2010-I’ve had to give in and close the windows at night as the temperature drops into the forties. The bright cloudless mornings promise a warm day but as clouds come in it may not materialize, yesterday stayed quite cool, especially while the gigantic dark grey clouds were covering the sun. Every time it broke through was like a benediction.
Leaves have begun to color up, some ash behind the garden are showing red among the yellow and what looks like a maple at the back of the next door field is sporting orange tips in some places.
I continue bringing in and processing harvest-tomatoes, mixed greens (kale, collards and chard) string beans, squash. The scallions are yellowing but I am not sure how to keep them. Blanched and frozen I suppose, like everything else, to be used in cooking. The apples are not quite ready and there are not so many as last year. The cardoons are tied up to blanch before they are harvested at the end of the month.
The hummingbirds are still here, suddenly interested in the butterfly bush and shoving the swallowtails and silverspots and monarchs out of the way. I have seen no traveling geese as of yet.
2011- A hurricane on August 28 created more havoc up here than I have ever seen. Trees large and small down everywhere and along with them telephone and electric wires. There was no power for over a week and when it returned it was followed by remnants of another storm that brought days of heavy steady rain. The landline is still out. Today the sun is shining but the rivers and streams are still rising and the flood warnings continue. I was feeling disappointed in the garden this year but the feeling has deepened to almost fear. If I had thought I could replace loving a human with loving nature, now I have seen another, unexpected side. I am having a hard time; I have lost the feeling of connection. It feels in waves, too cold, too hot, too wet; I just want to shrink away from it and back into myself. Yesterday I felt something while gathering chanterelles and noticing all the little orange newts and magical colored mushrooms; coral, oyster, boletes-(who knows what else, though I would like to learn.) But it’s like I have been disappointed in love and am sulking.
I will go out to the garden later. The string beans have begun to produce though the plants are tiny. Beets and celeriac are still small. The limas are hard to catch while they are green so maybe I will just dry them all. The are few and small, anyway. The tomatoes just burst and rot with all the water. A few squash are growing though many of the female flowers don’t seem to produce fruit. The eggplant plants look good but produce little. Some of what they do produce just drops off rotting while small. The potatoes were small and blighted, the okra barely grew, the cardoons have all shrunk away and the onions are staying small. The cucumbers, greens, parsnips, Brussels sprouts and broccoli are doing fairly well.
2013-The praying mantises (manti?) are trying to tell me something. I’m finding them everywhere and they seem to especially like clinging to the window screens and peering into the house. There’s one on the front door, the back door, and the kitchen 2013-The praying mantises (manti?) are trying to tell me something. I’m finding them everywhere and they seem to especially like clinging to the window screens and peering into the house. There’s one on the front door, the back door, and the kitchen window. What do they want?
It’s boiling hot and humid today, summer’s last gasp perhaps but the coloring trees tell a different story. A sad thing- a hummingbird got caught in the screen of the garden gate, but unlike the one a while ago, did not survive. I need to find another way to keep creatures out of there.
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