We have been working very hard to take out some of the “clutter” trees in the hedgerows and groves. There are several piles around the yard of branches and debris that is too big for an actual compost pile and too small for firewood or other lumber. I’d chip it up and use it around the gardens, but right now I don’t think we can afford a chipper.
I have been pruning small bits from a few of the trees and shrubs, trying to get them nipped back before they begin to set fruiting wood for next year. I have been weeding, applying aged compost and mulching around the ornamental beds. Cutting back blackberries as the canes finish their effective bearing for the year. Moving garbage from scattered locations to the garbage cans (this is ongoing, but I am finally seeing progress!), and keeping up with composting chores with Grant and Tom’s help.
The skies today appeared murky, as if those high clouds that form in humid weather were trying to shield our dry soils from the sun. But they weren’t really clouds, they were smoke from fires all over our hemisphere. I sneezed and coughed and finally took extra allergy medicine and kept on going. It’s too close to the chilly, wet season to close the doors and windows and hibernate.
It was a busy day, this Sunday — from getting up before 8 and starting some lard to rendering to sitting down after it got dark to blog, I had very little time to just sit and enjoy the long shadows, the graying of the greens as they transition to yellow, orange and reds; too little time to step back and really take stock of all the progress between this time last year and now. I focused instead on keeping each moment as it lasted and then letting it go to enjoy the new moment. Meditation without words.
Driving home mid-afternoon I looked at the shadows across the roads and realized that I was seeing time passing as if from outside. This close to the equinox, while the weather remains summery the days themselves are signaling change: I stand with my decades of observations and compare this year to that, this moment to another. I see each moment as unique, and yet part of a whole, part of a “narrative” that far exceeds any storyteller’s ability to convey. Patterns are drawn as if the gods are spiders, moving back and forth with silvery threads in time to some unheard metronome.
I am starting to move the spiders back outside, too. They know the light is changing, and are seeking dry accommodations. My home is the wrong place for most of them, and so I gently lift and carry them to sheltered places outside, hoping they will find something more suitable to both our needs. Only the jumping spiders seem to be able to live both inside and outside, and so I have begun to think of them as guides. They model flexibility and adaptability, as well as tenacity. Some years, we name one or two who are less shy.
Here are a few pictures around the yard from the last couple of days, enjoy! The first four pictures show some before and after pics of the ornamental maple near the front door.
These last two pics are of Tom and Lucky (Grant was behind the shrubs) working to get a fallen alder out of the hedgerow, and the carport in the backyard finally cleared out and organized for the winter. The pile on the left was about a quarter of the material removed that day!
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