span of time .. time passing .. an experience without definition .. everyone involved was part of the continuim .. for those next ten days we were more in tune with the sun rising and the sun setting .. the sole purpose for our being there was to be with susan .. so, that’s what we did .. each of us there having our own experience with her .. as it is all still relatively fresh with me, i have the urge to write of my own experience and observations of what is, to me, a most incredible phase of a life .. a phase that contains elements of sorrow .. and also, a phase that contains elements of joy .. a phase of life that we all come to .. eventually .. each in our own way ..

my sister lived with cancer ‘in remission’ for over twenty years .. i can’t imagine what that was like, really .. more just words to me, than experience .. after the cancer returned, about four years ago, there were many valiant efforts to somehow jolt it back into remission .. this was not to be .. her time was nigh .. and she knew it .. and was ready for it .. she’d told me on several occasions over the last months that she was tired .. i guess so .. it seems to me, that even if the cancer is ‘in remission’ that it doesn’t go away in one’s mind .. there is always a little place where the possibility exists .. you are always living with it .. it’s a part of who you are ..

and so .. i was greeted by my eldest sister when i reached her room at the hospice .. she was light hearted .. almost childlike .. in her approach to her final days .. initially, she was lucid .. accepting company .. guests .. people coming to express their love .. their friendship .. their sense of pending loss .. and graciously, she received it all .. on the first friday morning after i arrived, myself and one of the nurses dressed her, put her in the wheelchair and jauntily plunked her sun hat on her hairless head .. and off we went .. my sister and i .. strolling through the neighbourhood surrounding the hospice .. lovely older homes .. well tended gardens .. rhododendrons puffing out magnificent displays of colour and height every which way we looked .. we veered off the straight and narrow to a side trail that led us across the back of a school yard .. we travelled around a cul de sac admiring gardens .. my sister chattered away about all she saw around her .. so focused .. so present .. so in the moment .. both of us .. eventually, we ended up at a local university campus where we found a cafeteria .. we sat in the sunshine with a wall of rhododendrons a few feet away .. we watched bees pollinate .. my sister declared that if she had twenty more years to live she would be a honey maker .. beekeeper .. the cancer was nestled in her brain and consequently words didn’t always come out the way she intended .. i understood what she meant .. she chatted on about her life .. the choices she’d made .. where they took her .. were they right .. were they wrong .. hmmm .. i assured her that all the choices she made had been the right ones for her .. that otherwise she may not have met her husband .. had him at her side throughout all these past years .. and now .. ‘yes, ‘ she decided after some thought .. ‘that sounds true’ .. shortly, we carried off on our way back to the hospice as more visitors were expected that afternoon .. ‘you’re a good companion,’ she told me .. i told her, ‘it was my pleasure’ ..

later on, while i was back at their home, her husband called to see if i had noted any change in my sister .. which i hadn’t .. i suggested she might be tired out from the walk .. however, when i returned early the next morning she had moved into the next phase of her journey .. over the next days she slept .. she awoke .. she had fewer moments of being lucid .. the sister i had moments with that one morning was, clearly, on her way .. her sleeping patterns changed .. her breathing changed .. her moments of lucidity lessened even more .. we were never sure when we left how she would be upon our return .. it didn’t matter, really .. however she was, was just fine .. it was simply her process of leaving her body behind .. and we didn’t interfere .. in any way .. in fact, we encouraged her on her way .. her husband .. my other sister .. her husband .. and myself .. we watched the process unfold .. let it be .. had waves of sorrow .. waves of understanding .. waves of deep feeling .. waves of joy .. it was all fine .. all part of the process for each of us .. in our own ways ..

that last walk with my sister was like a huge gift .. her sitting there beside me .. in a wheelchair .. her sunhat jauntily perched upon her head .. smiling .. she was ready to go .. she knew it .. i knew it .. and i wouldn’t have missed being there to send her off .. ‘safe trip’ i told her after she’d breathed the last breath her body had .. ‘thanks for being here’ ..

