A Time for All Things Under Heaven...

Fall has always been my favorite time of the year, I have
never thought of it as an ending but rather as a beginning.
When I was a young girl, it was the start of the new school
year; new school uniform, new shoes, new books, new
pencils, and a new 'school bag' to put them in (those of you
under fifty Google the term). I remember the smells, nothing
smells like new leather shoes, new books which have never
been opened by anyone but me, and newly sharpened pencils,
that still smell of the forest from whence they came.  And is
there anything more reminiscent of school than the smell of
library paste.

Fall is the beginning of the holiday season for me, the last
holiday, the Fourth of July, is long past.  Now corn stalks
and pumpkins foretell of Halloween and Thanksgiving.
The earthy smell of mums, mingles with the smell of wet
leaves and wood smoke.  The trees, which were dressed in
a thousand shades of green, now don robes of rust and red
and gold and garnet, muted or magnificent, they put on their
brief show and then fade away.

It is half past the middle of September, and warm still, the
usual chill that portends the first frost, has yet to arrive.
I have chosen today to put my garden patch to bed, the
weatherman says there is rain coming for the next three or
four days and I have only a small window of time available,
as I am going to the Middle-East in two weeks. I had pulled
out the summer squash last week and heaped them in a plie
to be dried and reduced to a more manageable size.

Setting about to pick my meager harvest, I collect the last
of the green peppers and the lonely eggplant clinging to the
bush.  My green beans have suffered the past weeks with bean
mosaic, and there isn't enough to bother with.  There are a
few ripe tomatoes that I place in my basket.  I'll leave two plants
to see if the remaining green tomatoes will ripen before I leave.
The swiss chard has done well away from the heat of summer,
I select only the larger leaves and leave the smaller ones for
the deer and rabbits, as they will be able to reach them when
I remove the fencing that kept them at bay since early spring.

Time to pull up the plants; pepper, eggplant, tomato, and beans
and put them on the pile of squash leaves that have shrunk
to less than half their size.  The pole bean fencing, that made
picking beans so easy all summer, now has become a chore
to clean, as the beans have wound the their way round and round
the 2x4 inch weld-wire openings in the fence.  If I don't remove
them now, while they are still green and pliable, I will have to
do in the spring when they have dried and have a stranglehold
on the wire.  Though not a strenuous job, it is boring and will
consume most of the time I will spend in the garden.  My mind
wanders to a dear friend who used to share this chore with me.
We gardened on this little plot, though it was bigger when we
worked it together, for several years.  She passed away; it will be
three years this November.  I have lost four other friends this
year, it doesn't seem possible.

The fencing, now clean, gets rolled up for storage, along with
the poultry fencing that covered the chard.  The fence posts are
pulled and stacked alongside.  Time to hoe and pull the weeds
that had sprung up amongst the veggies, and all goes on the heap
for composting, there are four wheel barrowsful.  Lastly, I cut
an armful of zinnias, I always plant flowers in my patch, they
are food for the soul, and their beauty sustains my spirit as well
as the vegetables sustain my body.  They are especially radiant
today, it is as if they know their time is short.  I leave the plants
for my fellow gardeners, they will produce blooms until frost,
and who knows, they may still be here when I come home.  I have
cut enough flowers to deck out every room in my house.

I take one last look at the garden, the tomato plants at the far end
and the zinnias at my end, stand like lone sentries guarding an empty
plot.  It was a good garden, they always are, and it will be here again
come spring, whether I am or not.  I always say I don't think
 I can do it for another year, my back is sore, I worked up two
blisters on hands that grew soft over the summer, my nail are ragged
and dirty.  But I know come February, when the seed companies
inundate my mailbox with their colorful catalogues, I will once again
long for the smell and feel of the earth.  Like childbirth, I will forget
the pain and only remember the joy of watching what I sowed grow
to fruition.  I will do it until I can no longer turn a spade or rake a
clod of soil.

As I stow my harvest in the trunk of the car, along with my garden gloves
and shoes, the wind begins to pick up, there are ominous clouds on the
western horizon, and the first drops of rain splatter on my windshield.
I will have the chard and tomatoes for dinner, they will taste especially
good, as good as the first ones of summer.  Next week I will have to
vacuum summer's soil out of the car.

I'm just sayin'.