The Elephant Ear Path

The new season it really is upon us now.  A rather enchanting breeze is shaking shaggy tired heads of maples and black oaks, and sassafras, willows and sugarberries are turning thin and sparse in leaves.  I love these feelings of wonder and joy, so proper of the pre-autumnal season when the land is turning in for its needed slumber, and the atmosphere conveys this delicious tinge of winter and there is this awareness of something inexplicable, and mysterious and extraordinarily magical overflowing your perceptions.  My heart doesn't love farewells, yet I still find a reflection of my soul in all which is dying.

We've been doing a great deal of traveling lately, and still will be pretty much engaged in doing so until the end of the year, hence the few days and hours spent in our little white cottage with its peaceful, rural atmosphere are deeply treasured, and enjoyed. I am thankful for all the wonderful opportunities and commodities life have gifted us with in this new stage of our lives, but I often find my heart silently yearning for the solitude that the absence of social responsibilities and the meeting of people allows.       

My heart embraces the hope that autumnal days bring.  I walk in the garden, and wait for the falling leaf.  October's enchantment swirls around me... like a grasshopper's song I hear it.  High in the maple trees its voice rings. I am a dancing autumn leaf, a locust slowly grinding the silence that October brings under a moon waning and broken, and tired with summer.  Over my soul October murmurs its benediction, while I gaze at a garden so ready to sleep.  I welcome you, autumn!

I can never seem to have enough time of my days to enjoy my little white cottage adequately.  I love it so much... and there's so much my senses want to drink-in, and feel, and hear and live!   Days are magical.  The heat has receded and cool breezes sway away the garden to a sweet sleep all day long. I hear the crows preparing their winter dwelling places somewhere deep in the woods and I want to follow them there... follow them into the woods, which these days are starting to thin out, letting extra sunshine soak its floors in light and magical goodness.  

The Queen grew a mint plant on her head this summer... 

...but then one day the mint was gone, and Nature decided she should wear a crown of wildflower greens instead, and placed one there...   

In the evening, the tiny yellow flowers close and go to sleep... then, the winds would drop their own jewels on the Queen's head for a pop of autumnal color... Nature does an amazing job in its capricious ways of embellishing our precious world, does she not!   

And then, it is not the moon, oh I tell you... it is the begonias enchanting the gardens all throughout the summer, and still doing so...

This is why I work so hard in the garden... 

Last fall I decided I should create a new flowerbed.  I made concrete stepping stones using the large elephant ear plants as mold, and removed all the sod by hand, all by myself.  

Then early this spring I filled the new flowerbed with begonias and later added dozens of blazing star bulbs.  I learned that begonias require time to get established and they should be planted when the spring sun is sufficiently strong and days of late winter are long gone.  Because it was my first time experimenting with these delicacies and planted them too early, I was only to be disappointed at how poorly they were performing.  Finally, I was forced to remove several plants, and swore never to plant begonias again. But then this summer I had to reconsider... The blazing stars filled up the spaces with purple glories that only added to the beauty of the lovely pinks... 

Now at the end of summer my begonias are huge, and keep adding beauty to the garden...

I am so happy...

Oh I am an October child for sure... by right of birth, and by right of the soul... 

I hope you are enjoying these lovely days of October, wherever you are!