over the past week i’ve spent time with my eldest sister in hospice .. as she progresses toward the last days of her life on the planet, it is an honour to be with her .. and such an open hearted time for us all .. my sister, our family, friends, nursing staff .. a celebration of a life ..

yesterday afternoon, i planted up the containers on the patio of her home .. cleaned up last year’s pots .. made ‘fresh’ soil with the dirt, manure, and a bit of bonemeal .. refilled the pots .. and stuffed them full with brilliantly coloured petunias, ‘million bells’ and white lobelia .. for me, it was a gesture of love .. for my sister ..

today my other sister joined me in the garden and we finished planting up the pots and cleaning the front garden bed .. we planted begonias and impatiens .. it’s been a few years since we spent any time together as we live hundreds of miles apart .. we dug .. mixed more dirt .. moved plants around .. planted new  plants .. we swept and watered .. we wept .. we laughed .. we talked .. we worked together quietly .. we did it for our sister even though she will never see the garden .. we did it for ourselves ..

whether her husband looks after the garden is irrelevant .. the magic and love is contained in the act of our time together .. thinking of sue ..

well .. morning is progressing .. i’ve been awake since 5:14 and up at 6 .. done my ablution .. moved quietly through my morning rituals .. and now .. frank’s gone off into his day .. and i’m here .. waiting for my gardening partner .. then we’ll set off to our thursday garden .. to play ..

it’s a little chilly at the moment, although the sun is shining brightly .. no doubt it’s warmer in the sun .. more the breeze that’s bringing a chill .. you can see from this shot, although taken more than a week ago, that spring is just beginning to come forth out of the winter’s decay ..

nonetheless, there is so much going on in gardens everywhere .. so much ‘life burgeoning’ .. nothing can stop it .. in our garden there’s plenty going on .. building projects .. new beds .. veggies coming .. and more and more colour all the time .. i’m just sitting here .. in waiting mode .. taking this time to do a bit of word to screen .. scanning photos .. while the sun warms the earth .. and while i wait for my gardening partner .. i do a bit of both ..

primula ..

hepatica ..

i see joe coming now .. enjoy ..

the vernal equinox has passed .. the island is changing dramatically with the arrival of spring .. brilliant greens unfolding all around .. leaves .. leaves .. leaves .. everywhere .. pushing themselves out of stems .. stalks .. trunks ..  as if overnight the world flora has sprung .. in the midst of the drama of newly opening green-ness, native wildflowers silently reveal themselves .. some, for a few weeks now .. indian plum (first out) .. red flowering currant .. salmon berries (bring rufous hummingbirds) .. and once in a while .. if you are alert .. (and a fellow i once knew said “the world needs more lerts”) .. the whorled spears of brilliant white trilliums shine out at you from the woodlands .. i have stories and and pictures in my mental portfolio of each of these lovely ethereal beings .. however, today, my mind is on fawn lilies .. as i write, they are growing ..

these days, whenever i’m out wandering around the island, i see fawn lilies .. growing in people’s yards .. on empty lots .. on park pathways .. deep in the woods under towering cedars .. under snowberries .. under ocean spray .. softly, greenly striped white skirts flaring up as if in motion .. as if dancing .. such a delight to see ..

the children who come to the community garden painted rocks to mark where some of the wildflowers live in the woods behind the garden .. beautiful image to see .. walking along the path .. glancing down at the lilies ..

to some, fawn lilies are synonymous with dog tooth violets .. or trout lilies .. they are in the family of erythronium .. erythronium oregonum .. perhaps .. i’m not exactly sure which sibling lives here .. regardless .. these little darlings are a favourite around here .. we are exclaiming their virtues these days ..

this is the first day of the new year .. whatever that means .. i suppose we’ll see, as we move along .. life changing .. abundant growth .. in a myriad of ways .. is what i look forward to .. and so, we go ..

