Falling
I have fallen into a pattern of writing this newsletter that is navigated by time and light. Time and light, the parameters of the season that is winter are also the guides who direct what I can do with my days. My stories, these little snapshots or polaroids of my days are curved and shaped by how much time I have to be in the garden, while light influences what and who I can photograph. My garden and I are alike as we both needs light to grow. If I look back at the last months of post my stories have settled around the weekend space. The Saturday and the Sunday. Time to create has shrunk a little of late as I have taken extra hours at work. The window when I finish my day of dollar earning and night fall is small which means so is my time in the garden. I did manage to spend time in the garden during the week. It was a quick flit to start some seeds and upgrading the ranunculus and anemones that have sprouted into bigger pots. Big Dog was watching me and looked at me more than once to say hurry up I am cold and I wish you would go inside. I was wrapped up enough that I didn’t care and found some childlike joy in making a mess on the bench with soil. It was my little moment in the garden, a polaroid of dirty finer nails.
The light shifts and moves daily and influences my creativity. Some days the sun is winter sun weak but sharp. Other days it is almost non-existent and it is after 8am before a crumb of light can be seen. Today I can barely see across the valley the rainy mist which is forecasted for the day sits low and blankets, hiding us all from each other. It will be a day of inside chores, and maybe reading a word or two. The darkness of the days that are mid-winter finally feel like a place of comfort for me. It has taken many years to embrace this space as a time that I need, that the garden needs, to restore before the coming growing year. This time is now something that I treasure. The fact I have found this comfort does take some forgiving of self that I failed to see the merits of this time of year sooner. Sometimes it is good to be quiet.
This week will see the shortest day and that switch to the new gardening year. I can feel ideas starting to form and I know that my hand will be reaching for the pile of garden books that have been growing by my bedside as I search for inspiration. It will be also a week of change as we have a new member joining the family. A pup name Helios arrives Monday and by the time you read this we will have had a few days of figuring how this will work. I have moments when I am excited and then moments where I fear I will break something that works well. My wisdom tells me this is normal and that I should trust the good nature of my dogs. They are loving creatures who I am sure will embrace Helios into the family. I need to trust this. Photos will be shared on socials for those who delight in puppy legs and tails and the innate curiosity that comes with something that is seeing the world for the first time. I am looking forward to starting a new year with someone who it will all be so very new and I know I will learn from how he sees the world. My only concern his dog mama is called the secret gardener.
Sunday comes with a rainbow and a spare few minute in the garden. It is just enough time to see that the dahlias are truly gone. They were frosted a couple of nights ago and those that had remained are husks slowly collapsing to the ground. The vibrant green of their stalks replaced with soft muddy hues of brown. A few roses remain and the poppy that opened last weekend is now a ghost to itself. But just like the rainbow on a grey day that we saw earlier that morning there are things that are starting. The hellebore, a sneaky few are emerging, with white flower heads appearing often hidden under the leaves of foxgloves who until now I have not noticed. When I see the foxgloves I think oh so this is where you want to be this season and look forward to that moment in late spring when the garden has filled and they are spires of colour. By the rose that still flowers are a cluster of poppy seedlings, big enough to survive, I think. They have self-seeded in a corner of the garden which of course I didn’t expect, and I now wonder who it is that will appear in the coming months. The red Anzac, the Shirley or something else from past season forgotten and now resurfacing to appear.
As it has been a busy week the photos shared are from a frosty morning in June last year.