Oct 2, 2015 Daily Life, Ramblings and Musings

So, after a long, long spell of dryness and crackling heat and dust, we’ve had a spell of three rainy days.

And it’s darker and darker earlier and earlier outside.

Usually, I have ambivalent feelings about autumn because of that, but I love that frisson in the air when it’s colder, and the leaves get golden and red (as they’re starting to do, finally).

This fall, I’m thinking of planting ginger and curry leaves indoors, in our downstairs bathtub-converted-into-a-grow-space-with-grow-lights-and-planting-containers.  I hasten to assure you that I didn’t convert the bathtub into a grow-space, lest you gasp at my imagined multitude of skills — it was my husband, the amazing handyman at home, who did that.  And outside, in our various beds in the front yard, I plan to plant the following fall crops:

• Beets
• Garlic
• Turnips
• Radishes
• Carrots
• Spinach
• Lettuce
• Kale
• Mustard greens
• Swiss chard
• Cabbage

We’ve grown so much this summer already — heaps and heaps of tomatoes (which are still growing, but not as lushly as half a month ago), heaps and heaps of green beans (and those are still growing), broccoli, cabbage, some not-as-prolific green peppers and eggplants, and lots of green and chillies!  We do not really want to spend grocery money on store-bought veggies, which cost more for less.  We like our food fresh from the vine or bush or plant.  It tastes like one’s own heaven on earth.  Our front yard, and garage-top container vegetable garden (also created by my beloved) is tight in terms of space, and our home is on a small, small plot of land in an semi-urban setting, but this garden does its job with pride and purpose.

I also want to plant bulbs before October goes — daffodil and tulip, crocuses, iris, narcissus.  This weather is helpful.  I neglected the fall flower-planting aspect of the garden for the past few years, and when spring came, our garden looked sad, with a few straggly tulips and daffodils here and there.  The summer was much better, and things looked prettier.  Vegetables always do well, but flowers?  They require a lot of care and thought, and I hadn’t had the time for that.  Now, I shall.

Fall is here, and it’s filled with hope: I shall plant, and I shall sing, I shall write, play music, and cook delicious food, and I shall learn to bake nice things for my family.

I thank the forces in this universe that aligned just right to make this time of freedom open its doors for me.  From having lived long enough and seen some poverty and sadness, I know that things can change rapidly, that times can be replaced with bad in the blink of an eye, and one cannot rest too easy on one’s happiness, and yet … I am happy.  If things go bad, I will remember the good times, and when things are good, I’ll focus on keeping them so, and sharing them.

Thanks for reading!
~Dreamer of Dreams

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One of my favorite poems of all time by John Keats:

Francis T. Palgrave, ed. (1824–1897). The Golden Treasury.  1875.

J. Keats

CCLV. Ode to Autumn

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,	5
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease;	10
For Summer has o’erbrimm’d their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;	15
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;	20
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day	25
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river-sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;	30
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Tags: #Autumn, #Contentment, Beauty, fall, Family time, flower and vegetable garden, memories to store, season of mists, time of happiness, time of plenty