this photo was taken a couple of days ago .. a few days before that the pond was frozen from crisp, clear and chilly days .. and freezing nights .. today it’s raining .. change comes so quickly .. sometimes .. other times, it seems to move more slowly .. at its own pace, i suspect .. certainly not at any pace that i have even been able to pin on it ..

over the past couple of weeks i  haven’t been gardening .. this time of year both frank and i stop .. about a week before christmas until the beginning of the new year, we rest .. we relax .. we walk .. we read .. i think of it as rejuvenating our selves for the coming season .. perhaps, metaphorically speaking, our dormant time  .. it’s great ..

each day i take time to spend time out walking .. listening to music on my shuffle .. sometimes dancing in the woods .. always peering ..

peering downwards ..

peering upwards ..

peering forward ..

into the unknown ..

of this new year ..

the weather is changing now .. patches of blue are showing through the clouds and rain .. the trees down the road are swaying with the breeze that brings this change .. it would appear to be my cue to go out walking .. to see what comes to me to be seen ..

moving gently into the new season ..

happy new year ..

when i first moved to this island, many moons ago, there were lots of trails .. trails took you pretty much everywhere you wanted to go .. all trails were well used by the locals .. oh, there were also roads, too .. not much wider than the occasional vehicle that used them .. tracks, really .. and they covered the expanse of the island .. still do, although now they are wide enough for two vehicles to pass, with room to spare .. as the population has grown, and land has been cleared to build homes, many of the trails have disappeared .. there are many people who live here now, who have no idea there are trails through the existing woods .. and, there are some people who know there are trails, but don’t use them .. and then, there are those of us who travel them frequently .. rarely meeting .. but, we know who we are ..

beau and i use often find ourselves on these trails .. for a number of different reasons .. almost always, our travels are moments of solitude .. we are taking the shortcut from our home to another’s .. or, we are taking the longcut .. meandering through slowly, with the intent of pleasure in our surroundings  .. (at those times it’s good to have the camera pocketed) .. the trails move into and through forests whose trees reach up a hundred or more feet .. cedar branches sway downward to the floor of ferns and myriad species of underbrush .. sometimes the trail leads to a road .. other times to a beach .. or to the lake (affectionately referred to as “the pond”) .. or over to the community garden .. just depends on where you want to go ..

today it’s pouring rain .. no gardening for me .. however, regardless of the rain, i decided to walk over to the community garden to see if the rye seed had arrived .. the beds there are ready to be planted .. beau and i started out on our walk following the road southwards .. this gave me the opportunity to wander by stu’s and see if the delivery of dirt and manure had happened yet .. and there it was .. bags of material stacked in the driveway ..  carrying on down the road to the garden, i see the rye hasn’t arrived yet, so we turn around and head back towards home .. the rain is beginning to pour down pretty steadily now, so we take the back trail through to home .. i always imagine there is an element of cover from the branches .. it was soaking wet in there .. oh, well .. them’s the chances ya take ..

a short trail tale .. years ago, there was a wild daphne growing at the entrance to one of the trails near a roadside .. growing up and over the entryway, grew a large blackberry .. this blackberry commenced growing up and over a lower tree branch, and made its way across to entangle with the daphne .. a perfect archway opening .. for me, that trail became the ‘daphne bower’ one .. the bower has since transformed with the cycles of growth .. there is no archway there now .. however, the trail is still there .. for now .. at some point in time, someone will buy that lot and daphne bower will be transformed, yet again .. in the meantime, happy trails .. wherever they may lead ..

i’m feeling a bit antsy .. i’m happy for having the time off from gardening, however, i’m also looking forward to puttering around again, getting a sense of what’s been growing over the past three weeks while the snow’s been here .. in the winter garden, in particular, a new season is beginning .. before long, the atmosphere will be spring-like there .. flower buds are already expanding .. soon, i’ll be greeting old “friends” i haven’t seen for a year .. imagine, if you can, a winter flowering garden .. let’s see .. it’s january now .. who will be the first to show ..

hmmm .. think i’ll go for a walk ..

