I’ve had my eye on this young lady for a couple of weeks. She’s been hanging out by the steps off of the front terrace. Although I checked on her every day, her adolescence took forever.
But this morning, when I stepped out with a cup of hot tea, I discovered that she was blossoming! Poppies open quickly, particularly when the sunshine hits them, so I popped outside every few minutes to check on her. Twenty minutes later she was a full-blown floozy.
I love these little hairy caps. As the blossom inside expands, they rise up the petals until they finally fall off.
Look at the crinkly petals starting to appear! And there’s a white filament of some kind along the edge of the hairy pods. Maybe it protects the petals?
Isn’t this just beautiful? The texture of the petals looks like a ballgown.
In full sunshine, now that the rays are over the ridge at the top of the berm.
What a beauty!
And like the best women, she’s as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside!
The flying pig weathervane in the upper-left corner reminds me of the liklihood that I’d I’d ever lead the life I lead. I am thankful beyond belief.
While autumn thinks it’s sneaking up on me, I’m enjoying every day in my garden. After a cool night of steady drizzle, I rushed outside this morning to coat everything in Deer Off again. (I’m not anti-deer, but they have plenty to eat without feasting on the bounty of my hard work. And they are very unresponsive to shouted abuse, slamming windows and doors, and the powerful and well-aimed jet stream from my garden hoses. The bums.)
A mixture of yarrow and blanketflower at the end of the berm.
Things get a little wilder toward the end of the berm, where the yarrow grows. This area gets less water, and except for the berm and my pots, our entire property is xeriscape. In other words, it requires very little water. We’ve had so much rain that the irrigation system is off, aside from the occasional sessions on my garden, and I try to be a good steward of this most precious resource. (Pass the wild hickory nuts. And if you’re not old enough to remember Euell Gibbons, you probably shouldn’t be reading this blog.)
Foxglove, lavender, yellow yarrow, and a very healthy potentilla I cut back this year.
But toward the house, where three 12-foot floor-to-ceiling dining-room windows overlook the blossoms and mountain range to our south, things become a bit more cilvilized. A dozen foxglove popped up in July, having cowered in the earth during our drought, and the bees from the apiaries over the ridge behind me are gluttonous. Their buzzing song accompanies my gardening, and I try not to think about getting stung, reminding myself that they have other things—like collecting pollen—on their minds. Four hollyhocks pierce heavenward, and I’m eager to see how they look (probably like ineffective sentinels against the . . . deer) in the grand scheme of a garden that really has no grand scheme whatsoever, other than containing what I like.
And my delphinium! Aside from the unfortunate fact that they emit a siren song to . . . deer, these flowers enchant me. While bees don’t seem to care for the tall spires of blue, purple, and white, hummingbirds swarm around the blossoms every morning, dipping in and out as they look for nectar. Bears like the commercial sugar mix that people dangle in weird little hanging plastic decorative pot-like things, but we’re discouraged from using them. My more natural approach attracts plenty of the migrating birds.
Lambs Ear and non-invasive daisies; geum in orange, yellow, and red; some funky red plant (also a deer-magnet) that blooms tall and whose name I never remember; and yarrow in every color known to the gardening world blanket the berm. The foliage is getting so thick that I’m having trouble planting my feet without squashing something, but I tiptoe daintily through everything, arms waving when I lose my balance—a berm is sloped after all, thank you so much— with the agility of a rampaging elephant, leaving just a little death in my wake.
Some clocks tick. Others chime. This time of year, mine bleats.
Some of the sheep, which swirl and clump in irregular intervals.
One of the largest sheep ranches in the US is downvalley from me, and the owners import Peruvian gauchos every summer to herd flocks over vast swaths of BLM land that roll right up to the back of my property. The sheep eat noxious weeds and keep the grasses in check as we head more deeply into our dry wildfire season. (The light in these pictures depicts the passage of time. When I shot the photo of the dogs and scattered sheep, the sun hadn’t hit the mountainside yet. The photo above, and of the gaucho below, were taken two hours later.)
More of the animals, maybe half of what’s speckled out across the face of the mountain.
The Elusive Foxglove (and friends).
The sheep are a bit of a rude awakening when my garden is in full bloom, although August and September reveal their own unique beauty. The elusive foxglove (that pops up when it wants to) appeared this year. The Eidelweiss wave in the breeze, while the hollyhocks are so well-staked that they can’t move at all. Corsican violets compete with lavander as most-fragrant flower, and buzzing bees provide a peaceful soundtrack as I weed and prune. (I’m personally responsible for contributing to the apiaries on the hillside over the ridge, where someone is stockpiling wildflower honey.) Deer Off coats the delphimiums, which beats me sitting on the front terrace in a floppy hat, armed with the water hose on “Jet” to try (unsuccessfully) to repel the hungry beasts and alerting neighbors that the crazy woman is trying to drown the deer again. (Guilty.)
If I hand off my manuscript to the literary agent in May, I can spend my summer gardening, fly-fishing, playing golf, and mushrooming. Good to have a plan.
See the gaucho in the upper-right corner?
But back to the sheep, and the real truth behind their appearance: They telegraph that summer is turning toward autumn—not a welcome thought in a place where I had two inches of snow in late June. The animals always awaken us early one morning, bleating softly, or the muffled shout of shepherds or barking sheep dogs tease us out of sleep. It’s ridiculous how excited we get, flapping from thebed to open the blinds to try to spot the small creamy dots, or large swirling blob that looks like a living organism.
Two sheepdogs looking for escapees.
Given that I’m a city girl born and bred, the herd reminds me of how different life is in a small mountain community. I don’t mark seasons here by realizing that it’s time for the state fair, or that the streets are busier at 7:45 a.m. because of school runs and lumbering yellow buses being driven by harried-looking people.
Ignore the orangy-red tinged wild geranium leaves in the top right corner. I am.
Our seasons creep in more gradually and naturally at altitude, and I become aware of changing light and bleating sheep, the first red-tinged leaf on the wild geranium, or the sudden absence of robins. And weirdly enough I don’t completely dread the transformation, even though winter is always two months too long. Our summer is so vibrant, so powerful, that I respect that the earth needs to rest and gather the energy (and moisture) for another spectacular summer. Our seasons are a perfectly appropriate cycle, tying me to a bigger place, a greater purpose, a life beyond my own small world.
In just a few months I’ll be taking my cross-country skis in to be waxed. We’ll blow out the irrigation system so that pipes don’t crack beneath the deep snows. My husband will drag the winter tires out of The Dungeon (our storage), and we’ll take the vehicles in to switch out wheels.
