Milkweed Seeds

Milkweed seeds were blowing today, drifting across the lawn like soft feathery snowflakes. Just yesterday, Julie said she received a bushel of milkweed pods from her husband for their 40th wedding anniversary--the best present she's ever received. They want to re-establish a milkweed patch at the edge of their lawn in order to support monarch butterflies which have been decimated by genetically modified crops. Monarch larvae feed on milkweed.

The highest form of generosity, called kingly generosity or monarch generosity, is the type of generosity that gives anonymously, without ever telling anyone. A sort of Secret Santa gift-giving, except that you never find out who your secret Santa is.

Putting money in someone else's parking meter, paying someone else's bill--some random act of kindness.

Julie's act of kindness is to establish a habitat for monarch butterflies.

The Return of Ginseng

Andrew, an enterprising young man, is planting ginseng in my woods. Most of my 10 acres is a dry pine and beech woods, but as it slopes downhill toward a tiny, seasonal stream, there are more wildflowers. Blue cohosh and trout lilies indicate what is called a "rich" soil--a soil with natural calcium.

Several years ago, a hemlock blew down in a storm, taking its entire root ball with it. When i looked, i saw exposed rock that had not seen daylight since the glacial age, 10,000 years ago. That exposed rock is called brownstone around here. It's a punky, porous rock that will grow moss if exposed. This brown, porous rock is an impure limestone, and there's a band of it running the length of Vermont. The Connecticut River, which divides Vermont and New Hampshire, was once-upon-a-time the proto-Atlantic Ocean, called the Iapetus Ocean. This band of impure limestone--shells plus mud--was the beach of that ancient ocean.

I own beachfront property! Even though i'm 3 hours from the ocean.

Talk about impermanence. An ocean that used to be right here disappeared when New Hampshire (originally from Patagonia) collided with the proto-North American continent.

Ginseng probably grew wild in these woods before it was cleared for farming in the 1700s. Here, then gone. Impermanence. And now here again.

Ginseng, and many other wildflowers, grow in this rich soil. I love the idea of planting wildflowers and am happy to support Andrew in his statewide venture.

Aging Mums

The Old and the Young

I bought mums in September from the garden club mum fundraiser. For 3 weeks, they were camouflaged by the beautiful flowerpots on the front step. They had about a week of lovely solitude on the front step before the first hard frost came, and now they look pathetic. Off to the compost pile with them.

I stopped at our local farm stand and bought 2 more pots of spectacular mums. I know from previous experience, that these late-in-the-season mums will have a short lifespan.

How much am i willing to pay to resist the frosty season of old age?

We too resist aging in various ways. Anti-aging creams (as if such a thing exists), exercise, weight loss, dying our hair, and, perhaps our favorite, new clothes to cloak the aging body and distract attention from the wrinkled body.

I have "clothed" my front step in new young mums.

Somebody's Been Eating My Gourds

My neighbor gave me half a dozen gourds, which i put on the front step as seasonal decorations. Somebody's been eating my gourds--all of them. And they've taken a few bites out of my lone pumpkin too.

 Sometimes, we are making offerings that we didn't expect to be making. Notice how the sense of  "my" creeps in here. "My" gourds! Gone!

Who's to say they weren't the squirrel's gourds?

Star at Dawn

A hard frost came last Sunday and killed all the annuals. Sudden death. Suddenly the slow drift of seasons has become dramatic. Leaves falling, falling. Bare trees all around. A different season is definitely here, yet i am not resisting--at least, not yet.

I take joy in the yellow leaves still clinging to trees, the copper beach leaves. I delight in the blue of the sky, gaze at the last two stars twinkling brightly in the dawn.

Take 30 seconds and drink in some beauty right around you. Been there. Done that kills our joy. Let your joy shine like a star at dawn.

Vole-Hunter in Disguise

A couple of weeks ago, i complained about a great blue heron fishing in my little fishpond. Bill often saw the heron farther down the lawn, near the stone wall. In reading about blue herons, i discovered they mostly eat fish and frogs, but they also eat voles! My vole-hunter has arrived! And i didn't recognize her.

You may recall that voles decimated my vegetable garden, eating almost all my broccoli, cabbage, and bean plants. All gone. Gone. I haven't figured out what to do about the voles. Should i give up vegetable gardening? That sounds blasphemous.

Sometimes we get what we ask for. A vole-hunter. But it looks different than we expected. A great blue heron.

The herons have flown south for the winter, so the voles are safe. For now.

Yellow Leaves

Yellow leaves are falling like rain now that we've had our first frost. Or maybe i should say "falling like snow" since it also snowed immediately after the killing frost.

Old age dallied a long time, fooling us with a too-warm and lovely September. The killing frost came late--October 18--but it did come. Suddenly the gardens look dead, but they are quickly covered with a quilt of leaves--yellow, red, and brown.

Leaves falling. In our lives as well.