Slowly, steadily, the new secret garden is taking shape. I regularly despair that I’ll ever get done. My complaints about pace happen mostly in the evening, when I’m too tired to think straight. But, if I stand in the kitchen and look outside, the bigger picture does look promising. The grass seed has mostly sprouted, baby blades giving the emerging lawn a fuzzy emerald shine when sun hits the tiny new growth just so. I’ve scattered straw over the places we workers must walk, to try to protect the seedlings, and I water regularly. Moistness is key. But it’s not fun to work around cold spray on a cold day. So, when we stop tramping around the landscape at lunchtime, on goes the newly installed irrigation.
The big problem is the unpredictably cold nighttime weather. The garage is crammed to overflowing with potted annual and tropical plants, the latter having lived inside throughout the winter. They can’t be planted yet, and so must share garage space with mountains of stacked bricks, tools, bags of earth, timber, paint, bikes- and yes, even one motorcycle and a car. We must hop over things- literally- to navigate inside the jammed interior. Furthermore, every plant inside must be brought outside daily to savor the sunlight. Big pots and trays line the sidewalk, leaving mere inches for workers to move from A to B. Manipulating wheelbarrows around them is nerve-racking.
Arghhh!
Oh- have I mentioned the huge piles of stacked fieldstone lifted from the old garden design? They’ll be reset elsewhere, but not yet.
Waah! Everything is ‘NOT YET.’
I forgot to mention another thing: the piles of lumber that are slowly morphing into a gazebo of our design.
Why?
-I can’t be in sun without my veiled big-brim hat.
-Insect bites are a constant threat, as I react with massive swelling.
I’ve never been able to enjoy the garden in the morning or evening without donning my mosquito-net suit, which means this garbed pseudo-Martian can’t eat or drink, or feel normal around others. The new, screened area will help.
Meanwhile, construction clutter adds to the confusion.
Two baffled mice sit on their haunches next to their garage escape hole to gawk.
Long rows of birds perch on power lines just outside in the alley, to offer opinionated squawks.
Rabbits venture out onto the straw-strewn almost-lawn to stare, causing Bryn-dog to stand at the kitchen window, frozen into a frustrated, perpetual point.
Alley passersby peek in to cheer us on.
Renovations are always- interesting.
I crept outside very early Friday morning, put a bag in the alley trashcan, and then sat quietly inside my half-finished, roofless gazebo. The garden smelled of wet straw, sawdust and freshly turned earth. I love this time of every new day, for its stillness- for the sense that time has paused.
My hair rose. I felt- watched. I have well-developed antenna, acquired when I spent a year in the flooded out ruin of my rural cottage in England, doing restorations. In the wee hours I’d often sit in the forest behind it to enjoy its wildlife. (Helen’s Wood, by ancient decree, will always remain pristine- i.e.- untouched by humans.)
My patient stillness would usually be rewarded. Furtive mice, owls, hedgehogs, badgers and foxes would flit by in search of food, knowing, somehow, that I posed no threat.
Now I looked up. A curious fox, copper coat shining from alley pole light, had sauntered into the garden via the alley door, which I’d forgotten to shut. His expressionless eyes locked onto mine. We studied each other for a long time. He’d probably been dustbin-foraging, or mouse-hunting out there…
He felt comfortable enough to sit for a bit, bushy tail curled around his hindquarters. I didn’t move a muscle, except to smile. Interestingly, Sir Fox had no scent.
I was reminded of the time during the awful British winter of 2009, when the Queen and a fox happened to meet right at Westminster Cathedral’s main door. The animal looked up at her expectantly. Unruffled, she let him in, and he went straight to a big heater to warm himself. Then, a few minutes later, he trotted out again. Her Majesty’s only reaction as she held the door open was to shrug and smile.
An estimated ten thousand foxes live inside the city of London.
My visitor broke off his survey of the disheveled garden to lick his lips. Then, without a sound, he vanished into the alley.
At 4 a.m. there are no cars. No planes. No people.
Not yet.
But sometimes, in here, there is enchantment.
The big problem is the unpredictably cold nighttime weather. The garage is crammed to overflowing with potted annual and tropical plants, the latter having lived inside throughout the winter. They can’t be planted yet, and so must share garage space with mountains of stacked bricks, tools, bags of earth, timber, paint, bikes- and yes, even one motorcycle and a car. We must hop over things- literally- to navigate inside the jammed interior. Furthermore, every plant inside must be brought outside daily to savor the sunlight. Big pots and trays line the sidewalk, leaving mere inches for workers to move from A to B. Manipulating wheelbarrows around them is nerve-racking.
Arghhh!
Oh- have I mentioned the huge piles of stacked fieldstone lifted from the old garden design? They’ll be reset elsewhere, but not yet.
Waah! Everything is ‘NOT YET.’
I forgot to mention another thing: the piles of lumber that are slowly morphing into a gazebo of our design.
Why?
-I can’t be in sun without my veiled big-brim hat.
-Insect bites are a constant threat, as I react with massive swelling.
I’ve never been able to enjoy the garden in the morning or evening without donning my mosquito-net suit, which means this garbed pseudo-Martian can’t eat or drink, or feel normal around others. The new, screened area will help.
Meanwhile, construction clutter adds to the confusion.
Two baffled mice sit on their haunches next to their garage escape hole to gawk.
Long rows of birds perch on power lines just outside in the alley, to offer opinionated squawks.
Rabbits venture out onto the straw-strewn almost-lawn to stare, causing Bryn-dog to stand at the kitchen window, frozen into a frustrated, perpetual point.
Alley passersby peek in to cheer us on.
Renovations are always- interesting.
I crept outside very early Friday morning, put a bag in the alley trashcan, and then sat quietly inside my half-finished, roofless gazebo. The garden smelled of wet straw, sawdust and freshly turned earth. I love this time of every new day, for its stillness- for the sense that time has paused.
My hair rose. I felt- watched. I have well-developed antenna, acquired when I spent a year in the flooded out ruin of my rural cottage in England, doing restorations. In the wee hours I’d often sit in the forest behind it to enjoy its wildlife. (Helen’s Wood, by ancient decree, will always remain pristine- i.e.- untouched by humans.)
My patient stillness would usually be rewarded. Furtive mice, owls, hedgehogs, badgers and foxes would flit by in search of food, knowing, somehow, that I posed no threat.
Now I looked up. A curious fox, copper coat shining from alley pole light, had sauntered into the garden via the alley door, which I’d forgotten to shut. His expressionless eyes locked onto mine. We studied each other for a long time. He’d probably been dustbin-foraging, or mouse-hunting out there…
He felt comfortable enough to sit for a bit, bushy tail curled around his hindquarters. I didn’t move a muscle, except to smile. Interestingly, Sir Fox had no scent.
I was reminded of the time during the awful British winter of 2009, when the Queen and a fox happened to meet right at Westminster Cathedral’s main door. The animal looked up at her expectantly. Unruffled, she let him in, and he went straight to a big heater to warm himself. Then, a few minutes later, he trotted out again. Her Majesty’s only reaction as she held the door open was to shrug and smile.
An estimated ten thousand foxes live inside the city of London.
My visitor broke off his survey of the disheveled garden to lick his lips. Then, without a sound, he vanished into the alley.
At 4 a.m. there are no cars. No planes. No people.
Not yet.
But sometimes, in here, there is enchantment.