Healing Earth

I am here!  I am happy and digging in the earth.  I am sorry I am being a terrible friend.  I know I am.  I do not answer the phone.  I do not answer emails and text messages.  I am healing in the dirt.  Mother nature is drawing out the sadness.  The sun beats down on me warming my arms and legs and back, coloring my face red and my exposed limbs deep brown.  I use sun screen, but I tan quickly  and darkly.  Always have.  I work hard digging, weeding, pulling and planting.  Bug bought me a Husqvarna tiller.  It is huge.  It is orange.  It is amazing!  I have never used a tiller, but it is the most wonderful garden invention ever.  It can till a garden or dig a hole for a plant.  It does the most back breaking work for me. 

I miss my Dad and did not anticipate it would take so much time to heal.  I knew I would miss him.  He has been a part of almost every of any day of my life.  That is not much of an exaggeration.  And now he is gone and I have to learn how to live completely different.  And for whatever reason, my brain does a lot of misfiring, so I am hesitant to be around people or to  even talk on the phone.  Plus every time the phone rings, every time I pick the phone up I miss my Dad and my Mother.  They are gone.  They are a part of me.  Yes, these are true, but I still miss them.  I am doing better.  The Gardening is giving me focus.  It is also forcing me to think and figure things out.  Especially with my last garden. 

When I first moved here it was all about the land and the gardening opportunities.  My first garden was on the east side of the trailer.  The next was the azaleas around the front yard.  Next came the hydrangea garden, then the vegetable garden, and the garden to the east of the back porch and the last big garden I tackled was the perennial bed.  I have since completed the garden on the west side of the trailer so that their are gardens all the way around the house.  The last garden never completed was the secret garden.  It was first dug as a summer veggie garden, but then I got sick and only did one season in the garden and it was taken over by weeds.  An eye soar just hidden behind my beds.  Always just within vision reminding me of unfinished business.  I have gotten the summer garden finally planted.  There is more to go in.  There is always more to do.  But it is tilled, and filled with strawberries, sweet potatoes, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, asparagus, horse radish and Johnny Jump Ups.  I am working on a cuke trellis made out of the black bamboo in the yard.  I have the flower beds pretty much caught up and I have most of the green house emptied.  There are pots of annuals and perennials that came back up scattered around the yard.  I have pots of herbs clustered together waiting for a snip and a fresh addition to a recipe.  Bug has tilled half of the secret garden and we have dug up composted chicken manure and tilled it in.  I have placed the figs, pomegranates, papaya and citrus measuring out where they will be planted.  I have blackberry canes green and bristly that will anchor the west side of the secret garden.  I have drawn out a rough sketch of the secret garden with an area for the three sisters.  It is a little late to start planting it now, but what do I have to loose?  The corn will go in first then the beans will be planted and finally the squash and pumpkins.  In between the fruit trees will be small beds of cut flowers, an herb garden will go in next to the three sisters. 

You will enter the secret garden through the gate behind the back door of the house.  As you enter the roughly 100 foot by 13 foot garden there will be a brick path drawing you straight in with a trellis covered in hummingbird vine and a water feature bubbling and burbling in the cool shade beneath the trellis.  To the right will be the fruit, vegetables and herbs.  To the left will be a sitting area with our black iron table and four chairs. A heavy simple design that is very comfortable.  The umbrella a brick color matching the background of the cushions for the chairs.  Along the edge of this area will be hydrangea and roses, mandevillas and a small chicken coop for a couple of silkie chickens.  Edibles like beans and nasturtiums will grow around the coop giving the petite ones lots to nibble.  The next room will be more enclosed and will hold an outdoor shower and a hot tub.  A sitting area filled with tropicals like bananas, ginger, brugmansia and frangi pani.  Bug is so supportive.  You want to garden, go, enjoy.  He checks in on me to make sure that I am still alive.  He even "oohs and ahs" over what I have done now. 

I have gotten a late start, but I am catching up.  And within the next couple of weeks I will have all my gardens in.  Of course they will be a work in pleasure, but a dream I had given up on seems like within my reach again.  My secret garden, done.  Complete.  The vision of my yard will have all the hard scape finally in place.  The joy replaces the sadness I have with the loss of my parents.  I was so lucky to have such a loving and supportive relationship with them.  To have so much of them in me.  And to now celebrate them and let them go, and to move on with my life.  First with my garden, and then travelling again with my wonderful husband. 

I am needing a lot of alone time
I am needing to be quiet
I think of my beloved precious friends and know that they will understand
they will give me the time to come back
I have comeback before.  I will do it again
but for now I am finding peace, health, love, joy and happiness in my quiet world
in my garden