i’m sitting here, listening to jack johnson’s ‘sleep through the static’ .. i’ve only recently been introduced to his music and lyrics .. i’d heard reference to ‘banana pancakes’ a couple of times during conversations, as though it were a code of some sort .. not knowing jack’s music, i couldn’t begin to understand .. then, i heard ‘in between dreams’ and there it was .. ‘banana pancakes’ .. take a break .. leave the busyness of your immediate world and pause .. sigh .. relax in knowing all you need is right here, right now .. ah, banana pancakes .. i get it! .. i simply hadn’t thought it in terms of pancakes .. well, who is to say what words need to be used to refer us to the present moment .. where “we have everything we need .. and everything we need is enough” ..

makes me think of christmas .. when is all we have enough .. this year, as in many past, i observed that the spirit of christmas has slipped from the heart to the pocketbook .. sad, really .. sad that we humans get so caught up in buying to fulfill perceived needs .. sad that children have come to believe that getting more stuff (adding to the mountains already accumulated over such a short time on the planet), is somehow fulfilling .. i feel sorry for us .. in my own random thots, it occurs to me that we are way off the track .. heart to pocketbook is a drastic shift in consciousness .. not to say that it is “wrong,” because who is to say what is wrong or right .. i tend to think of it more in terms of spans of time .. as in, it took a span of time for us to get where we are now, i wonder what span of time will pass before we get back on track .. being here, now, where everything we have is enough ..

christmas is so not a now situation .. at least, we’ve built it up to such a disproportion that as soon as hallowe’en has passed, we are being prompted to think about christmas, about those we love, and about how we have to spend money to demonstrate that love .. money equals love ..hmmmm .. i’m not sure i’m convinced on that score .. however, i don’t mean to bore you all with these seemingly disgruntled philosophical ramblings of my own mind re the spirit of christmas .. on the flip side, i observe that there is a more intensified love between us during this time of year .. in my own experience, my heart seems to open a little wider to include people beyond my immediate scope .. i drop a few more dollars in a busker’s hat .. help more elderly cross the snowy road .. smile more .. i am more aware that love is demonstrated in a myriad of different little things i do .. but is it christmas that brings out this sensitivity to love .. or would it be here regardless .. could it be here regardless of the season .. perhaps it is always here, now .. maybe we just aren’t .. yet ..

i believe we are on our way .. may we glide gently into the new year ..

right now, we’re enjoying a winter wonder land here .. it’s quite an unusual occurrence for us to have over a foot of snow on the ground (not sure how many centimeters .. lots) for any length of time .. this year the snow has been falling for over a week .. that’s unusual, too .. often what happens is we get a big dump, and then it rains .. not so this year ..

the walk to and from the ferry now means stumbling along the ruts previously made by others with vehicles .. trucks and cars, mainly, as likely, golf carts would just get hung up on the snow between the ruts .. so, getting around is a bit different for us .. in town, it’s a whole other ball game .. there isn’t really enough snow removing equipment to make much of a dent in what’s graced the island .. however, i think, things could be so much worse .. for this, and for what’s occurring with the weather in other places on the planet these days, we can be thankfull ..

in all of this, i am feeling a little bit smug .. as a gardener i am out and about, puttering around in some fashion, in some garden, on any day that it isn’t pouring down with rain, or blowing up a storm .. now that the ground is covered in white, there isn’t really anywhere to garden .. and so i sit .. and i read .. or i knit .. or i get up and bake .. i’ve had so much time at home that i managed to get christmas gifts made, packed up and shipped out to varying places in the country with time to spare .. and still i have time to sit, and read, or knit or blog or not .. it’s such a pleasure, really, and every winter in times of snow i get more comfortable, in myself, with just sitting .. and reading .. or knitting .. or whatever else suits my fancy .. i am revelling in my non gardening time .. how lovely ..

oh, and i get outside at least once a day .. because i can get cabin fever after a few hours of being inside .. i take my camera and off i go .. if i can’t be out there gardening, then i can be out there taking pictures of gardens under snow .. someone has to do it, i suppose ..