A Saturday Afternoon in September

Here I am, decrepit (electronic) notebook in my lap, sitting on my back deck, with the low-dipping sun stinging my eyes through the bamboo blind that is supposed to block it. The slight breeze is just a bit chilly, so I bade my husband go upstairs and retrieve my down throw. Between that small blanket, my too-big, bulky blue sweater (a holdover from my pre-diet days, but I had grown so attached to it I couldn’t send it off to Goodwill with the rest of my "fat" clothes), and a glass of "Three-buck Chuck" Cabernet, I am warm and cozy. Husband is twenty feet to my left, beyond the (closed) patio door, reclining on the family room sofa, watching Oregon Duck football. You could eat the contentment in the atmosphere surrounding our home with a spoon.

I love to sit outside this time of year. All the plants that I toiled over in the spring, and fretted over as they suffered through the hot, arid months of the summer, are at their peak now. Through the marvels of modern technology—drip irrigation on timers—they have not only survived the brutal sun, but flourished; in spite of the fact that, for the most part, I have been an "absentee gardener" for most of the last six weeks. My hanging fuchsias spread three feet wide, and nearly as long. My dahlias have triumphed over the slug infestation and are sending forth dozens of bright firecracker blossoms. The bright burgundy and green coleus tower over their planter-mates. My "chocolate mint" scented geranium, tenderly wintered over from last year, is threatening once again to completely dominate its corner of the deck. And my current favorite plant—purple fountain grass, which I planted in boxes in both the front and back gardens—is sending up spike after spike of soft, nodding seed-heads.

For anyone who read my private journal last year, wherein I lamented the demise of the beautiful screen of poplar trees murdered by my new neighbor, here is a funny little tidbit. (I suppose it wouldn’t be too funny, if I hadn’t loved those trees so much, and mourned so at their passing.) Poplar trees have widespread and very shallow roots. And, apparently, one of the ways they reproduce is by throwing off "suckers." Baby trees that come up from the roots of the parent. When my lovely neighbor axed that beautiful row of trees, the instinct of the plant was to rise again. Deprived of those dozen or so twenty-foot-tall trees, all the energy of the roots was poured into producing suckers. And they are everyhwere. All over Mr. Neighbor’s back yard…he mows them like grass. And also in MY yard, as far as 25 to 30 feet from the original trees. (They are even coming up between the boards of my deck L .) I pull most of them like weeds. But I have chosen to nurture a half-dozen of them in strategic places. They are already as tall as I am. God willing, in four or five years, I will have my own poplar screen, teeming with goldfinches and other birds in the summer, and politely dropping their leaves to allow the south-anchored sun to pass through in the winter. For free! Doesn’t nature give us the most unexpected and generous gifts?

There are times when life is just so good, it almost brings tears to my eyes.