It was great to get outside for a walk on this blustery day. Sometimes the sun was out and the wind settled and it felt almost balmy. At other times, the wind howled and the sun hid behind a dense cloud, and it felt like we were about to get a blizzard. In between, it was either cloudy and still or sunny and windy. What a refreshing way to get ready for the new year. Hot tea and soup were specially welcome when I returned home.
Night-time temperatures forecast for the low 30sF next week. I’ll be eating some big salads in the meantime.
To deny or ignore the future is not the same as living in the present. To live perfectly in the present as a responsible and engaged part of the collective being, one must still plan for the future that will become a present. It is the perilous attachment to a particular outcome that can make bitter the present, not the engaged expectation of the future that is an inevitable part of living in the present.
As I worked in the garden this morning, I thought how much presence I find in the enjoyable anticipation of what will ripen in the future. And while anticipating cucumbers and tomatoes (and taking note of the damage caused by the birds), I set myself to enjoying fully the greens and herbs–the current abundance.
Blueberries, purple Cherokee tomato, grape tomato, echinacea, burpless cucumber, Italian eggplant, red Concord grapes, snow pea, green bean (Kentucky wonder)–June 10
When I decided to make strawberry towers part of the new sleeping porch garden extension, Niraj Ray of Cultivate the City told me to remove all of the flowers until mid-May to allow the plants to develop leaves large enough to support sizable and sweet berries. He also suggested feeding them every time I water.
It has been a pleasure nurturing the plants and finally watching plump, juicy berries redden in the sun outside my study window.
Might this delicious lesson in the benefits of being patient be a lesson applicable to how and when and why to re-emerge post vaccination, but before the end of the pandemic?
The cherry tomatoes keep coming. After 32 summers gardening in the same spot, I have observed the shifting weather due to global climate change.
