A garden story.

The sky is blue, I think ultramarine with a bit of white mixed in. Clouds are moving slowly, their edges fraying and changing, turning into threads pulled. Their shapes as varied as the landscape below them: my yard and garden. 

When we bought this property 30 years ago, there were few trees on the two acres. The previous owners didn't want the fuss of mowing around anything. There were 100 year old spruces not far from the northeast corner of the house, but they would be struck by lightning ten years into our ownership of them.

It feels rich to say I own trees. Since the yard was mostly void of tree-life, we planted. Some fell to disease and had to be cut, but now we have a varied yard full of upper and lower-story trees that are full of bird song.

Our yard is private, hidden by leaves.

My two flower beds and a 50'x20' mixed flower and vegetable garden have been work, but the work has been helpful. I can still express a creative urge if I'm frustrated by artists' block. I can dig and pull and plant and perhaps bury some of my fears along with roots. I have watered seedlings and witnessed my hopes grow fruit.

My father's father was a dairy farmer. I have wondered where his thoughts took him those hours he sat on a tractor seat. He grew old farming-it was his whole life. Awake before the sun, a radio alarm clock urged him to leave his dreams and nights of rest. So many hours working, changing the land to grow food for cow's milk. 

My grandfather worked out his joys and his grief of my dad's death while he looked at his fields, while he harvested crops and called cows to come to the barn. His quiet purpose was his farm and those fields. He had tamed some land. Dirt had given his family money. Sweat and muscle. Sky-watching. Seasons changing until it was time to stop planting and harvesting.

And now I am putting my garden to rest for antoher year. There are chores to be done for my simple farming. Cut the peony stalks, cut the ornamental grasses.. One last hoeing between the raised beds.

My little square of trees and garden is another state away from my grandfather's farm. Miles away. Years away.

The story doesn't end. Someone will take over someday and it will be their trees and dirt and yard and sky above it all.

I started writing, thinking I would write about how my garden has helped me and I've traveled down a road I didn't see at first.

All photos are from my grandfather's farm, which my brother and his wife own now. The barn is not used now. The land is leased to another farmer.
The views are the same...