As often as I see this happen…it’s still thrilling. Hah.
Here’s to the miracle of life on planet Earth.
Category Archives: The Eternal Round
Winter Storm
Ripening in November
summer’s end…samhain…halloween
It is another cross quarter day…and a fine one here in my small Georgia garden.
We are halfway between the fall equinox when day and night were the same length…and the dark time of the winter solstice.
I have been blessed to have a migrating Monarch linger here for several days, enjoying the salvias & camellias particularly.
My mind is on the election…& being the natural science nerd I am, I have listened for what is said…or more to the point, not said…about our way forward regarding the environment…and while I have never, ever before endorsed a candidate, this is an election & a time like no other in my brief 62 years on this earth.
While we humans obsess about Hillary’s emails and Donald’s antics, the other species we share this planet with are becoming extinct at an unprecedented rate. Scientists are referring to this as the sixth extinction….the fifth took out the dinosaurs. This era in geological time has been dubbed the Anthropocene…meaning “the human age”…because for the first time, it is human activity that is driving changes in geology and ecosystems.
In this election cycle…if we are to move forward in the ways we must, to ensure our children’s futures if not our own…I have to believe our best hope lies with Democrats.
The Democratic radar is tuned into things like…
…job creation in renewable energy
…the regulation of toxic chemicals & land use that we need to stem such things as…
…the extinction of bees and monarchs…
…and the spoiling of lakes…from those of my family’s beloved Minnesota which were clogged with lurid green algae when I flew over them last summer…to the slimy disaster that was Lake Okeechobee in Florida this summer.
With a few rare exceptions, the environment is not on the Republican radar. In that world, at this point in time, science is viewed with suspicion, regulation is demonized until something like lead in Flint water happens & fingers wag, climate change is a hoax, and the endangered species act is under attack.
I will climb down from my soap box now. But for anyone still undecided…do consider Mother Nature when you venture into that voting booth.
Sumac
Happy Plow Monday
Plow Monday…the first Monday after Epiphany, January 6…is the traditional beginning of the English agricultural year.
When we lived in Columbus, OH…we were blessed to be invited next door for Plow Monday pot roast with root vegetables…after which we said a blessing for the assembled gardeners & their tools.
And then…there would be pie.
Thank you Glenn & Janet Esh…for memories of warm times we will always cherish.
Red Velvet Elvis
Being here today & gone tomorrow…
Carpe diem & all that jazz.
Curtain of Green
May 5th brings another cross quarter Day…the midpoint between the spring Equinox when night equals day….and the summer solstice when day is its longest.
In my Georgia garden…May descends with a “curtain of green”….in the words of Eudora Welty.
Another southern writer…whose name I wish I could recall…wrote of verdant Mays in Georgia by saying…the world seems so full it can’t possibly contain it all.
I think of that every year….when the young trees we have planted put out their new year’s growth…and jostle each other for position.
Time to do a little judicious pruning to accommodate the future…a little refereeing.
But carefully…this is the National Wildlife Federation‘s “Garden for Wildlife” month. There are a myriad of unseen small homes in this picture.
New Again
For Ash Wednesday
