A bright, crisp blue autumn day today. I planted a shade garden which is most of my front yard. The goal is to never mow and have a beautiful, peaceful garden under four huge oaks . Sixteen hostas, four ferns, lots of English and Virginia bluebells, lilies of the valley, coral bells, foam flowers, creeping myrtle, and probably other things I'm blanking on now are now doing their autumn magic in the secrecy of the soil.
I outlined a winding path through the garden with bottles waiting on a trip to the recycling center. I wanted to make sure didn't plant in the path, which I heaped with extra mulch and walked back and forth on to compact. I was amused when a neighbor drove by and shot me the peace sign as I carried empty beer and wine bottles to my front yard. I was even more amused an hour or so later when I remembered that I was wearing a shirt with a big peace sign on it.
Planting a big garden requires a lot of bending, squatting, talking aloud to the Universe, and happiness. I gathered rocks as I dug and carried them to the back yard where a veggie garden to be is surrounded by a French drain to keep it from washing away on it's sloping location. On one trip to transport rocks and stretch my legs I found toadstools growing in a cluster the size of half a basketball. I took them to my compost bin.
The compost bin is an amazing thing. It makes me feel all green and wonderful until I realize that the Earth has been doing this without my help for its whole life. My little attempt must make the Earth smile if not laugh. Still it's a joy to watch it work. Put in chicken poo, vegetable scraps, weeds, leaves, the occassional toadstool. . . . and out comes stuff your garden loves.
I don't at all mind making the Earth laughing with me (as my siblings used to tell me, they weren't laughing AT me, they were laughing WITH me). My best hope is that I'll always laugh along.