There is a 23 year old woman. A trail blazer. Educated. Independent.
She leaves her family, her world, to take a job in Cooperstown, NY.
The planting of a seed that built decades, and decades of love.
It’s impossible to pretend like the world hasn’t shifted between this blog post and my last. My intelligent, creative, independant Nain passed away, leaving my family broken hearted, but bringing us together after months of seperation. I can’t begin to tell the story of our garden, and pretend that this hasn’t happened. Family is everything.
Family has built all I know.
It’s been hard to write in this blog with all the new challenges that life has presented. Much of our garden, both flowers and vegetable plants alike, have been eaten or dug up by the local wildlife. In one night, we lost all of our tomatoes plants, but one. Every day we go outside, and there is another plant gone that cost us blood (I’m clumsy), sweat and tears (not to mention finances) to nurture. With how low I’ve been feeling, I didn’t want to take the time to address that frustration in a blog post.
I wanted to be positive.
I wanted to say that it is all for learning.
I wanted to walk outside and not throw a tomato cage and fencing to the ground in anger (no kidding on this one).
But, I haven’t been able to, which is why I have let this blog sit in silence for weeks. I’m still frustrated, and today every marigold that we planted in desperation has been eaten but the one hiding in the cage of the last remaining tomato plant.
So, why can I write today?
Because, I need too.
Because, there is a lot of beauty in what we created, and what I am learning, in a very full on and challenging way, is that beauty doesn’t last forever. Nothing lasts forever. But, if it’s the journey that counts, than the blood, sweat and tears are as valuable as the realization that my yellow flower I thought was eaten beyond the point of return, has given me a beautiful little bulb. Promising regrowth against something I cannot fix.
And, the reality is, it might be eaten again.
But somewhere in there is something really, really important. And, I’m not sure that I have found it yet, and I’m not sure that I’m feeling optimistic yet, or that I believe my own bullshit, but I have to believe that nothing is for… nothing.
So, because everything is so fleeting, I wanted to share something I never got to share with my Nain. Something, I haven’t yet been able to share with anyone because of covid and my exhausted frustration. The current result of all our hard work, from the ‘before’ to the ‘after.’
The grass, er- flower bed
The flower bed, a bit weeded with fabric laid down
The raised bed
When we planted the seedlings
Peppers, green bean bushes, and broccoli
Pepper plant
Green beans
An outdoor step filled with rubbish
Our last remaining tomato plant
Once, this had a 3 foot tomato plant we raised from a seedling, now, it is a baby summer squash
Summer squash
Sugar snap peas are now five feet tall! How?!
A corner of the patio – filled with rubbish
Cleaned up, and made space for planters (only survivors from this picture in the blue pot)
A table that my Nain gave me earlier this summer
A view to the left…
Thank you art degree!
Put plants on this shelf to try and protect them – almost works…
From top left to right: Nain’s plant, a dill (that’s now double the size), the yellow flowering plant that was eaten but recently gave me another bulb, marigolds and moonflower, catnip, an indoor plant that needed TLC, and some wildflower seedlings.
We were told no one would eat this…
A view to the right…
And, I finally have an outside reading corner!
Thank you.
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