The Health of Gardens

The week-end weather, inclement as it was, didn't exactly see us idling. Although we did plenty of that too, just hanging out, doing things that pleased us, more than things that we felt required to do. Like delving into the week-end newspapers, diving into magazines, and books we're currently reading. Relaxing, talking endlessly between ourselves, dipping out for a quick errand. And luxuriating in lethargy.

But although Saturday had kept us entirely hermetically sealed in the house throughout a day of incessant rain, Sunday far less so. We did venture out for a ravine walk, and managed to keep reasonably dry, despite some desultory showers. And my husband made use of the afternoon to ream out the garage, which was badly in need of attention.

There was sawdust and wood cuttings galore cluttering up the garage. One half of it, in any event. All of it now nicely swept up, and the rest of the materials required to complete the shed taking up infinitely less room, enabling me now to actually reach over and unroll the garden hose, should I have a wish to do so, without resorting to painful physical contortions. Now this is progress.

And it’s very nice to have more room in the garage to move about without knocking into the building supplies. And then today began the process of actually getting the roof onto the top of the garden shed, over the previously-installed rafters. It’s slow going, because of the requirement to painfully measure and cut everything to perfection, but our builder is nonetheless very pleased with his slow-but-steady progress.

As for me, it was house-cleaning day. Despite which activity I lingered at the glassed doors and windows of this house to look out at the perkiness of the gardens, whenever I passed them. It's always rewarding. Surprise; a furiously wing-beating hummingbird busy sipping nectar from, of all things, the flower-vases of the purple-pink 'wave' petunias outgrowing themselves in the garden pots on the porch.

Which is also where I saw, time and again this day, fabulous iridescent-red dragonflies resting on floral displays in the garden, and butterflies and moths fluttering about the flowers. And bees as well, and hover flies, all of them decorating the gardens as living ornaments. Despite the lateness of the summer season, descending into fall, everything is luminescently beautiful, the garden flourishing.

Therefore, so too do we. We are ravished by the beauty that surrounds us.