Game One - Woohoo!!!

Too cool ...

The new enhanced beta version of Game Day - of course, I'm also watching on TV, but this is very nice, isn't it?
Of course, the score isn't hurting right at the moment, either. It's been a very long 20 year wait. I'm still trying to enjoy each moment, and not project too much, but it's sooooo hard....

Save the last dance for me ...

It's October. It's my favorite time of the year. I remind myself of this as I look out on the backyard and survey the first blanket of leaves that the trees have unfurled over the lawn. It's my favorite time of the year. It's my favorite time of year. It's my favorite time of year.

















Hudson says, "What leaves?" while Crow devises a plan for their removal, disposal, and possibly a way to keep them on the trees next year.


On the last day of September, I took stock of the garden. There was a surprising survivor - a clematis I thought had died had not only come back from the dead, but had sent out a lone bloom. With a little coaxing, I got it to cling tenously to the side of the arbor and look, for a brief 2 days before the rain knocked it down, like the beginnings of the vine I had envisioned there. My gardening friends tell me I'll see what I want in the third year. Meanwhile, welcome flower. You'll serve as a promise.

On October 5, in order to distract myself from something that was worrying me to the point of not sleeping and not eating (or paying for it sadly if I tried,) I put myself to work out front. I went out and bought 6 chrysanthemums - three in a delicious, deep wine color, two in a bright, jubilant yellow, and one in a splendid blend of deep golds and wine tones. It was after 6:00 when I was loading them in my car, and the guys at the garden center asked me if I intended to get them all in that evening. They figured I had 20 minutes of light left. In fact, I had nearly an hour of useable light, and I managed to prepare the beds and get four of them in the ground before deciding the last 2 could wait till the next night. It's come to me late, but I've found that if I can really throw myself into a job that requires physical energy and some creative thought, as well as one that provides instant gratification when it's done, I really can set aside my worries for that while.

The rest of my garden has slowed to a waltz. I've cut back all of the cone flowers and phlox. The dead shoots from the lilies come off in my hands. There's one stubborn cone flower left. The sedum is in bloom. Last year, that was the only thing I really saw of my garden. I'd moved in in August. I'd missed all of the daffodils and crocuses, and the phlox was ragged and well past its glory. The bleeding heart I don't remember even noticing, and I had missed the lilies entirely.
This year, I not only saw the whole thing, but tended it and met a world of tiny creatures who not only lived off it, but became a part of it, and graced it with their magic.

I was on a journey. At the top of this blog I put a quote from an old folk song - "inch by inch, row by row, gonna watch this garden grow." I intended that as a metaphor for myself, for a planting and a blooming and hopefully, a reaping. Instead, I watched the literal and figurative happen together. Now, as I rake the leaves from these gardens, before I put them to bed for another winter, I'm sharing in this last glorious display before even the colors go fallow for a season. It's like a last dance - slower, warmer, with the volume turned down - before we come inside for the winter and rest.