See Ya Later Summer
Gosh what the heck happened to February? It’s bad enough that it’s the shortest month, but the speed with which it whizzed by has left me sitting here in March in a bit of a dazed shock. I had started January with such great intentions and had put some pretty great systems in place and was feeling optimistic for the year ahead. And then February happened.
The main event for February was a couple of garden visits from the loveliest garden club visitors and we couldn’t have asked for nicer weather. It was so wonderful. But behind the scenes there was a lot of hard work. Getting the garden ready for public scrutiny was the sole focus of the gardening activities in the first half of the month. In spite of a few moments of ‘It’ll never be ready in time’, I managed to pull it off and the garden looked amazing with barely a weed to be seen and all of the crops looking their best. For the following days, it was so nice to just enjoy the garden in its pristine state without any pressure surrounding it. And the family could finally enjoy the fruits of my labour and finally eat things that I’d been telling them not to because they were ‘for show.’
But as gardens are in a constant state of flux, this tranquil state didn’t last long and once again the garden was thrust into upheaval. The biggest disruption came from the need to do maintenance repairs to the tool shed, which has been on the list for months as an innocuous ‘Tidy shed.’ Not only did it need a few repairs, it had become a bit of a chaotic dumping ground where power tools, the lawnmower, paint cans, spare irrigation hoses and shade cloth jostled for space making access to screw drivers and secateurs difficult to access. To be fair – this isn’t the garden shed, it is the family shed with all the tools and ‘things’ needed for building, repairing, and maintaining life on the coast.
The first step was to pull everything out. Everything! It was like unpacking pandora’s box. We became reacquainted with long lost items we’d spent far too long looking for and were able to pair them up with their now unneeded replacements. There were things we had forgotten that we even had. There were even some items we thought were in there, but we didn’t find, which meant they must be lost somewhere in the house. It was just a general feeling of overwhelming chaos. While a handy friend made the much-needed repairs for us, Hubby the Un-Gardener and I sorted through everything into some kind of logical order. We had to work quickly to get it done in one day. While the weather had been consistently nice, there was no guarantee that it would stay that way. The weather forecast is often unreliable enough not to trust implicitly and we didn’t want it raining on our stuff if we left it out overnight.
Once the repairs were made and the stuff was sorted, we returned it to the shed into a vague sense of order in ‘His and Hers’ piles with the building type stuff on one side of the shed and the garden stuff on the other. It could have easily stayed this way for ages if I didn’t need to access my garden stuff. So, I hauled all of the stuff on my side out, assembled some new shelves we brought and organised my stuff and put it back. There is nothing like a pressing need to get things done. Unfortunately, there isn’t a pressing need at this stage to get the other side done, and so it is as it was, along with a few weatherproof items lingering on the deck and spilling over onto the garden paths awaiting their turn to be organised back into the shed. We’ll get there eventually.
21st birthday celebrations for one of the ‘Teen Lads’ took up a large chunk of time and rightly so. Growing good kids is a labour of love and there comes a time when the fruit of your labour harvests itself and sets off out into the world. If I thought February has gone by fast – this life’s journey seems to have gone by in the blink of an eye.
The rest of the month was taken up in a blur of harvesting and processing as the exhausted crops limp their way to end of the season. As the larder and freezer fill with the promise of a delicious and nutritious winter ahead, the ravages of late summer leave the garden parched and invite late summer pests and diseases to take advantage of weary and vulnerable plants. At this point the best I can do it keep everyone comfortable with what feels like a constant supply of water and regular liquid feeds laced with seaweed tonic to help ease their suffering. The time to cut my losses and pull everything out isn’t that far away.
So, with a slight deviation from my organised and efficient start to the year, I’m taking the new month, and indeed the new season as an opportunity for a reset. It is never too late for a fresh start and I’m looking forward to a less chaotic month ahead.
Come again soon – autumn is upon us.
Sarah the Gardener : o)