Goodbye Garden

All the orchids have been removed from the pool enclosure and will now winter on the kitchen sideboard. They all have buds or blooms and it is such a pleasure to have them there to watch as their incredible delicate blossoms emerge and then stay beautiful for weeks.

We are expecting freezing weather for the next few days so I have been in a pre- mourning mode for all the stuff that can't be covered and will be lost or frozen to the ground. I know that acrid odor of burst plant cells the morning after a freeze. And I know I will deal with it as I always have. (Order the seeds and plant starts from the wonderful catalogs.)

The vegetable garden that has been so generous this fall and winter to us and all our friends will suffer losses. (Collards survive anything!) I will cover the lettuce beds and the mizuma patch. We have eaten or given away everything we could. The tomatoes, still green, but large, have been picked. The potatoes have an extra layer of mulch hay. Herbs will get a covering of all those old sheets I keep for the purpose.

Growing a vegetable garden is my meditation thing. It's a thing of wonder to me that the earth can provide if I help it along a bit. I love the sheer exuberance of the swirl of collard plants. I love the colors of the beets and onions growing side by side. I love the companionship of my grandson in the garden. He eats anything- lettuce leaves, snowpeas, cherry tomatoes. And so, every year about this time I am prepared to miss an old friend I counted on every evening for the dinner table.

Oh, no! I see another hound dog, lost from hunting, approaching our house. This is also a part of winter, and hunting season. We cut firewood today, and we'll all need it.

Off to rescue that dog.